Simon Kolawole Live!, Email: simonkolawole@thisdayonline.com, 11.02.2008

When President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, in recounting his achievements, tells you that he has saved N400 billion from capital votes, you are likely to misunderstand him. You will think he is saying: “Fellow Nigerians, after we executed the budget faithfully, after we rehabilitated all the roads, after we constructed new roads, we were able to save N400 billion on capital projects through our strict adherence to due process.” But, no. The man means to say he has failed to construct and rehabilitate roads, and through that inaction, he has saved N400 billion! The roads are still bad or non-existent, but Yar’Adua has saved N400 billion from it!
I may be wrong – I wish to be wrong – but I am not aware of one kilometre of federal road the Yar’Adua government has constructed outside the Federal Capital Territory since May 2007. The Benin-Ore road that has been an eyesore for years, and with which I thought Yar’Adua would score a cheap PR point over his predecessor, Olusegun Obasanjo, is still a massive shame. Yar’Adua has been President for one and a half years now, with two and a half years to go. I hope the morning does not foretell the day in this particular instance – because what a catastrophic day that would be.
For a long time, I have been trying hard to admire Yar’Adua, trying very hard to see if I can raise my hand and say: At last, the President who would wipe away our tears! In quiet moments, I pray for him from the bottom of my heart, saying: God, let this man be different; let him shame us, his critics; let him do things differently. God answered my prayer, but not as I wanted. The man is actually different and he does things differently: today, he announces that Nigeria will no longer host the Under-17 World Cup because it is not a priority; tomorrow, he makes a U-turn and agrees to host the event, saying the budget is now N9 billion, down from N35.5 billion.
It tells you this government is completely confused. Before you announce to the whole world that you are not going to host the World Cup, why don’t you do your home work first? Why don’t you review the budget before you go on air? Are you not making fun of yourselves when you make a U-turn in a spate of seven days? Why shoot first and think later? But is that not the trademark of this administration? Meanwhile, the man responsible for padding the budget is still in office. Anytime Nigeria hosts a competition, this same man is always there to milk the country of billions of naira. That man is no doubt one of the richest people in Nigeria – yet he’s only a civil servant. When the government first said it wouldn’t host the championship, I cast a mock headline: “Prof. Orisa (not real name) Loses Billions as Nigeria Decides Not to Host Under-17 World Cup.” Well, Orisa is back in business, thanks to the flip-flopping policy of this government.
Yar’Adua had been talking about cabinet reshuffle for five months before he finally dropped 20 ministers last week – I earnestly pray it wouldn’t take him another five months to appoint new ones. Suddenly, Yar’Adua has made cabinet reshuffle look like rocket science. I am getting worried by the quality of the next cabinet – whenever the President decides to constitute one. The names I am hearing are quite disheartening. I hope it’s all rumours. The names being bandied around sound like who’s who in the continuous underdevelopment of Nigeria, people who never demonstrated any possibility of seeing beyond their noses in all the public offices they’ve held so far. The task to take this country to the height it belongs is too serious to be left to the bowl of a recycle bin.
Is Yar’Adua really serious about moving Nigeria forward or is he pulling our legs? I ask this question because he is such a difficult person to understand. In any country that takes itself serious, healthcare is priority. But look at our health ministry – there has not been a substantive Minister of Health since the exit of the pair of Prof. Adenike Grange and Gabriel Adukwu. A minister was asked to “oversee” such a critical ministry in addition to his primary responsibility! Should we be surprised that the “overseer” cannot make any key policy pronouncement on the sector? Should we be amazed that the health sector is critically ill? What can an “overseer” do when he is just an interim plug-in? If Yar’Adua really cares about this sector, shouldn’t he have appointed a substantive minister by now, nearly 10 months after the vacancies were created? Does Yar’Adua really care?
A minister, when criticised that Yar’Adua’s cabinet is colourless, retorted: “Even if you bring Professor Wole Soyinka into this cabinet, there is no way he can perform. We don’t even know what the president wants. We don’t know what we will do or say that will offend him. We’re just tagging along. If you bring 10 Okonjo-Iwealas into this government, nothing will change.” That is scary. Nothing could be more demoralising than this sort of spirit. Inspiration should flow naturally from the leader but when team members are too scared to take action or are not being led the right way, there is everything to worry about.
The reasons given for the removal of some ministers were quite amusing. Some were removed for the “offences” they committed last year. Ask me why they were not removed immediately. Ask me why it took more than a year to get rid of them. Some were removed for non-performance. Quite amusing. When did Yar’Adua realise that? Last week? How come the President never has a sense of urgency? How can a minister be marching on the same spot for over a year and Yar’Adua had to wait this long to remove him or her?
The much-publicised rule of law mantra seems to be dying down. I’m not surprised. It was only designed to give the Attorney-General the power to protect the Very Important Politicians (VIPs). If you go to our prisons today, how many people who are being unjustly remanded have had justice served to them on the plate of rule of law? How many Nigerians are rotting away in police cells nationwide without any possibility of getting justice? Are extra-judicial killings now a thing of the past? Do we still have cases of police brutality with us? Are journalists not being arrested and detained without trial now? So what is the talk about rule of law when what this government actually means is the protection of known looter-friends? VIPs who stole billions of naira from our treasury are enjoying “rule of law” while ordinary people who stole N100 are in prison custody for years without facing trial. Rule of law indeed.
It is not all gloom, however. At least the President was wise enough to tone down his budget benchmark following the scary trend in the international crude oil market. That is reassuring. In the past, we kept burying our heads in the sand and pretended everything was all right. I think we can also celebrate the fact that the “power emergency” is nearing “declaration” – at least a bill has been sent to the National Assembly to appropriate funds for the projects. The emergency might have taken ages to emerge, but at least we are very close to it now. Half a loaf is better than nothing…
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what more can i say? well said! what baffles me the most is how he treats the health sector which should be closest to his kidney heart

Simon Kolawole, the writer of this article is not the only one lamenting, every Nigerian is! And that's the situation we have found ourselves today. If out of 48 months lifespan of this administration, the President has spent five months in reshuffling his cabinet, how many months will the government use in doing the real work at hand or has cabinet reshuffling become a very difficult task? This is a President that refused to attend a UNO meeting simply because he wanted to reconstitute his cabinet and a month after that meeting nothing has changed. I can say boldly that, apart from the recurrent expenditure, it is most unlikely that this government will achieve 25% implementation of this year's budget so we should not be surprised if the President starts beating his chest in January 2009 that he has saved this nation 5trillion Naira.

I feel so disappointed because even in Nairaland, I stuck out my neck and wholly supported this president, in several threads, inspite of the fact that I didn't know his antecedents, what a fool I was then. The question now is: What does the President really do? Is this how this country will attain the status of one of the twenty most developed economies come year 2020?

A few days back a newspaper reported that some ministers have been barred from going  to see the President and instead they shall be reporting to the SFG because they have abused the priviledge of unrestricted access to the President by going to the Villa to gossip. Imagine, a whole minister of the Federal Republic having time to gossip even at the pinnacle of power!! It is also an open rumour that some ex-governors would likely make the new ministerial list and these are people that have cases of corruption hanging on their necks. Does this President have any standard at all? Someone should tell this President to wake up, Nigeria needs a far more serious leadership than he is presently offering us.

Having said this much, I hope SSS guys are not waiting for me at the door!!

Roflmao!!!