Nigeria: Has The Economy Stabilised?

 By Nick Dazang  

Leaders, like all mortals, experience fear. But most of them do not show it. In tempest and in turbulence, leaders must exude calm. They do so less their citizens find recourse in despair or paralysis. Which explains why at the height of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt assured Americans, in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1933, that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.

“Perhaps, borrowing from this tendency, of leaders to show outward calm in the face of grave difficulties, our President, Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on assumption of office, elected not to raise the alarm about the economy. Even though the data and reality prevailing at the time suggested that our economy had taken a dark turn, he preferred to be taciturn.

2015-2023: The Years Of Pestilence

 By Adekunle Adekoya

When the All Progressives Congress, APC, came up to challenge PDP’s hold on power since 1999 in February 2013, not a few Nigerians incubated the hope that something refreshingly different will happen to Nigeria. Formed as a merger of three parties — the Congress for Progressive Change, the All Nigeria Peoples Party, and the Action Congress of Nigeria, the APC went ahead to field Major-General Muhammadu Buhari as its presidential candidate against Dr. Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP in the 2015 elections. The rest, as they say, is now history.

*Buhari's 73rd Birthday Dinner - December 17, 2015

Before and after the 2015 elections, Buhari and the APC made a lot of promises about how they would work to ensure that life and living gets on the upward swing for Nigerians. In fact, ahead of the elections, Buhari was at Chatham House, the UK think-tank where he made a lot of proclamations regarding what he would do if elected president. In the opening paragraphs of the Chatham House speech, Buhari said: “When speaking about Nigeria overseas, I normally prefer to be my country ’s public relations and marketing officer, extolling her virtues and hoping to attract investments and tourists.” 

Nigeria: Our Disappearing Progressives

 By Sunny Ikhioya

Judging from its trajectory, the 2023 election was expected to be different from previous ones, and it did go that way. What we never imagined was the betrayal of the so-called Progressives, who claim to be the conscience of the nation, and are more patriotic than the rest; the lodestar of the nation’s compass. Before the 2015 elections they were everywhere: in the academia, labour, civil societies, NGOs, media and others. 

They were preaching freedom, equity, fundamental human rights, free and fair elections, infrastructure and welfare to uplift the common man and many more. It has been eight long years. Many things have happened in the country within this period: the citizens have been battered black and blue; those who couldn’t stand it have taken the Japa route.

Buhari’s Legacy Of Morally Decadent Politics In Nigeria

 By Olu Fasan

No politician ever became Nigeria’s president on pure deception except Muhammadu Buhari. Everything Buhari claimed to represent—and was perceived to represent—before 2015 has turned out to be a sham.

*Buhari and Tinubu 

“Sai Baba”, that saintly and incorruptible Buhari, the one who, as military ruler, jailed politicians for hundreds of years for corrupt practices, now fraternises with corrupt politicians.

The Buhari who so hated drug trafficking that he executed eight young Nigerians in the early 1980s now wants someone with a record of drug-related criminal forfeiture to be Nigeria’s next president. Politics in Nigeria was not as morally corrupt and decadent, as it is now, until Buhari created the climate for it.

Buhari, APC And 2019

By Alabi Williams  

Topics like this are going to feature prominently from now till 2019. And let it be clear from onset, that loyalists of President Muhammadu Buhari are the ones promoting this campaign. Before ordinary and innocent citizens are accused, pray they are not lynched, for being disrespectful and not allowing Buhari to enjoy his privacy regarding his fitness to continue in office now and after 2019, let it be clearly stated that it is Mr. President’s close associates that are peddling his capacity for more tasks. That only gives us, laymen something to ponder and talk about.

*Buhari and Tinubu 

 After he led some party members to visit Buhari in London, on Sunday July 23, party chairman, John Odigie Oyegun, again sounded bombastic of Buhari’s strength for 2019. Oyegun has never hidden his preference for Buhari on that subject. At every opportunity, the All Progressives Congress (APC) chief never wastes time to announce that the platform is all for Buhari, even without him asking.

Then, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu is also one of those who market Buhari’s fitness and acceptability. Upon his return from London last week, after he had a good and close-up view of his boss, who had been away for months, Garba could not help but announce that a rejuvenated Buhari was very fit for future elections. Garba told Arise News Network that Buhari is good enough to continue after this first term of four years.