The Declaration
After waiting for so long to declare his ambition for a second term, perhaps, waiting for Allah’s permission, or for the “Nigerian people” to “push” and “plead with him” to run, PMB has finally declared for the 2019 presidency. Only political or information neophytes would have doubted that PMB would certainly seek reelection. I had predicted, nay written about this, more than six months ago, using his now, famous “body language.”
For the avoidance of doubt, it is PMB’s undoubted constitutional right to contest for the Nigerian presidency, having run only once. His earlier occupation of the number one seat as a military dictator is not counted under our constitutional organogram.
However, it is also the constitutional right of Nigerians to roundly reject him at the polls, having performed abysmally and disastrously below average. The evidence is all too glaring, admitting of no ambiguity. Let us look at some of the areas:
Economy
This is one of his three-legged pact with Nigerians.
The economy is in an all-time low. From an over $500 billion rebased economy (according to the World Bank and IMF), which PMB met, he took Nigeria into recession and now claims to have taken it out. He says this calls for celebration. But the figures don’t tally, nor does the story jell. Nigerians are hungrier today than they were three years ago. They have been rendered destitute and impecunious.
Many have resorted to going to Lybia and attempting to cross the seas to European countries to escape from hunger and squalor, thereby dying in the process. More Nigerians have taken to prostitution across European nations more than ever before. Many of them are gang-raped, sodomised, enslaved and bestialised. The youths have taken up arms, committing heinous crimes such as robbery and kidnapping more than ever in the history of this country.
Where PMB and APC promised three million new jobs per annum, they have caused Nigerians to, paradoxically, lose about 3.5 million jobs annually, according to his own Federal Government Bureau of Statistics. Price of fuel alternates between N145 per litre and N400, whenever available. He met it at N87 per litre. Rice now sells for between N15,000 and N20,000 per bag. He met it at N7,500. Prices of goods and consumables have gone out of the reach of the common man, with Nigerians literally feeding from dustbins. So, on the economic front, one of his tripodal promises, he has failed Nigeria and Nigerians. Is this why they will vote for him again? I want to see.
Wiping out insecurity
The second leg of his campaign mantra was to wipe out insecurity. At campaign rallies across Nigeria, he convinced gullible Nigerians that, as a retired army General, he would lead from the front to crush Boko Haram. Indeed, he gleefully told a bemused country in December 2015 that Boko Haram had been “technically defeated,” and repeated it in 2016, that it “has been beaten.”
But Nigerians know that Boko Haram is stronger today, more potent and more deadly than it ever was. We are regaled daily (check online, print and electronic media), with tales of Boko Haram’s blood-letting exploits, maiming, killing and burning houses across the North East. With apparent government collusion (the military in Dapchi were hurriedly posted out), Chibok was re-enacted in Dapchi, where over 110 secondary schoolgirls were viciously abducted. They were later “released” in Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood style, in broad daylight, by the same Boko Haram, after mind-boggling sums were said to have been paid to them as “ransom.” They were never waylaid and massacred.
Many detained, and even convicted Boko Haramists have been incredulously released in alleged “prisoner swap,” and money paid to them. With this, they purchased more modern war equipment to emerge with more deadliness. The Sambisa forest that was said to have been cleared is today brimming with the dreaded sect.
If Boko Haram, regarded as one of the four leading terrorist groups in the world, were considered deadly enough, the rampaging herdsmen have become more murderous. Day-in, day-out, they kill innocent Nigerians in their homes, their farms, burn others, lay siege on whole communities, rape their wives and daughters and kidnap the men. Never has Nigeria witnessed more insecurity than today. Whereas Boko haram was limited to the North East, herdsmen’s menace is spread across all the nooks and crannies of Nigeria. Government does not even pretend to want to curb the insurgency. Kidnappings, murders, suicides and rape cases have since increased geometrically, rather than arithmetically.
Consequently, on the insecurity front, PMB has scored below average. Is this why Nigerians will vote for him?
The fight against corruption
Let us look at the third leg of his tripod: fighting corruption.
PMB’s greatest failing is perhaps in this anti-corruption context. He had promised to fight corruption. Three years down the line, he has not secured a single conviction of any high-profile, politically-exposed person.
Rather, Nigerians have been treated to ludicrous media trial. In desperation, the government has now released names of opposition members whom they have charged to court, but cannot prove their cases against, as “looters,” without any court conviction or judicial pronouncement to that effect.
This is in sync with the government’s now infamous disrespect and disregard for due process, rule of law, independence of the judiciary and disobedience to court orders. Impunity reigns supreme. In appointments, cronyism, nepotism, tribalism, clannishness and favouritism triumph over merit and competence.
Transparency International, in its recent corruption perception index, has rated Nigeria as one of the most corrupt countries in Africa, beaten to the second position in West African by only one country. Nigeria placed 148th globally, out of 180 countries; freedom of speech, press freedom, NGOs’ freedom, and sundry liberties are seriously curbed, leading to a reign of fear and terror.
Where the government fights “corruption” among the opposition and critics with pesticides, herbicides and insecticides, it caresses and deodorises its own corrupt officials, ministers, serving military generals and kitchen cabinet members with sweet-smelling sasarabia cologne. Corruption reeks everywhere in the government, with many Pandora’s boxes of oozing gates: “Mainagate”, “Babachirgate”, “Health sectorgate” and “NNPC-gate” (where the minister of state, petroleum resources, revealed to a shocked nation how $23 billion contracts, were irregularly awarded and signed by PMB on his sick bed abroad, at a time Osinbajo was already the Acting President). Note that the Dasukigate of $2.1 billion on which the government has pegged its anti-corruption fight is less than 10 per cent of this “NNPC-gate”.
Corruption now struts around and about proudly, unrestrained, walking on its fours, head and even buttocks. Corruption has now assumed a larger-than-life image, with the government not only protecting it but also nurturing and fertilising it. Some members of this government who have been indicted by judicial commissions of inquiry in their states when they were either governors or chairmen of boards are shielded from public scrutiny and prosecution.
The government operates opaquely, tyrannically and dictatorially, nuances unknown to a constitutional democracy. Monies (such as the attempt to take $1 billion out of the Excess Crude Account), are appropriated without approval by the National Assembly, an arm that is, together with the judiciary, treated by the PMB government with contempt, disdain and near ostracism.
I welcome PMB’s declaration
I, therefore, welcome Buhari’s declaration. Let me remind him that he had sent packing a sitting President, GEJ, in 2015. In Sierra Leone, a sitting President Samura Kamara of the All People’s Congress (APC), note the similarity of names, has been sent packing by the opposition contestant, Julius Bio.
So, the rumours that the APC/PMB’s government is banking on massive rigging of the 2019 election to win is merely illusory. It cannot work. Nigerians are more enlightened today than ever before. They will use their PVCs to vote wisely, notwithstanding any acts of intimidation or coercion; 2019 is just 10 months away.
I will keep my fingers crossed to see how it all plays out. The months ahead will be very interesting. And quite testing.
SHORT TAKES
Constitutional implication of President Buhari’s travel abroad without transferring power to his Vice
Towards the close of March 2018, It was reported in some online media, with specific reference to Sahara Reporters Online News publication of March 28, 2018, that President Muhammadu Buhari would embark on “medical leave,” starting from the first week of April 2018, and would also be attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), 2018, in London, from April 16 to 20, 2018. No return date was fixed, according to the report from Sahara.
However, in The Guardian Newspaper of April 9, 2018, it was reported that President Buhari would depart Abuja for an official visit to Britain, where he is expected to hold discussions on Nigeria-British relations with Prime Minister Theresa May, prior to the CHOGM.
It was also reported that the President would meet the chief executive officer of Royal Dutch Plc, Mr. Ben van Beurden, in connection with Shell and other partners’ plan to invest $15 billion in Nigeria’s oil industry. This statement in respect of the President’s journey abroad was signed by Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, where he further stated thus:
“These investment ventures will lay the foundation for the next 20 years’ production and domestic gas supply, bringing with it all the attendant benefits both to the economy and the wider society.”
The statement further stated that President Buhari is due to renew discussions with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. and Rt. Hon. Justin Welby, a good friend of the President, on inter-religious harmony in Nigeria and worldwide.
According to the statement, further meetings have also been scheduled for the President to see some prominent Britons and Nigerians residing in Britain. The President made good these reports when he flew out of Nigeria on April 9, 2018, shortly after the NEC meeting of APC.
The legal position
Section 145 of the 1999 Constitution, as altered, provides that “Whenever the President transmits to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives a written declaration that he is proceeding on vacation or that he is otherwise unable to discharge the functions of his office, until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such functions shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.”
It is our humble view that, flowing from the statement signed by the Senior Special Assistant to President Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, the President would be going on an official visit to Britain as against the vacation that was originally publicised by online sources.
In this circumstance, the provisions of Section 145 of the 1999 Constitution, as altered, would definitely not apply.
It should be noted that previous official visits of Mr. President to other countries did not require transmission of any letter to the National Assembly. We respectfully submit that, since the Special Assistant to Mr. President has affirmed the official position of the President’s visit, a letter to the National Assembly will not be required. It would have been otherwise if the President “is proceeding on vacation”, or “he is otherwise unable to discharge the functions of his office.” None of these situations has occurred.
PMB is, therefore, perfectly right to proceed abroad on official engagements without transmitting to “the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives a written declaration that he is proceeding on vacation or he is otherwise unable to discharge the functions of his office.”
Thought for the week
“Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.” (Oprah Winfrey).