State of the Nation under Buhari after Two Unproductive Years!

It took the abduction of Chibok girls for me to lose my patience with President Goodluck Jonathan, the immediate past president of Nigeria. President Buhari has done enough for me to declare him "persona non grata". I have lost all hopes that Buhari’s government can make any difference for an average Nigerian. He was supposed to be an alternative to a president who rationalized corruption on national television, calling it "mere stealing". He ought to be the president of all Nigerians and not the Fulanis or Northerners alone, but all indication is that this man is exactly who we thought he was – a tribalist not a nationalist.

Can a pig ever become a dog, bath it, cloth it, it will return to its mud? Nigeria should have learned its lesson and take a cue from Buhari's antecedents - he was never a productive leader at any time he led an institution. The only thing that made him alternative to GEJ was his reputation for stamping out corruption as a military head of state - apparently, it was his deputy calling all the shots while he was just a figure head, rubber stamping everything. Buhari has not delivered anything from his core campaign promises, all we see are failures all over the place – no jobs for our children, the economy has shrunk under his watch, states corruption has risen, infrastructures have still not improved differently from Jonathan’s era, all we see is Buhari directing all effort to the North, spending billions of naira to explore oil in the Chad basin and asking World Bank to direct all its effort towards northerners alone, putting his incompetent folks into important positions among several display of incompetence:

1.      Buhari’s kinsmen, the Fulani herdsmen are wreaking havoc all over the nation and he is yet to say ONE word on this, let alone declare them terrorists that they are. Buhari would send a condolence message to other world leaders where terrorists had attacked its people but he is yet to say a word when over 800 Southern Kaduna indigenes were butchered overnight by his kinsmen on Christmas Eve last year. How many people has IPOB killed since they started their separatist movement that Buhari is pursuing their leaders all over the place? Buhari called the killing of over 800 Christians a state affair (https://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/12/kaduna-killings-buhari-cant-talk-everything-adesina/) so he refused to comment or address the issue, which in absolute term is a "HATE CRIME" that borders on ethnic cleansing and bigotry. In 2003, Buhari led an army of Northerners, including Gen Marwa, former military governor of Lagos state to Oyo State on the claim that 68 Fulani herdsmen were killed in Oke-Ogun without any proof - it turned out it was a fabricated story, he came in a motorcade of who is who in the Fulani community up north, spitting fire and pointing fingers. (https://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/12/kaduna-killings-buhari-cant-talk-everything-adesina/). The same Buhari will not utter a word since Fulani have been causing havoc all over the nation - he has refused to address the nation on it. What we see is that his kinsmen at the National Assembly are pushing a bill that will confiscate people's land from West to East for his brothers from the North to grace on without any guarantee that they will stop destroying people's land. If somebody of Olu Falae’s status was abducted by these nefarious people and Buhari failed to help recover him until his family paid these buffoons, it is a shame. These AK47 carrying Fulanis have since returned to Olu Falae's farm many time since then, on one occasion, they killed his chief security officer. Till date, no single Fulani herdsman has been arrested and prosecuted for all the mayhem they have committed. What we read is that they have been paid to pacify them by the ambitious Governor El-Rufai of Kaduna State, still, they came back to kill over 800 innocent Nigerians. This is what Buhari is doing – it is not different from what you see in America, where the White led government will spend billions of dollars to treat Opioid-addicted white Appalachians today but during the crack cocaine epidemic in African America communities, many of them were sent to jail and no help came. When you give a madman a hoe, he will make ridges only in his direction. (https://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/12/weve-paid-fulani-stop-killings-southern-kaduna-el-rufai/). IPOBs are considered criminals, while Boko Haram members are being released and murderous Fulani herdsmen are being paid instead of being arrested and jailed, wherever they are from. Southern Kaduna people are not Fulani and they are Christians, so they are immaterial, just as black lives don’t matter in America. The latest havoc of Fulani herdsmen is the incident in Plateau state, and I will not be surprised if Buhari kept mute.

2.      Fighting corruption was the main reason why Nigerians, especially Yorubas from the South West elected Buhari, but he has failed out rightly in spite of few arrest here and there and billions of naira recovered, which nobody knows what has happened to. I said this not because graft has not reduced compared to the time of Jonathan, I said it because Nigerians are yet to see evidence of the fight against corruption under Buhari. It has not added anything to their income nor has scapegoat been made of any top politician. NOT one single high profile case has been prosecuted to a logical conclusion in 2 years of Buhari anti-corruption; all the effort of unifying federal account has not yielded much fruits because under Buhari’s watch means are been devised to continue the stealing.

Corruption is not just stealing state money, it includes abuse of position by politicians to enrich themselves indirectly either by awarding contracts to themselves or members of their family or by appointing members of their families to juicy positions within the government. A lopsided appointment in a country so diverse as Nigeria is corruption. Insensitivity to terror act against some citizens because of who they are is corruption. All of these nonsense continues under Buhari and he champions some. Where is the change, baba anti-corruption, where is it, we CANNOT SEE ANYTHING, your fight has failed, failed and it is shameful.

If Buhari cannot curb corruption at the Aso Rock Clinic, how can he stop it any other level of government. It is still business as usual at all Federal Ministries – if you don’t pay bribe you hardly can get any serious work done as an ordinary citizen, a contractor or public institutions/parastatals like research institutes who would need to inflate staff number to be able to ensure they have enough money to bribe Federal Ministry of Finance staff for their allocation to be released on time. It is still a filled day everywhere, who are we deceiving that Buhari’s fight has done what it should? The spate of corruption at the state government level is unprecedented, and the level of impunity and abuse of power in some states, where the salary of civil servants has not been paid for upward of 17 months, is disheartening. Buhari cannot get EFCC head appointment confirmed, corrupt politicians whose stolen money were recovered are getting the court and the national assembly to intervene to have the ill-gotten money released. The result of the fight against corruption is mixed, and I will submit that what supposed to be Buhari’s number achievement is not because Obasanjo’s government achieved so much more in the fight against corruption.

3.       Jobs and the economy: Nigeria’s economy has shrunk under Buhari and jobs have taken flight out since Buhari became president because of the level of uncertainty that surrounded his presidency. You would think a man who contested to be president 3 times and failed would have a blueprint of his plans, including economic plans so much so that he will begin implementation almost immediately after assuming office. No, Buhari did not appoint Ministers until months while several key issues suffered, and investors began to pull their money out the country and naira took a free fall, depreciating to an abysmal rate of more than N500 to a dollar, isn’t that a shame. United and Delta Airlines pulled out of Nigeria under Buhari, they no longer operate direct flights from the US to Nigeria until recently that Delta returned after they were able to negotiate a deal to have ticket purchased in dollars instead of naira. Many companies have moved to neighboring countries like Ghana where polices were more stable, under Buhari. Buhari’s finance minister solution to economic growth is that everybody should be taxed, including Nigerian graduates who live at home with their parents after years of completing one or two degrees and have no job.

Buhari continues to make economic decision based on politics – case in point. The authorization by Buhari that all 36 states be connected by national rail-line without any economic consideration for this. How will linking every state in Nigeria to the railway bring economic benefit – for some states, it will be a total waste of money. The project is estimated to cost $36 billion naira, which is N13 trillion naira. That is Nigeria’s 2-year total budget.

I do not see any massive plan by Buhari to diversify Nigeria’s economy from oil that is already useless. There is no massive investment in agricultural production, food processing and human capacity development in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Oil price can never return to post Yar’adua era of $140/barrel. It will continue to go down. Nigeria continues to struggle to sell its oil. The US, in one year, reduced importation of Nigerian oil from about 80% to 0%. Petroleum has no future because of renewable energy and effort towards Green Technology. In about 15 years, demand for petroleum from developed countries, who are the major consumer, will reduce drastically because of the investment in renewable energy and battery technology to replace combustion engine. By 2040, some EU countries would have replaced ALL, I mean ALL combustion engines on their roads. While our politicians are busy sharing the proceeds of oil at the national Assembly, China, America, and the EU are busy plotting ways to generate energy responsibly through plants, nature, wind, ocean waves, sound, vibration and so on and develop batteries or systems that can store them for long. If Nigerians do not wake up, we are in trouble. What we saw between 2014 and 2016 is child’s play compared to what is coming if nothing changes.

4.       2019 is around the corner, Nigerians cannot continue to do the same thing, get the same result, and then hope, fast and pray that things will change by installing incompetent and unpatriotic leaders. Let us find leaders with proven record of achievement, young, patriotic, leaders who are first a Nigerian before they are ethnic people, leaders who have a plan that can be tested, leaders who will produce for our people. Ki eku ile o’gbo, ko so fun t’oko, nkan mbo ti o daa t’a ba tete m’oju to – Let the rat at home inform those on the farm, a change is coming that will impact Nigeria in a way not wholesome if we do not STAND UP for our country now and be the change we want and enforce that change by electing the best hands (not old and failed hands) to the highest offices. Long live Nigeria.