'Dead' President And Dead Men in His Cabinet

By Erasmus Ikhide

The discovery of dead persons names on President Muhammadu Buhari's boards' appointments made last weekend signposted a nation in constant trauma, plagued by inept leadership and a stubbornly disoriented clique that has held Buhari's Presidency hostage, while the people who are at the receiving end languish in abject penury. We are talking about dead; its meaning and those in President Buhari's government. Termination or expiration of existence sounds most profound — a dead government, organisation, organism or a person is dead to reasoning; emotion, recognition and feeling — or when leadership can no longer put a face to its name. 

*Buhari

Literarily speaking, President Buhari has been a dead 'man', as much as his presidency. He fails to put a face to his presidency by ensuring that he fulfils all or some of his electoral promises to the mass of Nigerian people. Buhari is 'dead' for refusing or failing to fulfil his 2015 Presidential manifesto to revive and reactivate our minimally performing refineries to optimum capacity.
The president is 'dead' for his inability to see through his promise to ensure that the oil industry becomes one of the world leading/cutting edge centres for clean oil and gas technology by producing leading world Oil and Gas technologist, scientists, and owing mega structure installations, drilling, processing, and production facilities and engineers. He is 'dead' because Nigerians are yet to see the fulfilment of his promise that these facilities and scientists will be supported with the best services and research facilities.

President Buhari is 'dead' since the promise to fully develop the oil sector’s capacity to absorb more of the nation’s new graduate in the labour market has not come to fruition. He is 'dead' governmentally because he told us that the oil sector will be funded to produce more home-grown, but world-class engineers, scientists, technologist, etc, and nothing has happened. Buhari government is 'non-existence' because his pledges to modernise the NNPC and make it the national energy champion has not been actualised. Buhari is 'dead' because he vowed to breakup NNPC into more efficient, commercially driven units and strip it of its regulatory powers, so as to enable it to tap into the international capital market, and Nigerians are still waiting three-year down the road.

Mr. Buhari is 'dead' since his promise to enforce the government master plan for oil companies to end flaring that pollutes the air and damages the communities and people’s health and ensure that they sell at least half of their gas produced within Nigeria has failed. His presidency might just be alive because he advocated speedy passage of the much-delayed Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) and ensure that local content issues are fully addressed. But he is 'dead' because he vowed to make Nigeria the world’s leading exporter of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) through the creation of strategic partnerships. President Buhari is completely 'dead' because he promised to stabilise oil price and the same oil price has quadrupled.

This President is 'dead' for not initiating policies to ensure that Nigerians are free to live and work in any part of the country by removing state of origin, tribe, ethnic and religious affiliations from documentation requirements in our identification of citizens and replace these with State of Residence and fashion out the appropriate minimal qualification for obtaining such a state of residency, nation-wide in accordance with his party manifesto.

President Buhari is 'dead' since he could not put in place a N300bn Regional Growth Fund with an average of N50bn in each geo-political region to encourage private sector enterprise and to support places currently reliant on only the public sector, to migrate to a private sector reality, as he promised. Buhari government is 'dead' for not creating a Social Welfare Program of at least Five Thousand Naira (N5000) that will cater for the 25 million poorest and most vulnerable citizens upon the demonstration of children’s enrolment in school, create 5 million jobs and evidence of immunisation to help promote family stability.

This government has 'expired' for not providing free antenatal care for pregnant women; free health care for babies and children up to school going age and for the aged; and free treatment for those afflicted with infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. The APC government is at its 'tipping' point for not creating an Insurance Policy for our Journalists as the nation faces hard times and our Journalists face more dangers; for not establishing zonal world-class sports academics and training institutes and ensure that Nigeria occupies a place of pride in global sports and athletics as it promised.

Buhari cabinet is truly and ethically 'dead' for not assisting Nollywood to fully develop into world class movie industry that can compete effectively with Hollywood and Bollywood in due course; guarantee that women are adequately represented in government appointments and provide greater opportunities in education, job creation, and economic empowerment, and for not using the party structures to promote the concept of reserving a minimum number of seats in the States and National Assembly, for women.

This government is in abeyance for its refusal to create shelterbelts in states bordering the Sahara Desert to mitigate and reverse the effects of the expanding desert. There is a 'carcass' of government presently since Buhari refused to create 20,000 jobs per state immediately for those with a minimum qualification of secondary school leaving certificate and who participate in technology and vocational training.

President Buhari antigraft war is a mere 'cadaver' for not placing the burden of proving innocence in corruption cases on persons with inexplicable wealth. His anti-corruption crusade is a cynical mockery of due process because he refused to pursue legislation expanding forfeiture and seizure of assets laws and procedure with respect to inexplicable wealth, regardless of whether there is a conviction for criminal conduct or not.

The 'demise' of President Buhari and his government are loudly amplified by his failure to provide free tertiary education to students pursuing Science and Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), a promise he stoutly made to Nigerian students in 2015, prior to his presidency. His presidency is not 'alive' to provide free tertiary education to education majors and stipends prior to their employment as teachers, as contain in his manifesto; create incentives and dedicate special attention to the education of girls, ensure every child attending primary school is properly nourished and ready to learn by providing a Free Meal a Day.

Buhari government is a 'skeleton' for not achieving the construction of one million low-cost houses within four years for the poor; stop all travel abroad at government expense for the purpose of medical treatment. In fact, the president has been unexampled in this regard since independence! This government can't be said to be 'alive' for not providing incentives for Nigerian doctors and health practitioners working abroad to return home, to strengthen the health care industry in Nigeria and provide quality care to those who need it, and making sure people at a local level benefit from mining and mineral wealth by vesting all mineral rights in land to states.

Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, former Lagos State Governor and currently the Federal Minister of Power, Works and Housing echoed one of his party's manifesto when he jabbed at former President Goodluck Jonathan's wobbling government that "a serious government will fix power problem in six months". "There is a danger that very soon, we will miss the lesson we have learnt over the years. This is because if a government makes a public commitment, the government must fulfil that promise. Electricity was not discovered yesterday, it is over 100 years old and no excuses will be acceptable from the federal government for not providing electricity.

“We are the only nation that has oil and gas and no electricity to its citizens. Angola and Gabon don’t have the kind of oil we have. There are many countries that do not produce oil and they enjoy electricity. Very soon we will make a choice on the next set of leaders and this will be done through the ballot papers."

By a twist of fate, Fashola has been made minister over the last two-year and has been aping at electricity generation and has failed woefully. Fashola is one of the 'dead' members of President Buhari's cabinet. He has failed himself and failed Nigerians who he deceived to vote for Buhari. Buhari, Fashola and the likes of Ibe Kachikwu, Maikanti Baru, Mr. Abubakar Malami, Abba Kyari and other cabinet members are not different from the truly dead Senator Francis Okpozo; Rev. Fr. Christopher Utov, DIG Donald Ugbaja (rtd), Garba Attahiru, Umar Dange, Dr. Nabbs Imegwu, Magdalene Kumu and many more to be discovered in the disjointed appointments that took nearly three-year to materialised.

While we await national rebirth of some sort, it is of the essence that we think our way out of the present leadership conundrum offered by the PDP and the APC for nearly two decades, respectively. No nation can make meaningful progress when her political, civil, economic and spiritual wellbeing is disorderly yoked together by military Fiat without the people's input. Nations are doomed when the people lazy away in their irresponsibility to call leaders to account and sanction them with a verdict of rejection at elections. President Buhari deserves just that in 2019.
*Erasmus, Public Affairs Analyst, writes from Lagos. 
Email: ikhideerasmus@gmail.com