By Ikechukwu Amaechi
***This article was first published in my
column, Candour's Niche, September last year, about the same time Nasir
el-Rufai, Governor of Kaduna
State
Is anybody still in doubt that General Muhammadu Buhari was
grossly overrated? Is anybody still in doubt that the man who was elected Nigeria
 |
| *Buhari |
I have two confessions to make from the outset.
I am an incurable optimist. I am a firm believer in the maxim that
no matter how dark a tunnel may appear to be, there will always be some ray of
light at the end.
Of course, this presupposes that for you to encounter this light,
you must not stand still at the darkest end of the tunnel. Therefore, the
philosophy underpinning this belief is that for you to get to the bright end,
you must keep moving away from the darkest end.
You must stay the course; perseverance is the watchword. Don’t
quit because quitters never win. Here, pragmatism is an inevitable companion.
This conviction also informed my reaction to the socio-political
and economic developments in our country in recent times.
I strongly believed that no matter how starkly the national augury may seem to tilt south, we shall overcome as long as we have a leadership that is prepared to put on its thinking cap, prepared to listen, be pragmatic and innovative in handling the myriad of problems confronting the nation.
The last thing we need right now is a leadership that is in
denial, a leadership that revels, like the ostrich, in burying its head in the
sand, thinking that nobody is seeing it. The last thing we need in this country
is a leadership whose only solution to the problems is to point fingers of
blame at others. Unfortunately, this is the leadership we have right now.
My second confession is that I am really afraid for this country’s
fate under President Muhammadu Buhari’s watch.
My worry was not informed by the frightening numbers released by
the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Wednesday, August 31, which finally
confirmed what many already knew – that the economy had slid into recession or
that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth at a woeful –2.06% performance did
worse than expected. It was –0.36% in the first quarter.
The fact that $1 exchanged for N425 last week with a potential of going beyond N500 before the end of the year, while inflation rose to 17.1 per cent in July from
Ditto the unemployment figure which increased to 13.3 per cent from 12.1 per cent and investment inflows which dropped to the lowest levels at $647.1 million from $710 million.
These figures are the natural consequences of the otiose and
impractical monetary and fiscal policies of the Buhari administration.
Discerning Nigerians and members of the international community didn’t expect
anything different.
But as grim as they are, what worries me most is the puerile
antics of some chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC), including
Buhari, and APC National Chairman, John Oyegun.
It baffles me that those who claim to be our leaders can actually
indulge in such laughable political shenanigans.
*Ikechukwu Amaechi
is the Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief of TheNiche newspaper (ikechukwuamaechi@yahoo.com)
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