EBERE WABARA
[email protected] 08055001948
LET me state unequivocally from the outset that this dispassionate state-of-the-nation report is not one of those bashings of the former president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. In the same vein, it is not solicitous for President Muhammadu Buhari’s attention beyond its digestion like any other reader, if at all he gets time to peruse this intervention. It is germane to make this critical clarification because of the tribe of mischief-makers and their usual venomous and banal interjections.
There are unflinching, wide and wild misconceptions that President Buhari is the exclusive cause of the ravaging hardship, wracking poverty and strangulating times in Nigeria today! There is so much angst and grouse about him over everything by almost everyone! This misplaced anger is based on sheer blissful ignorance—even by those who should know despite the present inevitable national asphyxiation.
In his Democracy Day message last Friday, the former governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Kalu, pleaded with Nigerians to be patient with President Buhari over the challenges facing the country and its citizens. Kalu pointed out correctly that it was easier to destroy than to build. Of course, this analogy is self-explanatory in our current circumstances and does not require any elucidation or explication. Have you noticed that there is acute hunger in the land occasioned by ravaging poverty in all its unprecedentedness?
Until the on-going scandalous revelations of official graft, I never knew any set of politicians or party could be worse than the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN). The sleaze by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during the tenure of Jonathan and the consequential ruination of the country remind me of Idi Amin’s Uganda and Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe!
Every administration has its bad side. By the time this government completes its tenure, we shall also hear stories of corruption. What differs among various sets of rulers/ leaders in the country is the degree of thievery. The issue had never been whether there would be misappropriation or not. Tampering with public tilt is a way of life in this part of the world. There is hardly any administration, which has had a record of probity.
The magnitude of destruction the PDP has committed in this country in the past 23 years or thereabouts will take more than two terms of Buhari’s presidency to rebuild. Naturally, we seem to be a very impatient group of species! Therefore, most of us out of ignorance of the stark realities we have found ourselves—no thanks to Jonathan and his gang—hold President Buhari culpable for the sins of his predecessor and want him to address all the sore points overnight, which is impossible.
Instead of holding President Buhari responsible for our present predicaments, the blame should be put at the doorsteps of Jonathan whenever he returns from his moonlighting overseas for perfunctory medical check-up and otiose consultations! One exculpatory theory has it that Jonathan may not have known most of the financial crimes committed by his lieutenants and propagandists. This is a lame diversion and distraction because the buck stopped at his desk. Whether he knew is immaterial. The irrefutable fact is that he takes responsibility for everything.
How can we hold President Buhari responsible for the skyrocketing prices of virtually everything from consumables to other things imaginable? This is a clear aftermath of misgovernance by the former administration. Prices are tumbling in response to ongoing redemptive efforts and overall re-engineering of the national economy. There is bound to be fleeting hardship for everyone particularly the less privileged. A multi-billionaire told me last week that his income had dropped by 45 per cent due largely to current restructuring and correctional initiatives in the country and general global economic instability (or is it meltdown?)
Just like the last administration, with all due respect, I blame President Buhari’s information managers for not massively articulating these issues in their right perspectives and communicating them to Nigerians. Facebook satiation with the President’s controversial foreign trips can only interest a few of the mega-entrepreneurs in the country and not artisans and market women whose livelihood depends daily on the national price index vis-a-vis the cost of social infrastructures and other condiments for survivalism. The majority of our people are not interested in those funny presidential pictorials splashed on Facebook and other social media. Let them know why the current price of tomatoes, yam, fuel, medicals, tuition in private schools and other basic demands of life, ad infinitum, are beyond their reach and what the governent is doing to redress the situation. This should be communicated preferably with traditional communicative tools—not new media technologies—on a daily basis, possibly. This way, the masses and the affluent members of the society and the government would be on the same page. Right now, there is a lacuna between what is happening in administration of Nigeria and the information out there amid a superfluity of presidential media inanities.
President Buhari needs to stop the monster of plea bargain in whatever form. Other countries do not institutionalize anti-corruption paradigms by taking back some of the stolen items from thieves and allowing them to go free! I read at the weekend that the Olisa Metuh family are ready to refund N400 million hanging on the neck of Olisa. Earlier, a certain Badeh in the same shoes with Olisa had issued three refund cheques to the government valued at over N2.6 billion in related circumstances. There are many other allied cases, whose culprits are equally waiting to return parts of their brazen loot at the opportune time. We cannot grow this country if we continue with this Jankara style only seen in circus shows!
If we must resolve most of these corruption cases and foreclose commitals, President Buhari must perforce take extra-judicial steps and a measure of unconstitutionalism. He should not listen to activist lawyers, human rights advocates and jobless NGOs or international busybodies because ours is a peculiar case. Conventional courts and a lethargic judicial system swimming in corruption cannot advance our case. After we have “hypo-ed” the augeans stables we can return to legalism and its sophistry, if need be!
I have the strong conviction that President Buhari is doing his utmost to fix this country. It is unfortunate that he never envisaged the depth of misgovernance before stepping out. If he knew, he would not have come out considering his age and attitudinal disposition to life in all its ramifications.