Former Presidential
candidate and Chancellor of the Eastern Mandate Union
(EMU), Dr. Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo is not a man of many words. In this
interview with LAWRENCE
NJOKU, Southeast Bureau Chief, he bares his mind on some nagging issues in the
country.
What is your
take on President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration in the last one year?
The Muhammadu Buhari administration has been a complete disaster. I knew from
the outset that his presidency was a tragedy waiting to happen. My conclusions
are anchored on observable and incontrovertible facts. The first is Buhari’s
penchant for religiously implementing a policy of exclusion. You possibly
cannot expect anything good from a man, who expressed the desire to run a
segregative administration from the very beginning, based on the voting
patterns in the 2015 presidential elections.
For him to say on
several occasions that his government would treat differently areas that gave
his party 95 percent vote from the areas that gave only five percent indicated
that he did not and still does not understand what political contest is all
about. As far as I know, the beauty of democracy is located in the freedom of
the electorate to make a choice from an array of political contestants. At the
end of the contest, whoever emerges the winner sees himself as the leader of
all and not only of those that voted for him. Buhari has failed this litmus
test of democratic inclusion.
Like I
have always said about the Buhari presidency, you don’t give what you don’t
have. Any discerning person would have identified the ineptitude of this
administration from the content of Muhammadu Buhari’s inaugural address on May
29 2015. It is from such address that a focused leader hints on his vision and
policy direction in governance. His inaugural speech was empty. I urge you to
pick a copy of that address and go through it again. You will be shocked at how
drab and uninspiring it was for such a big occasion. So much noise has been
made about a line in that address, which said that, “he belonged to everybody and belonged to nobody.” While many of
his apologists sought to convince Nigerians of what he meant by that statement,
I warned of the deceit and dictatorial import of that comment.
Today, Buhari has taken
Nigeria
back by almost 40 years and has proven beyond doubt that he is an ethnic and
religious irredentist. The economy has collapsed and with it our collective
destiny. Insecurity has not abated and poverty rate has tripled. The picture of
things to come is gloomy and frightening. Buhari is, indeed, a colossal failure
and his administration is a significant threat to the continued existence of
this country as a corporate entity.
Could the reasons you outlined be responsible for the
heightened clamour for restructuring of the country?
It is instructive that many Nigerians have come to the realisation that the
only way for the survival of the country is through restructuring. This is
heartwarming. This is what I have canvassed over the past three decades at
great risk to my personal safety.
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