By Saheed Animashaun
For my criticism to be
fair let me cut Baba some slack. This is perhaps the worst possible time to be Nigeria’s
President. Nigeria
is an oil economy. As a mono-economy therefore, our economy is in normal
circumstances bound to move in the direction of oil income. The nation’s income
from crude oil sales is at an all time low. The demand for the dollar at the
moment far outweighs the supply due to i) Fall in the proceeds from sales of
crude which is our primary source of forex, ii) Our non-oil exports being quite
too insignificant to fetch reasonable amount of forex iii) the fact that we
import majority of the oil we consume thereby having to part with our scarce dollar
reserves.
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| *Buhari |
Also, change is a
gradual process. One year is too small to rate an administration that took over
from a party that had milked Nigeria
dry for a good part of 16 years! Kwarapshun is our ONLY hindrance to
development and Baba is ardently tackling it!
Enough of sounding like
one of this administration’s many spokespersons! Enough of these excuses!
This administration don fall my hand in many areas. Below is a countdown from
seven to one of the most disappointing aspects of the Buhari administration in
my opinion!
CAVEAT: Whatever has
happened after Buhari got elected doesn’t negate the fact that there was only
one right choice between Buhari and GEJ. Nigeria was nose-diving into a
seemingly bottomless chasm as a result of the ineptitude of the previous
governments. May be with that government still in power, Nigeria would have been auctioned to China by now!
Recent revelations have shown that it was that bad! The looting was
unprecedented as it has been for several years though.
7. Many pending
appointments –
The defence line that it takes time to find the right people is balderdash! You
have been trying to be president for more than ten years! Until recently, many
appointees of the previous government that were supposedly inept were still
running the show in various Ministries, Departments, and Agencies of the
Federal government! Till now, many appointments have still not been made. This
has definitely affected administrative duties because these individuals already
know they would definitely be replaced. They are only not sure of when!
6. The
nefarious activities of “Fulani Herdsmen”
While I agree that there are some narratives to this imbroglio that are unknown
to many and hardly publicized by the press, the seemingly innocuous posture of
the C-in-C has been embarrassing. This dangerous phenomenon has the potential
to deteriorate into a huge scale war if not nipped in the bud. I still find it
hard to fathom out the reason little to no mention of it was made in the long
democracy day speech of the President! This is a disaster waiting to happen
that needs to be decisively tackled on a huge scale.
