By Levi Obijiofor
This past weekend
has been one of celebrations – celebrations of a government that promised so
much but found reasons to explain why it failed to provide for the basic needs
of citizens, celebrations of a government that promised to transform our
economy, to destroy corruption, to dismantle the Boko Haram insurgency in the
North, suppress other ethnic uprisings, create a stable society by enhancing
law and order across the country, and to tackle socioeconomic consequences of
rising youth unemployment. By the end of the celebrations, Nigerians remain
divided on whether the government of Muhammadu Buhari has significantly reduced
poverty in the country or whether it has heaped more pain on ordinary citizens.
 |
| President Buhari and Information Minister, Lai Mohammed |
This disagreement is not surprising. Before the politicians were elected into
office, there was so much hype and mystique built around Buhari, who was
presented as the man who would redeem the country and emancipate everyone from
16 years of hardship created by the endemic corruption that manifested in the
government of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Here is propaganda number
one.
At a book presentation in Abuja on
Thursday, 18 February, 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari claimed that Nigeria “has the fastest growing economy in Africa and one of the fastest in the world.” It is
intriguing to see that three months later, after Buhari’s statement was
publicised across the world, a senior minister in Buhari’s government admitted
publicly that the bad shape of the nation’s economy should not be used as
justifiable ground to explain the failure to provide for the needs of the
citizens. If that was the case, why did the president and his ministers and
special assistants spread the propaganda that Nigeria
had the fastest growing economy in Africa and
one of the most rapidly growing economies in the world. So far, it
seems some government officials and some leaders of the All Progressives
Congress (APC) have been feeding citizens with a diet of misinformation
concerning the state of the economy.
