By Joe Iniodu
The change mantra that
the All Progressive Congress (APC) used so profusely to blackmail Nigerians
into its deceitful contraption seems to be manacled in chains. Ten months on,
there is no evidence of governance except reports of arrest coarsely alluding
them to corruption that are neither substantiated nor culprits convicted. Real
governance is in flight and hardship is upon the land. The question on the lips
of many is: where is the change that was used to lure the people? The change
has remained a ruse.
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Ten
months of the government of APC, the Boko Haram insurgency that was to be
considered an anathema upon its ascension into power is still festering and
perhaps more emboldened; the jejune pledge by PMB to stabilize oil price in
favour of the country which was a strong pointer to his lack of grasp of the
current dynamics in the oil industry remains unfulfilled; equally a woeful
failure is the non realization of his campaign promise to force dollar and
naira into convenient parity but which today finds the two currencies at
yawning gaps; its failure to arrest the prices of goods and services which are
currently at astronomical levels; its tardy treatment of students abroad and
Nigerians on medical tourism who are today said to be in a lurch. These and a
myriad of other acts of ineptitude have combined to make life brutish in this
once great Nation that was wealthy in hope. I make bold to say that until the
end of former President Jonathan’s administration, the Nation did not slide to
such precipice of despair.
Yes,
admitted, impunity reigned supreme. Corruption sadly was rife with leadership
unfortunately looking the other way. But the wheel of governance continued to
grind even when some aspects were mired in corruption. Leadership, despite its
moral deficiency continued to give hope, it continued to demonstrate capacity
and vision. It was the combination of these attributes that made the people to
reckon that if the monster of corruption could be termed, the Nation can rise
again to its old glory. And in the last days before its exit, PDP showed itself
as a visionary party that could pull itself from the brink. It identified grey
areas where corruptions were starkly perpetrated and set about introducing
mechanisms of checks. Perhaps the approach was muffled and not very radical.
With little or no publicity of its renewed efforts in tackling the monster,
some Nigerians considered the party and its leadership at the centre as
complicit in the denudation of the Nation. The APC latched on this
misconception using its brazen tool of propaganda and blackmail. The rest is
history.
