We are not all endowed
with the peculiar gift of clairvoyance like Nostradamus, the famed fourteenth
century astrologer -cum- physician, who arguably foretold great happenings and
events that would later shape centuries he could only imagine. But when an
audacious attempt is made to do a post-mortem of a presidency that is yet to
round off its first tenure, then, one begins to wonder whether such a
presidency has crossed the Rubicon on policies with disastrous effects from
which returning may be impossible or perhaps, difficult. Who would expect
something good from an administration whose actions and inactions conjure
pictures of hopelessness even in its final days?
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| *President Buhari |
There is a limit to the propaganda machinery
any government in the world can set in motion to inveigle her citizenry into
giving it their unalloyed support, if there is great gulf between actual
falsehood and reality. It is only a matter of time before the propaganda
messages being deployed to influence public opinions, metamorphosed into an
uncomfortable jarring sound that must be turned off to prevent the people from
losing their sanity. The once fervent converts have now taken a deep dive into
the rivers of apostasy because in vain, have they laboured for the religion of
change.
The power and the force of appeal that
catapulted President Muhammadu Buhari to power on May 29, 2015 is still a
subject for political scientists to examine. Though there were divergent
opinions about Buhari’s candidacy leading up to the election, one thing that
was not lost on majority of Nigerians was the hankering for a sea change in
status quo that would bring about the desired growth and development we have
always craved for in a country where political leadership has become synonymous
with failure and disappointment; and the rising poverty level in the country,
only becoming one of the conspicuous dividends of our democracy.
After the 2015 election was won and lost, the All Progressive Congress (APC) never
actually left the campaign mood and misguidedly, albeit true, continued to
ascribe blame to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) approximately three years
after the election despite having claimed to have the remedy to the country’s
ills, on the strength of which Nigerians turned out en masse to ensure their
victory at the polls and conversely the defeat of the PDP. Does the Buhari’s
administration luxuriate gleefully in the attendant pecks that come with
political power but, greatly, abhorred the onerous responsibilities that go
with it?
While Nigerians eagerly anticipated great
leadership (despite ominous warning from the opposition) from the Buhari’s
administration that would help unite our warring heterogeneous nationalities,
the Buhari administration, instead, chose to play the ethnic card in the
appointment of political office holders, which gesture, as observed in the
ministries, Departments and Agencies of government was so pronounced that it
contravened the principles of federal character, to such an extent as is
unprecedented in the history of the country.
While the anti -corruption war of the Buhari
administration gathered steam from the outset, it has with the passing of time
become tepid and equally failed to gather support across the political
spectrum. This is because there are strong perceptions that the anti
-corruption war has become selective, since majority of the people being
hounded by the anti- corruption agencies are members of the opposition. Worse
still is the fact that those with pending corruption cases who crossed over to
the ruling APC seem to have been canonized as saints with their anti corruption
cases being torpedoed in the various courts by unseen forces.
In giving more weapons to their critics, the
APC leadership, due to their impolitic actions, has inadvertently corroborated
the allegation of indulging in selective anti- corruption war due to the
publication of the so- called looter’s list.
While the publication is a travesty of the
rule of law, because of the presumption of innocence of any accused as
enshrined in the constitution until such a person is deemed guilty by a court
of competent jurisdiction, the APC’s “looter’s list” if one should use that
word, clearly mirrors the fact that it was targeted to portray members of the
opposition in bad light devoid of the overall objective to name and shame
unscrupulous Nigerians that have pillaged our collective patrimony.
On the economic front, the President’s
handlers would surely be quick to tout the increase in the external reserve of
the country as a resounding achievement that should be celebrated, but hold on
a minute. Sound economists have stated times without number that the external
reserve of a country is not an end in itself but a means to an end in the
growth and development of any country. A government that promised to create
jobs but ended up shedding millions of job from the economy due to its
misinformed economic policies with the attendant crisis that led to the flight
of companies and foreign capital from the economy should be lampooned. It would
be a terrible disservice if I failed to congratulate President Buhari as Nigeria has finally overtaken India
The headlines in our national dailies showing
the horrors of violent killings by herdsmen and armed bandits in the northern
region have made us to understand the extent to which the Buhari’s
administration has kept its promise on the security of lives and property in
the country. The killings have eroded so much of our humanity that we have
become so numbed to what would have on a normal day filled us with shock and
anger.Our minds have become attuned to such macabre barbarity that the
hackneyed feelings of sympathy without concrete actions have made the Buhari government
complicit, due to its monumental failure to bring the killings under control
despite impassioned pleas from both ordinary and eminent Nigerians.
This is not surely what the great people of
this country bargained for when they came out in their millions to vote for
President Buhari and APC.There is now a pervasive sense of déjà vu, reminiscent
of how the Goodluck Jonathan administration lost the support of majority of
Nigerians.
Buhari, a name that once stood for everything
that would have become right for Nigeria
has become associated with hardship, retrogression and everything that has
become wrong with Nigeria
The seminal words of late Arlen Price who once remarked that “when the heart is
willing, it will find a thousand ways, but when it is unwilling, it will find a
thousand excuses” aptly describes the attitude of the Buhari APC government of
the day.
Are the excuses being churned out by President
Buhari and members of his administrations anytime there is a crisis at hand a
pointer to the fact that they are bereft on ideas how to satisfy the yearnings
of Nigerians? The world is moving forward, and as we all know, time waits for
no one. It would be foolhardy at this critical juncture of our national life to
allow sentiments becloud our sense of judgment.
President Buhari has so far laid no concrete
foundation for anything to stand on. Any talk of a legacy at this juncture is
at best amorphous, and the noble expectations of millions of Nigerians are fast
becoming a disappearing mirage as this administration winds to a close. It is
up to Nigerians to decide whether they want a leadership change or go for
another four years of roller coaster ride with the Buhari administration.
*Ogla is a legal practitioner, writer and
public analyst based in Lagos
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