As Nigeria marks the Democracy Day
today, the Director General of Voice of
Nigeria (VON) Mr. Osita Okechukwu, has
scored President Muhammadu Buhari
above average. He declared that the present
administration had built a foundation
for Nigeria’s resurgence, based on his
Social Revolution. In a statement in Enugu, the APC
chieftain noted that the Buhari Social
Revolution (BSR) has resulted in the
sanitization of corrupt institutions,
revamping of solid minerals,
innovation of ICT and repositioning of agricultural sector for enhanced
productivity. Okechukwu faulted those who were
using the abject poverty, hunger and
gross unemployment ravaging the
country to score President Buhari low. He said such people neither seemed to
care about those who stimulated the
woes in the first place, nor do they
credit Buhari with the concerted efforts
and enabling environment put in place
in the last 24 months to upgrade agriculture and stop importation of
food.
According to the VON DG, like every
silent revolution, those who scored
him (Buhari) low “wittingly or
unwittingly couldn’t locate the Buhari
Social Revolution, which in actual sense
is the Rock of Gibraltar for Nigeria’s Resurgimento.” He observed that certainty in public
affairs was gradually being enthroned,
unbridled corruption being tamed,
Boko Haram and other forms of
insecurity being contained and
construction workers returning back to work, while impunity had been bade
farewell. The statement read in part: “Buhari did
not invent the Treasury Single Account
(TSA), the Biometric Verification
Numbers (BVN) nor the Whistleblower
policy; yet he gave them life as
effective and potent anti-graft arsenal. If Nigeria is a country where records
are kept and timely reported, billions
of Naira saved by these anti-graft
instruments could have been mind-
boggling. ‘Critics would argue that they have led
to retrenchment in the banks, yes
every coin has two faces. But let the
truth be told, can we actually call what
we have banks, when they cannot lend
to the real sector, because of outrageous interest rate and other
unprofessional practices.
“Over the years banks make jumbo
profits while majority of Nigerians slide
into poverty. These are the holes which
the Buhari Social Revolution is silently
plugging. “How many of the critics of the regime
will remember that at the inception of
his regime, Buhari instead of pursuing
new projects to make name doled out
billions for the payment of salary and
pensions arrears owed by the state governments? “As a pro-people ideologue he said
that the workers welfare should come
first, as some states owed for over ten
months. As a result, many lives were
saved, vindicating the position of the
1999 Constitution that the welfare and security of the people is the primary
purpose of government”. He noted that the main reason why
some scored Buhari low was because
of the slump in oil prices, the mono-
product and life blood of our economy,
which was made worse by the
unprecedented looting which stripped the revenue and assets of the last
bounty oil season, (2009-2014),
whereas records had it that between
these Jonathan locust five years, oil
price hovered around $100 per barrel. Okechukwu maintained that in rating
Buhari, his critics forgot that he was
not instrumental to the slump in oil
prices and accordingly “our misery,
emanating from fluctuations of oil price
in the international market, which we have no control over and why Mr.
President was putting emphasis on the
diversification of the economy, to open
other sectors and make them to
compete with oil as revenue earner.” He equally noted that some people
score Buhari low because of their
animosity on the way some of them
who were close to Mr. President
skewed and hoarded the appointments
which could have accommodated those who worked day and night to
make the Buhari Brand in the first place
possible. He admitted that one cannot dismiss
the allegations, but assured there was
still time to use the remaining
appointments as a balm to heal the
grievance of party members, because
they were entitled to it as democracy dividends.