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*READ THIS PLS* By Femi Aribisala by Tinubutoto: 5:13pm On Jun 14, 2016 |
*READ THIS PLS*
By Femi Aribisala
It is amusing, if not very disturbing, to see the number
of people the Buhari administration has brought out of
the woodwork to sing its praises on this its one-year
anniversary. Having arrested key spokespersons of the
opposition, intimidated the press into silence,
threatened the judiciary, and even arrested its non-
politician critics, such as Olu Adegboruwa, on trumped
up charges, the government has become confident that
it has a free pass to feed Nigerians with lies about its
woeful performance in office
Having won a “famous” election by telling Nigerians a
tissue of lies which it then repudiated on assuming
office, the government continues to believe it can also
govern just by continuing to tell lies. Thus, assessing his
performance in office over the past one year, the
president even went as far as to boast that it has been
“a year of triumph.” This shows conclusively that truth
has fallen in the street of this misguided Buhari
administration; so much so that abject failure has been
camouflaged as its triumph.
Deceitful election campaign
In all my years of living in Nigeria, I can say along with
the overwhelming majority of Nigerians that we have
never had it so bad. Only one thing explains the
extremities of Nigeria’s miserable predicament today:
we have in office a government so singularly inept and
incompetent, it has triumphed in making a bad
situation so much worse.
In an article last year entitled: “Why Nigerians Must
Reject the Second-Coming of Buhari,” I made this
observation after listening to Buhari’s vapid campaign
speeches:
“It is amazing that, for a man who is running for
election as president for a marathon fourth time,
Buhari is so bereft of ideas as to how he would do
anything if he were to become president. No man
becomes president of Nigeria on the basis of vain
platitudes. No man becomes president as a result of
social media blogs and sound-bites. No man becomes
president by giving two-minute speeches in craftily-
packaged rallies, one minute of which is spent
introducing his entourage". However, many Nigerians
refused to heed our warning. Now the chickens have
come to roost.
Inaugural mumbo-jumb
After listening to President Buhari’s inaugural speech in
May 2015, I also had this to say in an article entitled:
“Is President Buhari Born Again?”
“Buhari has been running for president for the last 14
years. Nevertheless, listening to his inaugural speech, it
is clear he does not have a clue what exactly to do
when in office. Either the APC never really believed it
would win the election, or it was too preoccupied with
winning to pay sufficient attention to what it would do
in the unlikely event that it won.” Of course, Buhari
apologists promptly came to his defense. They claimed
it was too early to make such assessment. Let the man
settle down.
Baba Do-Nothing
The first 100 days of a new administration provides the
best opportunity to proclaim giant strides and pass
difficult legislation because it is still the honeymoon
period. But our man Buhari squandered this
opportunity by doing absolutely nothing. At his 100
days inaugural, I had this assessment: “After 100 days,
it should now be abundantly clear that Buhari is not
qualified to be president of 21st century Nigeria. The
president has neither agenda nor direction. His cardinal
objective is apparently the prosecution of Northern
hegemony. The APC desperately needs to organise an
intervention, before Buhari drives the country into the
ditch. It is time to admit it. Electing Buhari as president
was a big national blunder.”
Again, the paid chorus-singers jumped to the
president’s defense. They insisted again that 100 days is
not enough to make an adequate assessment of a
president’s agenda or direction. Buhari still needed to
be given more time.
Buhari wasted seven months to choose the members of
his cabinet, receiving in the process the ignominy of
being nicknamed “Baba Go-Slow.” He promised
Nigerians his ministers would be unimpeachable saints
and angels. But when the time finally came, they turned
out to be the same old and tired politicians, some with
serious allegations of corruption hanging over their
heads. In an uncharacteristic moment of clarity, Buhari
himself castigated them as “noise-makers.” In office,
they have been singularly unimpressive without
exception.
AbubakarMalami, the Minister of Justice, dropped a
fictitious bombshell by declaring that the EFCC has
recovered 2 trillion dollars of stolen loot. The Minister
of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu,
dazzled our credibility by saying his ministry has the
capacity to generate about 3.4 million jobs in 2016
alone through pencil production. Lai Mohammed,
another of the government’s bamboozlers, said the
government would use the N1.4 trillion in the TSA as
Father Christmas handouts for Nigeria’s poorest 20
million. This kind of blatantly false hot air has become
the stock-in-trade of this APC government.
All Promises Cancelled
Now it is not just 100 wasted days, it is 365. It is one
full year and there is no difference, except that things
have gone terribly wrong. I repeat: Nigerians have never
had it so bad. No light, no petrol, no economic policy,
no government. Just vain platitudes.
When a political party wins an election by deceiving the
electorate, filling the people with false promises; it is
easy to conclude it can also rule by deceit, feeding the
populace with false hope. However, sooner than later,
lies will be exposed to be lies. Judging by the president’s
failure to fulfil any of his vaunted campaign promises,
his government is not only a failure but a fraud.
At the APC South-East rally in Owerri in 2015, Buhari
declared he would make the naira equal to the dollar if
voted into office. He continued: “It is sad that the value
of the naira has dropped to more than 230 to one
dollar. This does not speak well for the nation.” If N230
to one dollar is sad, what shall we say today of the
exchange-rate of N350 to one dollar under his
administration? How does that speak for the nation, Mr.
President?
Just take a look at the following anomalies. Buhari
promised to create 740,000 jobs within a year in the 36
states of the federation, as well as one million jobs for
Igbo youths by revamping the huge coal deposits in
Enugu State for electricity generation. However, in one
year in office, his administration has created no new
jobs. Instead, it has lost jobs by the lorry-load by its go-
slow and do-nothing stance.
The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in the first
quarter of 2016 alone, another 1.5 million Nigerians
became unemployed; increasing the country’s
unemployment rate from 10.4 percent in the last
quarter in 2015 to 12.1 percent.
Buhari promised to generate, transmit and distribute
electricity on a 24/7 basis. At the beginning of his
administration, APC propagandists went to town
boasting that there was already regular power supply as
a result of the alchemy of the president’s “body
language.” But, in no time at all, the only language the
president’s body has been speaking is power blackouts.
In 365 days of Buhari’s tragic presidency, Nigeria has
suffered more blackouts than at any time in its history.
In April this year, the entire country was thrown into
darkness as a result of system collapse. The minister of
power has become a minister of darkness. To date,
there is no reprieve in sight.
From bad to worse
Before Buhari, our primary security concern was the
Boko Haram insurgency in the North-east. But thanks
to Buhari, insecurity has become nationwide. Now the
threat is not only Boko Haram in the North-east. It is
also the Shi’ites in the North-west. It is the Biafrans in
the South-east. It is the Niger-Delta Avengers in the
South-South. But for the incompetence of the
government, these new fissures would not have gained
new prominence.
At his inaugural, the president claimed grandiloquently:
“I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody.” But
after 365 days in office, we now know that he belongs
to Fulani herdsmen, after all, he called them “my
people” to Lam Adesina of Oyo State. These herdsmen
have been allowed to go from state to state on repeated
murderous rampages, with nary a word of reproach
until recently from the president who, with his 270
declared cows, is apparently their patron.
Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information, said in
December 2015: “We can confidently announce here
today that the (fuel) scarcity will end in a few days. We
can assure you that we won’t be caught in this kind of
situation again.” However, the kind of scarcity we have
experienced since the making of this vain promise has
been unprecedented in Nigeria’s history. On some
occasions, the fuel queues at petrol-stations
everywhere have been as long as half a mile.
When Jonathan reduced the petrol pump price from
N97 to N87 per litre in January 2015, former Lagos
State Governor, Babatunde Fashola said the N10
reduction was too low and that Nigerians would get a
better deal under Buhari. Later, in April 2015, one of
Buhari’s arch-propagandists, former Minister of
Petroleum and Energy, Professor Tam David-West, told
Nigerians that, since a drastic decrease in the
international price of oil had taken place, Buhari would
reduce the fuel pump price from N87 to N40 per litre.
But all this turned out to be just another tissue of lies.
Rather than decrease the price, Buhari has now
increased it by a massive N56.50 to N145. This has fed
into already high price increases and has led to further
devaluation of the naira on the parallel market. The
result has been even more hardship in Nigeria,
especially among the poor
National impoverishment
At the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology,
Ogbomosho, Tinubu declared that the APC would
eradicate poverty in Nigeria. He said: “A progressive
government must turn its face from the austerity
policies of the outgoing administration that tried to
manage poverty, but not end it. Such policies serve
only to deepen and prolong the hardship of the average
person.” But it is now abundantly clear that no
government has impoverished Nigerians as much as
this APC government. The rate of inflation in the
country has grown astronomically. If the members of
the lying brigade the government has trotted out in this
one-year anniversary to deceive Nigerians are so sure of
Buhari’s triumphant success, let them go to any market
in the country today, North or South, and shout “Sai
Buhari.” They should not be surprised if they are
mugged or even lynched.
After just 365 days, Nigerians are completely fed up
with Buhari and the APC. At the moment, the country is
a powder-keg waiting to be ignited. This is the
assessment of Balarabe Musa, former governor of
Kaduna State: “It is quite obvious that this
administration is a complete failure and does not have
the capacity to solve any problems. The unfortunate
thing is that the situation in Nigeria is so bad that the
electorate is now cursing their luck for electing it.”
*This article was originally published on May 31, 2016
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