In Defense Of The Masses: No! This
Is Not The Change We Voted For!


First, let's get certain things very
clear here. President Buhari is an
employee of the Nigerian people and
so are his appointees. As such, we
have a right to criticize them
whenever we feel they are
progressing in error. Holding the
government accountable is the duty
of every free citizens of every free
state. It is the government that
should fear her citizens, not the
other way round. Our job is to pay
tax and be law abiding. We only need
to respect our government officials,
not fear them and the respect should
be mutual.

I hereby wish to respond to the
article by presidential senior media
aide; Garba Shehu titled "In Defense
Of Buhari: Is This The Change We
Voted For? Yes, It Is!" written few
days after I wrote a piece titled "In
Defense Of Goodluck Jonathan"./(read It here https://www.nairaland.com/3283303/defense-jonathan-facebook-user-supported )

Let me start by stating categorically
that the title of Mr Shehu's article is
an outright insult on our sensibilities
and a mockery of the hardship millions
of Nigerians are currently going
through.

Thousands of people have lost their
jobs, millions have continued to troop
to the labor market in search of
nonexistent jobs, desperate parents
have resorted to using their kids as
collateral to collect food items from
sellers, people are now stealing their
neighbors' food from the fire etc.
And we yet pretend that this is the
# Change we voted for How about
we stop lying to ourselves?? People
are really suffering and there is
really no way this could have been the
change they voted for.

1.//When they ask the question, is this
the change we voted for, the critic
forgets how far we have come from
the scam tainted years of the PDP
rule//

I don't think we have forgotten the
'scam-tainted years of the PDP rule'.
We only seek to know why a scam-
free party such as the APC welcomed
members of this 'scam-tainted PDP'
into its fold such that almost 70% of
public office holders under the APC
today were members of the PDP. Does
the APC have some kind of special
corruption cleanser with which people
are washed once they crossed over??
Let's not get it twisted. We knew the
PDP for what they really are and
that explains why we fired them and
hired you, only for you to now
welcome the same people into your
fold. Today, they are still ruling over
us in different capacities but under a
different party called the APC. The
only difference between the APC and
the PDP is the acronyms. Nothing
more.

By the way, when do we get to know
how the APC campaign was funded?
Was it funded with sand from the
river Niger? Who was their own
Dasuki?
How can we claim to be fighting
corruption when budgets are still
being padded with no one punished for
it, due process is still being trampled
upon and civil service rule broken just
so the children of the very rich and
powerful could be secretly recruited
into the civil service, orders of our
courts are being treated with disdain
etc?? You cannot fight corruption
when we are yet to know how your
own election was funded. That is the
first place to start in order to
engender confidence in the anti-
graft war.

Has the president declared his assets
publicly as he promised us?? No, he
hasn't. He only listed some of his
belongings and promised us a full
public assets declaration once the
CCB finished with the verification.
The CCB has since finished their
verification of those assets but the
president is yet to honor his promise.
Now, this is not good for the image
of the president and his integrity.
If we do not know how much our
president is worth when he became
our leader, how can we determine if
he has corruptly enriched himself
when he leaves office?? Isn't this
the whole essense of the public
assets declaration he promised us
during the campaign?? Hasn't this
wonderful idea of fighting corruption
been defeated by his refusal to fulfil
this promise?? Hasn't this painted
the whole anti-graft war with a very
bad brush??

We cannot be doing action movie and
claim we are fighting corruption.
Corruption is not fought on the
media. It is fought in the law court
before a judge with facts...solid
facts. Corruption is not fought by
arresting a suspect and nicodemously
running to a magistrate court to
obtain an order to keep him for two
weeks and then another three weeks,
hoping to coerse him into giving you
the information with which you intend
to prosecute him. No! A suspect owes
you no explanation. The only person
he/she owes explanation is the
judge. I repeat, the judge. You are
supposed to conclude investigation or
at least establish a solid case against
a suspect before moving for his
arrest. And you are not supposed to
interrogate people in the absence of
their lawyers.

You must not treat your own laws
with contempt just so you could be
seen to be fighting corruption. If the
laws are weak, strengthen them. If
the institutions are not strong
enough, strengthen them. Ideal
societies are not built on the whims
and caprices of one man. It is built on
laws!


2.//There are many today who take for
granted the declared victory over the
Boko Haram terrorists//

Today, the Fulani herdsmen kill and
maim Nigerians with impunity. They've
killed thousands and displaced millions
according to an Aljazeera report
backed by what we are experiencing
on the ground. Remember Agattu
massacre, Nimbo killing and several
such incidents of the mindless
bloodletting by the fulanis across the
country?

Defeating one security problem while
deliberately allowing another to gain
ground does not call for celebration.
Why should I roll out the drum in
celebration of the victory over boko
haram when I can still be killed or
maimed by the Fulani herdsmen right
there in my own village??
Nigerians are tired of hearing about
millions, billions and trillions of naira
and dollars recovered from the
officials of the last government. We
want to start hearing how those
monies have been used or are being
used to improve our conditions. A dead
man has no need for naira and
dollars. We are dying of hunger! And
this is not about the PDP versus the
APC. This is about the common man on
the street who has probably never
heard of those acronyms.
We don't care who caused our
problems. We just want you to fix
them because that is why we elected
you! That is why we are paying you!
To fix problems, even if they were
created by Lord Lugard.

Accusing law abiding citizens of this
country who are discharging their
duty of holding their government to
account, of being funded by corrupt
politicians is absurd. Very absurd. And
I wish not to breathe any more life
to that lie by discussing it any
further.

Reminding us of Buhari's inaugural
speech serves no purpose here. We
know he promised to tackle
insecurity, corruption, fuel and
power shortages etc. What we wanna
know is how far he has gone in
fulfilling them. Are we now secure??
Is there no more systemic corruption
in the government?? Has problem of
fuel scarcity ended? Do we now have
stable power?? How many megawatts
have been added to the national
grid


3.//The government has begun rolling
out several social welfare packages:
the direct cash transfer to the
poorest of the poor, the school
feeding and the recruitment/skills
training of about one million jobless
citizens are such an example//

This is a noble initiative. I've got
questions, though:
How are these 'poorest of the poor'
selected?? Do we have data base for
such people? How did the government
determine those who fall into that
category??
How can we feed school children if we
cannot feed the IDPs?? How??
And who are those one million jobless
citizens being recruited or trained in
the skill acquisition program? How
were they picked??
Why can a government that is
spending billions in oil exploration in
the north be talking about
diversification of the economy?
Did we budget anything for fertilizer
subsidy?? Are the farmers even being
protected?? How can we be talking of
diversification when we are still
suggesting that farmers should be
paying special protection fees before
being protected by their own
government?? When the president
donned a military fatigue for the
first time in 3 decades just to
inaugurate a taskforce against cattle
rustling, how many did he launch to
protect the farmers??
So much for diversification.

The Ogoni clean up: what has been
done since the exercise was
launched? Is gas not still being flared
in Ogoni-land??


4.//The subsidy removal has saved the
government more than two trillion
naira annual expenditure in this
respect//


If only you guys knew how much it
grieves an hungry man to keep
hearing those high sounding figures
without feeling the impact of what
those figures are being channelled
into.


5.//The president many foreign trips
have brought many things to the
country//


We know and we have never doubted
this. We only seek to know when all
those good things will translate to
food on our table. This, here is the
immediate concern of the common
man. As long as a bag of rice is still
sold for 18-19 thousand and 'mudu' of
garri is still N260, telling the poor
man what the president's foreign
trips have achieved is more like
pouring water on the back of the
duck. Na Foreign Trip We Go Chop??


6.//The president is the victim of the
tyranny of high expectations//


With all due respect, this is a very
big lie. There is only one victim here:
the poor masses! The president is not
a victim of anything here. Let's get
something very straight here: Buhari
made some impossible promises during
the campaign. He looked us eye ball
to eye ball and promised us things he
knew were impossible. If he has now
realised he couldn't fulfill those
promises, he should just come
forward and face us just like he did
when he made the promises and say;
"please my people, I have now
realized that some of those promises
upon which I got your votes are
unrealistic, please, can we just
adjust our expectations?"

This is the honorable route to take.
You cannot raise people's hope to the
sky with impossible promises during
the campaign period only to start
playing the victim after securing
their votes on the strengthen of
those promises.

I find it negatively funny that the
presidential media aide talked about
the president being prudent in
spending when we still have 11 planes
in the presidential fleets. So long as
those planes are still being used and
maintained by the presidency, any
talk about the president being
prudent would never sit well with
most Nigerians. He promised to sell
off most of those planes and he is a
man of integrity, is he not? Why has
he refused to sell those jets to cut
cost in government spending??
His good intentions for cutting down
his cabinet from 46 to 24 has since
been defeated by his insistence in
keeping those jets.


7.//The president should be credited
with the unblemished record of his
ministers. This is a government that
has stayed above board for a year//


It is okay for us to lie to ourselves
sometimes but it is unacceptable for
us to start believing our own lies.
Budget was padded left, right and
center, submitted, stolen,
resubmitted with ministers denying
their ministries budget and blaming
rat for inserting extra figures into
it. The president even admitted it and
promised to punish the culprits only
to just redeploy them.
And we say there's been no scandal?

What about the interior minister;
Gen. Dambazzou who was accused of
owning properties abroad and helping
the NPS boss falsify his age??
Note, I, Charles Ogbu, I'm not the
one accusing the minister of anything
here ooo. It is Sahara Reporters
that made the accusation with back
up proof. So that "cyberstalking"
thing should go to them, not me.
We've had scandals. We need to stop
living in denial here.

The president needs our support. No
doubt about that. But that is exactly
what we are doing in our own little
way. How best to support your
president other than by telling the
truth at all time. I mean my
president well and that is why I am
telling him those things his close
aides may be too uncomfortable to
tell him for fear of loosing their
jobs.

We need to understand one thing
here, as long as the president's aides
cannot look him in the face and tell
him the bitter truth about the
amount of hardship in the country,
we will continue to be in this mess no
matter how good the president's good
intentions may be.

May The President Succeed.

https://mobile.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10154542782194255&id=608949254&comment_id=10154544021759255&_rdr#10154544021759255

Fair analysis... Over to you Garba, so hard to defend ineptitude

i only get 2mg how will i read this summary pls

I concur

Op is confusing change with magic.
Magic is Tadaa
Change is a process

One thing I am happy for in this government is that he made me a celebrity in the face of my friends because all I said APC and Buhari will do, that he/they is/are doing. Guess what! It is NYSC: Now Your Sufferings Continue

9jii:
Op is confusing change with magic.
Magic is Tadaa
Change is a process

We are not asking the president to do magic. What we ask from him is far lesser than magical - he should keep to his campaign promises. He obtained the votes given to him fraudulently and so should stop reminding to us how he has achieved nothing.

lalasticlala, mydn44 or mynd44 make una come defend Bubu.