My friend, Professor Pius Adesanmi, set the tone for what I'm about
to say in a recent Facebook update. If you have not read his update in which he
makes a forceful argument for holding the Buhari administration accountable for
the president's pre-election promises in the area of security and the effort
against Boko Haram, please go and read it without delay. It is a prescient and
timely intervention. Adesanmi was writing to bemoan the continued rampage of
Boko Haram in spite of Buhari's promise to take away their ability to continue
their murderous activities.
*Buhari
Adesanmi's
overarching arguments are 1) we should insist on Buhari fulfilling his promise
of securing the lives and property of citizens from the menace of Boko Haram, a
promise that the recent wave of bombings vitiate; 2) we should demand from this
administration a clear articulation of its strategy for ending Boko Haram; and
3) what we criticized and refused to accept when Jonathan was president, we
should not accept, rationalize, or fail to criticize in Buhari's
administration.
I want
to extend Adesanmi's treatise beyond the narrow domain of security. I want to
broaden his contention to the entire gamut of issues and challenges confronting
the country. I am arguing simply that, regardless of the issue involved, what
we didn't tolerate from Jonathan and roundly criticized in his administration,
we should also not tolerate from Buhari and should have the courage to
criticize. Here is a list of things we rightly criticized Jonathan for, but
which, for reasons I cannot fathom, we seem to have ignored or accepted in
Buhari's administration.
