koife:
I have been thinking seriously on why President Jonathan is constantly being derided and abused by a few but vociferous individuals. The most recent being that emanating from President Obasanjo’s latest book. But what now propelled me into contributing to this debate is the article written by Mr. Nnimmo Bassey, who I have very high regard for since our student days at the University of Nigeria, Enugu campus. In that article captioned “ A Clueless president,” he stated how an African friend he had not seen in years asked him about “his clueless President.” This demonstrates the need for us to remain decorous even in instances of very sharp disagreements. Quite often, Nigerians complain of disrespectful treatments at the airports by immigration and custom officials. There is a saying in Igbo land to the effect that when you describe your cooking pot as useless, people will treat it as rubbish. We Nigerians have often not been mindful of the damage we do to our country and ourselves when we denigrate our institutions and our leaders in a careless and reckless manner. It is even more so when such recklessness comes from a former president who should be more thoughtful and circumspect in his utterances and writings. As we approach the 2015 presidential elections, the denigration of the office of the president is being escalated. The launch of the book, My Watch, by former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ) was seen in this light by many commentators. The opposition party, the APC is also determined to do maximum damage to President Jonathan and the office of the President. The utterances from its leadership need a lot of moderation and scrubbing. They have also at various times described Mr. President as clueless and one who runs an auto pilot government. The radical changes promised by President Jonathan during his campaign were captured in the Transformation Agenda document. Programmes identified in this document will be used to evaluate the government of President Jonathan to see if his government can be described as clueless and running on auto pilot. An important barometer of a viable democracy is the sanctity of the voter’s wish. When late President Yar’adua took office, he acknowledged that his election was largely flawed and vowed to clean up the electoral process. President Jonathan who succeeded him has not disappointed in this regard. It is to his credit that subsequent elections have been largely declared as free and fair by international observers. Another important index and benefit of democracy is the freedom of expression, freedom of association and statutorily guaranteed access to information. Under President Jonathan, freedom of speech has remained unencumbered in spite of some unwarranted abuses his government has suffered. President Jonathan remains to date the most demonised, abused and derided President Nigeria has ever had. But it is to his credit that he has never used the security apparatus at his disposal to persecute any one. One can also acknowledge that he signed the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill into law, a bill that the previous governments avoided for years. Under President Jonathan, the power sector has witnessed the privatisation of the generation and distribution companies. If international and local assessments of this process are anything to go by, the bidding process has been mostly transparent. With this process concluded, one can anticipate an irreversible process in achieving stable power supply in no distant future, the same way the telecommunication sector benefited from privatization. The rehabilitation of the railway system deserves special mention. This important means of transportation had been unfortunately ignored by previous governments. The progress being made in this sector in reopening the railway links to the major cities in Nigeria is commendable. This is being complemented with the dredging of the lower River Niger. We also take particular note of the ongoing construction of the new bridge over the River Benue and the commencement of work on the Second Niger Bridge. The aviation sector is another area that has witnessed significant transformation. The modernisations of the existing airports and construction of new airport terminals have improved the standing of Nigerian airports within the international aviation community. It is therefore not surprising that Nigeria has attained and retained the FAA Category One status. The launching of the National Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP), and the National Enterprise Development Programme has led to the resuscitation of the Nigeria automobile industry. Nigeria has moved from a net importer of cement to a net exporter of cement by increasing installed capacity from 16.5 million metric tons per annum in 2011 to 39.5 million metric tons per annum in 2014. The transformation agenda of Mr. President, if implemented faithfully, will no doubt significantly improve the Nigerian economy. But we must be mindful of the fact that its impact and success rests on tackling the monster of corruption. One, therefore, cannot fairly evaluate this administration without assessing its approach to addressing the issue of corruption. Although Nigeria has improved slightly with respect to the corruption perception index of Transparency International, the perception of corruption in Nigeria is still high. While there is often a mismatch between perception and reality, one cannot ignore perception. The truth, is that Mr. President needs to demonstrate that his government abhors corruption. While I agree with Mr. President that dealing with corruption is not about parading people on television but devising creative and systematic means of addressing it, there is still need to combine the long term measure of Mr. President with some short term prescriptions. One short term measure could be initiating an executive bill to set up tribunals dedicated to trying cases of corruption. These tribunals should be presided over by credible retired judges. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has often complained about their frustration with the process at the existing courts. The conviction of Governor Ibori at the UK Court vis a vis the merry-go-round experienced in the same case in Nigeria is a case in point. Having stated the issues above, it will be germane to acknowledge what this administration has already done to tackle corruption at its roots. These include the restructuring of the pension payment system, the restructuring of the integrated salary payment system, and the deregulation in the oil and gas sector to check corrupt practices in the downstream sector. The disappearance of perennial queues at our filling stations is one testimony to the success of the creative approach to stemming endemic corruption in the oil sector. Signing of the Anti-Money Laundering Act into law, introduction of an electronic-wallet scheme, that has reduced significantly decades of corruption in the fertiliser and seed sectors in bid to diversify our economy is a laudable stride.
Let me hear why you will vote buhari....pls be issue based and not the change talk I've been hearing Thank you!
Nb you don't have to comment if you don't have anything to say...matured comments only!

babadee1:
Story story. Buhari/Osinbajo 2015 jare.

koife:

Sir, i said issue based....not some sentiments or better still delete your comment. Name by force to comment?....mtcheeeeew to all this e warriors

babadee1:


Your post is too long and the formatting makes it almost impossible to read which was why I said story story. Maybe if you reformat your post and edit it I may be able to read and make some issue based comments. Meanwhile Buhari/Osinbajo 2015.

koife:

I can see you're as lazy as APC....is the formatting the reason you can't read or the plain words. I suspect you can't read just like failbhuari your holy grail....get a life already... pUNK

Horus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dyGxQzwZ80

[size=15pt]Julius Malema criticize Goodluck Jonathan[/size]

babadee1:


Guy an online post should not read like a policy report. Nobody has that kind of time online. Just my two cents. Buhari/Osinbajo 2015.

koife:

I suspect youre not a meticulous person. People like you make white men say if you want to hide information from African man, do that in book pages. I faint!

kelvine:
Great sharing,intelligent and deep analysis. I wonder how people affirm that in his tenure he has done nothing. The common Nigerian have one singular expectation from their leaders - direct provision of basic needs. The youth cry for jobs and the upper class fights to have a direct share in National treasure by way of political appointments and contracts. GEJ's transformation agenda is a long term goal and he needs the next four years to make an impact that will be beneficial to all.

babadee1:


Reformat your post first then we can have a good discussion.

crownprince102:
Can't read that long epistle..... I know one of those reason as an igbo man is changing his name to Azikwe..... That's enough, it's not easy to change names. Queen Elizabeth didn't change her name to Eniola when britain ruled nigeria. Frederick Lord Luggard didn't change Fadare Luku Lasisi when he amalgamated nigeria in 1914. Jona should be given kudos for doing that. Meanwhile, GMB/PYO all the way.

koife:

I choose to ignore you permanently at this juncture