MOSES E. OCHONU

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.
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.
1. We pilloried Jonathan's administration for
maintaining a wasteful 12-aircraft presidential
fleet (enough to constitute a modest airline)
despite the deepening hardship and cash
crunch in the country. In response to initial
misinformation from overzealous Buhari
supporters about Buhari's decision to sell off
most of the aircraft, the administration came
out and firmly denied taking such a decision
and has continued to maintain the same
presidential fleet. This inexplicable resolve to
continue with what is universally regarded as a
symbol of executive profligacy is not attracting
any critical attention from otherwise skeptical
citizens. And I don't want to hear the excuse
that Buhari didn't buy the aircraft, that he
inherited them.
2. Staying with the aircraft theme, the new
Customs boss, Col. Hameed Ali, a key Buhari
appointee, travels around to conduct official
business in a cozy private jet, but he is being
praised as a man of action instead of being
criticized with the same vehemence with which
Mrs. Diezani Allison-Maduekwe, former
minister of petroleum, was criticized for doing
the same thing.
3. The economy is reeling from Buhari's
misguided, counterproductive, and
unsustainable policy of defending the naira at
all cost by placing primitive and economically
unsound restrictions on access to foreign
exchange. This currency control has
compounded a curious companion policy of
decreeing bans on certain imports (both raw
materials an finished goods) and wishing that
Nigeria would magically begin producing them
in spite of structural problems like poor
electricity, reliance on imported heavy
machinery, expensive borrowing rates, a
general poverty of infrastructure, and a volatile
policy environment. Our reaction to this
cluelessness has been either to stay silent or to
praise Buhari’s intentions, as though his lofty
intentions outweigh the real damage that this
policy is doing to various sectors of the
economy. The road to hell they say is paved
with good intentions, and we may very well be
headed to a figurative hell with the
pronouncement by the CBN that Nigeria’s
economy will enter recession next year. We
scrutinized all of Jonathan's economic policies,
taking them apart when they did not make
sense. But we seem to have conceded to
Buhari the right to make as many mistakes as
he wants even at the cost of inflicting serious
harm on the economy at a time of low oil
prices and a resulting economic contraction.
It's almost as if we think that the old man
knows best and have suspended our critical
faculties as a result.
4. Several bomb blasts rocked the northeastern
states of Adamawa and Borno in the course of
two days, killing cores of our citizens and
puncturing our already fragile security. It took
the presidency an entire day to acknowledge
the tragedy and offer words of comfort to a
beleaguered and traumatized nation and to the
victims' families. When Jonathan displayed
similar crass indifference to the nihilist
violence of Boko Haram and to the victims of
the carnage, we spared no outrage in
criticizing him and his team. Today, we seem
to have given Buhari's government an open-
ended benefit of the doubt on the same
attitude.
5. When Jonathan failed to articulate a
coherent road map for defeating Boko Haram,
we rightly called him out on the failure.
Buhari has not clued the nation into his grand
strategy for ending the insurgency, if one
exists. Yet we have not demanded that he
communicate clearly with the nation on this.
6. When Jonathan hired some South African
mercenaries to help drive out the insurgents
from Nigerian's towns and villages, many of us
saw that as a humiliating climb down for our
army and our country, a testament to the
failure to equip and motivate the army to fight
at their maximum ability. Then candidate
Buhari criticized Jonathan for surrendering and
violating Nigeria's sovereignty, pride, and
status as a regional power. He said the
Nigerian army was capable, by itself, of
routing the enemy if properly equipped and
motivated. Several days ago, however, we read
news, still undenied, that the administration
has done exactly the same thing that candidate
Buhari angrily condemned. They have quietly
hired South African mercenaries to help
combat Boko Haram and to meet the
December deadline issued by the president. We
are yet to hear any serious critique of this
decision to continue with a previously
criticized Jonathan strategy. For the record, I
don't care how we defeat Boko Haram and do
not mind if it takes South African mercenaries
or Martians to defeat them. I am just pointing
out the double standards of criticizing
Jonathan for engaging the mercenaries and
giving Buhari a pass for doing the same thing--
as well as the hypocrisy of Buhari criticizing
Jonathan for enlisting the help of the
mercenaries only to turn around and do so
himself.
7. When Jonathan travelled to Chad to try to
enlist the help of Idris Deby in combating the
insurgency, he was mocked for being weak and
for groveling before regional minnows. The
cantankerous Nasir el-Rufai even suggested in
a tweet that the former president had gone to
Chad to confer with Deby on how to plan more
attacks, an outrageous nod to the conspiracy
theories circulating in the north about
Jonathan's complicity in, if not sponsorship of,
Boko Haram. Today, Buhari's most discernible
public gesture in the fight against Boko Haram
is his travel around the world and in our
region begging for foreign help and
cooperation. And he seems to have invested all
his strategic permutations in the regional force
headquartered in Chad. He is, in other words,
doing what Jonathan did or tried to do. But the
reaction to his actions has been decidedly and
radically different. While Jonathan was widely
condemned, Buhari is being praised for
courting much needed alliances for defeating
Boko Haram.
8. When Jonathan appointed (and defended)
several people tainted by allegations and
revelations of corruption into his government,
we rightly expressed our disapproval in very
strident language. Today, Buhari has appointed
people plagued by weighty and credible
allegations of corruption into his cabinet and
into key roles in his administration. Instead of
dusting up our anti-Jonathan criticism and
applying it to Buhari, we have now crafted a
new argument for rationalizing this brazen act
of self-contradiction by an anti-corruption
president. We now argue that the appointees
may have been corrupt but that, serving under
Buhari, they will not dare touch government
money. That may be so, given the personal
example of incorruptibility from Buhari, but
that does not invalidate the truth that such
appointments constitute a reward for
corruption — and a bad signal to corrupt
officials. Those who should be answering to
allegations and revelations of corruption will
instead be enjoying the prestige and aura of
high office in an administration purportedly
anchored on an anti-corruption ethos.
This list is not exhaustive. You can add to it.
Obviously contexts change and one must
acknowledge that. Jonathan was criticized
within a wider matrix of issues. Moreover, in
some cases, the contexts in which he took
some of his widely criticized decisions, or
failed to take a decision, were different from
those that prevail today. We must therefore
temper our critique of Buhari’s young
government with that caveat.
We must also give Buhari a grace period for
getting a handle on the many challenges of the
country. Perhaps, our criticism of his
preservation of Jonathan’s many policies and
attitudes would be more justified after he has
spent a year in office and the texture and color
of his presidency have emerged with clarity.
Even so, it is never too early to emplace the
parameters of vigilance and accountability.
Moreover, if we don’t begin to ask tough
questions now and to challenge brazen
disregard for the anxieties and problems of
citizens, Buhari and his team will only take
that as acquiescence and go further down the
familiar and failed path.
The failure to criticize early, to lay down a
marker of citizen skepticism, as well as a
willingness to offer a prolonged period of
grace to a new government are detrimental to
both the said government and citizens. It is
one of the reasons that Jonathan strayed and
was never able to course-correct.
In the wake of the Yar’Adua debacle, Nigerians
were willing to give Jonathan an elastic latitude
of action and inaction. Now, in the wake of
Jonathan’s disastrous government, we seem to
be making the same mistake with Buhari and
setting him up for the tone-deaf indifference
and disconnection that became the defining
signature of the Jonathan administration.
Jonathan did not lose his way overnight. It was
a gradual process aided by a vast, uncritical
army of excuse makers and givers of endless
benefits of the doubt.
We need to stop the rationalization of Buhari’s
lethargic beginnings. The election is over.
Buhari is fully in charge. Forced excuses are
no longer convincing. Body language has an
expiration date and has clearly run its course
while serious problems persist. It is time to
demand concrete actions, plans, and outcomes
from this government.

The author can be reached at meochonu@
gmail.com
http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/moses-ebe-ochonu/different-strokes-for-jonathan-and-buhari.html

APC style... Very hypocritical

So Egbon Pius Adesanmi like the loud mouthed Omojuwa and Ogundamisi have also found a way to smuggle out the "wailers" form? Na wa!

This is the change!

When I heard #6 on tv few days ago I had to check the calendar to be sure I was living in the present.

Thought was the only one thinking this...some APC idiots would jump on this thread and call the op a wailer...I fear for where nigeria is heading under the dullard of a president ruling with archaic ideas with no clear policy or direction...

mayorkyzo:
Thought was the only one thinking this...some APC idiots would jump on this thread and call the op a wailer...I fear for where nigeria is heading under the dullard of a president ruling with archaic ideas with no clear policy or direction...

Don't mind them... Kettle calling pot black

Let me guess, this thread will never make front page.

gost:
Let me guess, this thread will never make front page.

Frontpage?.
Ever seen a commonsense thread grace frontpage?.
This won't,it's not an APC v PDP nor SW V SE thread.

Dhugal:

Frontpage?.
Ever seen a commonsense thread grace frontpage?.
This won't,it's not an APC v PDP nor SW V SE thread.

Sad but true. I have even seen threads recommending self abortion medication on nairaland frontpage in recent days. What am I even saying? Even threads that are meant to be hidden in the sexuality section get a frontpage limelight. That's also the change!

gost:
Let me guess, this thread will never make front page.

Is it about making a headline or about the truth? Truth is even when it does not make a headline and false is false even when it makes a headline.

Hmm...

.

Dhugal:
MOSES E. OCHONU

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.
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.
1. We pilloried Jonathan's administration for
maintaining a wasteful 12-aircraft presidential
fleet (enough to constitute a modest airline)
despite the deepening hardship and cash
crunch in the country. In response to initial
misinformation from overzealous Buhari
supporters about Buhari's decision to sell off
most of the aircraft, the administration came
out and firmly denied taking such a decision
and has continued to maintain the same
presidential fleet. This inexplicable resolve to
continue with what is universally regarded as a
symbol of executive profligacy is not attracting
any critical attention from otherwise skeptical
citizens. And I don't want to hear the excuse
that Buhari didn't buy the aircraft, that he
inherited them.
2. Staying with the aircraft theme, the new
Customs boss, Col. Hameed Ali, a key Buhari
appointee, travels around to conduct official
business in a cozy private jet, but he is being
praised as a man of action instead of being
criticized with the same vehemence with which
Mrs. Diezani Allison-Maduekwe, former
minister of petroleum, was criticized for doing
the same thing.
3. The economy is reeling from Buhari's
misguided, counterproductive, and
unsustainable policy of defending the naira at
all cost by placing primitive and economically
unsound restrictions on access to foreign
exchange. This currency control has
compounded a curious companion policy of
decreeing bans on certain imports (both raw
materials an finished goods) and wishing that
Nigeria would magically begin producing them
in spite of structural problems like poor
electricity, reliance on imported heavy
machinery, expensive borrowing rates, a
general poverty of infrastructure, and a volatile
policy environment. Our reaction to this
cluelessness has been either to stay silent or to
praise Buhari’s intentions, as though his lofty
intentions outweigh the real damage that this
policy is doing to various sectors of the
economy. The road to hell they say is paved
with good intentions, and we may very well be
headed to a figurative hell with the
pronouncement by the CBN that Nigeria’s
economy will enter recession next year. We
scrutinized all of Jonathan's economic policies,
taking them apart when they did not make
sense. But we seem to have conceded to
Buhari the right to make as many mistakes as
he wants even at the cost of inflicting serious
harm on the economy at a time of low oil
prices and a resulting economic contraction.
It's almost as if we think that the old man
knows best and have suspended our critical
faculties as a result.
4. Several bomb blasts rocked the northeastern
states of Adamawa and Borno in the course of
two days, killing cores of our citizens and
puncturing our already fragile security. It took
the presidency an entire day to acknowledge
the tragedy and offer words of comfort to a
beleaguered and traumatized nation and to the
victims' families. When Jonathan displayed
similar crass indifference to the nihilist
violence of Boko Haram and to the victims of
the carnage, we spared no outrage in
criticizing him and his team. Today, we seem
to have given Buhari's government an open-
ended benefit of the doubt on the same
attitude.
5. When Jonathan failed to articulate a
coherent road map for defeating Boko Haram,
we rightly called him out on the failure.
Buhari has not clued the nation into his grand
strategy for ending the insurgency, if one
exists. Yet we have not demanded that he
communicate clearly with the nation on this.
6. When Jonathan hired some South African
mercenaries to help drive out the insurgents
from Nigerian's towns and villages, many of us
saw that as a humiliating climb down for our
army and our country, a testament to the
failure to equip and motivate the army to fight
at their maximum ability. Then candidate
Buhari criticized Jonathan for surrendering and
violating Nigeria's sovereignty, pride, and
status as a regional power. He said the
Nigerian army was capable, by itself, of
routing the enemy if properly equipped and
motivated. Several days ago, however, we read
news, still undenied, that the administration
has done exactly the same thing that candidate
Buhari angrily condemned. They have quietly
hired South African mercenaries to help
combat Boko Haram and to meet the
December deadline issued by the president. We
are yet to hear any serious critique of this
decision to continue with a previously
criticized Jonathan strategy. For the record, I
don't care how we defeat Boko Haram and do
not mind if it takes South African mercenaries
or Martians to defeat them. I am just pointing
out the double standards of criticizing
Jonathan for engaging the mercenaries and
giving Buhari a pass for doing the same thing--
as well as the hypocrisy of Buhari criticizing
Jonathan for enlisting the help of the
mercenaries only to turn around and do so
himself.
7. When Jonathan travelled to Chad to try to
enlist the help of Idris Deby in combating the
insurgency, he was mocked for being weak and
for groveling before regional minnows. The
cantankerous Nasir el-Rufai even suggested in
a tweet that the former president had gone to
Chad to confer with Deby on how to plan more
attacks, an outrageous nod to the conspiracy
theories circulating in the north about
Jonathan's complicity in, if not sponsorship of,
Boko Haram. Today, Buhari's most discernible
public gesture in the fight against Boko Haram
is his travel around the world and in our
region begging for foreign help and
cooperation. And he seems to have invested all
his strategic permutations in the regional force
headquartered in Chad. He is, in other words,
doing what Jonathan did or tried to do. But the
reaction to his actions has been decidedly and
radically different. While Jonathan was widely
condemned, Buhari is being praised for
courting much needed alliances for defeating
Boko Haram.
8. When Jonathan appointed (and defended)
several people tainted by allegations and
revelations of corruption into his government,
we rightly expressed our disapproval in very
strident language. Today, Buhari has appointed
people plagued by weighty and credible
allegations of corruption into his cabinet and
into key roles in his administration. Instead of
dusting up our anti-Jonathan criticism and
applying it to Buhari, we have now crafted a
new argument for rationalizing this brazen act
of self-contradiction by an anti-corruption
president. We now argue that the appointees
may have been corrupt but that, serving under
Buhari, they will not dare touch government
money. That may be so, given the personal
example of incorruptibility from Buhari, but
that does not invalidate the truth that such
appointments constitute a reward for
corruption — and a bad signal to corrupt
officials. Those who should be answering to
allegations and revelations of corruption will
instead be enjoying the prestige and aura of
high office in an administration purportedly
anchored on an anti-corruption ethos.
This list is not exhaustive. You can add to it.
Obviously contexts change and one must
acknowledge that. Jonathan was criticized
within a wider matrix of issues. Moreover, in
some cases, the contexts in which he took
some of his widely criticized decisions, or
failed to take a decision, were different from
those that prevail today. We must therefore
temper our critique of Buhari’s young
government with that caveat.
We must also give Buhari a grace period for
getting a handle on the many challenges of the
country. Perhaps, our criticism of his
preservation of Jonathan’s many policies and
attitudes would be more justified after he has
spent a year in office and the texture and color
of his presidency have emerged with clarity.
Even so, it is never too early to emplace the
parameters of vigilance and accountability.
Moreover, if we don’t begin to ask tough
questions now and to challenge brazen
disregard for the anxieties and problems of
citizens, Buhari and his team will only take
that as acquiescence and go further down the
familiar and failed path.
The failure to criticize early, to lay down a
marker of citizen skepticism, as well as a
willingness to offer a prolonged period of
grace to a new government are detrimental to
both the said government and citizens. It is
one of the reasons that Jonathan strayed and
was never able to course-correct.
In the wake of the Yar’Adua debacle, Nigerians
were willing to give Jonathan an elastic latitude
of action and inaction. Now, in the wake of
Jonathan’s disastrous government, we seem to
be making the same mistake with Buhari and
setting him up for the tone-deaf indifference
and disconnection that became the defining
signature of the Jonathan administration.
Jonathan did not lose his way overnight. It was
a gradual process aided by a vast, uncritical
army of excuse makers and givers of endless
benefits of the doubt.
We need to stop the rationalization of Buhari’s
lethargic beginnings. The election is over.
Buhari is fully in charge. Forced excuses are
no longer convincing. Body language has an
expiration date and has clearly run its course
while serious problems persist. It is time to
demand concrete actions, plans, and outcomes
from this government.

The author can be reached at meochonu@
gmail.com
http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/moses-ebe-ochonu/different-strokes-for-jonathan-and-buhari.html

.

.
D noise about *#bringbackourgirls * is resting peacefully, even d media must have lost count by now, worse of all maupe of channels tv and d likes says nothing about it anymore.....where is oby ezekwesili....