In the light of almost two decades of
horrendous governance under the PDP administration, the call for change by a
large section of Nigerians was expectedly overwhelmingly loud. Thus, this piece
is a response to Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to the President on
Media and Publicity, who indeed holds the copyright to the first leg of the
title of this piece which I have slightly modified – as can be seen in his latest
defence of President Muhammadu Buhari’s APC administration.
After 15 tortuous months in the life of
the current administration, a period largely mediated by growing criticisms in
the midst of persistent agony of diminished expectations, Shehu, a man you can
never accuse of being inattentive, came to what was meant to be a rescue with a
well-publicised apologia titled, “Is this the Change we voted for? Yes, It Is.”
And in a spirited effort to convey his message, Shehu provided the question as
well as the answer. Given his current station in the presidency, it is hard to
fault his emphatic submission. But with due respect to him, however, I hold a
different view: Although Nigerians believed in Buhari and indeed voted
massively for change, I’m minded to point out that what has been served so far in
real terms doesn’t seem like the change Nigerians voted for Buhari to deliver.
Yet, there are a couple of areas one
would be inclined to agree with Shehu, especially concerning what this
administration has done regarding security and corruption.
Sometime in November 2010, my friend
and colleague from our Tell magazine
days in the early 90s, Segun Adeleke, and I, had interviewed Buhari, then a
presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, in one of
the suites at Transcorp Hotel, Abuja.
The interview titled, “Soon There Won’t
Be Enough Money to Steal”, was a cover story for GIRAFFE (Vol. 1 No. 2 November 2010), a monthly magazine which we
briefly published. Then, it was clear as now, that Buhari’s priority areas
would be security, corruption and indiscipline.
Hear what he said when asked which
direction he would be taking Nigeria if elected as president in 2011 elections:
“There are two fronts. One is security. This country is terribly insecure. No
serious investor can bring his money here to build factory, provide employment
and goods and services when there is no power, when there are no roads, no
water. Look at what the country has been earning for the past 10-11 years and
look at the state of infrastructure in this country. Corruption is responsible
for that. The whole world knows it. We have said it. We will still have zero
tolerance for corruption and indiscipline.”
Although the country still faces
security challenges in the widespread menace of herdsmen, kidnapping for
ransom, rising ethnic agitations and renewed bombings down south, no honest
assessor will deny that Buhari has diligently confronted this problem
especially by limiting the threats hitherto posed by the Boko Haram insurgents
operating from the north-east region. One grey area though remains the issue of
the Chibok girls who have been in the custody of Boko Haram for more than two
years. You would expect that by now, one way or the other, we ought to have
arrived at a closure on this matter. But on the whole, this administration has
done far better than its predecessors when it comes to security.
The same single-mindedness has been
applied in tackling corruption, even if there are still reservations. All those
who looted funds meant to buy weapons for the military are being identified and
called to give account. In many cases, such funds are being returned while
there are also court cases to bring culprits to justice.
However, in the life of his
administration, you would expect that Buhari would make the famous byword of
his inaugural broadcast (I belong to everybody, and I belong to nobody) really
stick. But there have been occasions tempting enough for one to assume that our
president is exclusively for a class of people.
In a government vigorously waving the
banner of change, you would expect Buhari not to close his eyes, for instance,
to the fact that his ministers have yet to follow the path he and the
vice-president had taken by publicly declaring their assets. After all, strictly
interpreted, change means that you want to do things differently from past
administrations.
You would expect him to instantly
address the first major embarrassment to his government when one of his
foremost cabinet members stuck out his feet at a public function for one of his
aides to polish his shoes in full glare of the public. It would not happen in
countries where the leadership places premium on the dignity of the human
person.
You would expect him to have halted the
secret, largely nepotistic employments in some government institutions like the
Central Bank of Nigeria and Federal Inland Revenue Service and demand a process
that gives all Nigerians access to vacant positions in such places. In fact in
a government of genuine change, all those responsible for those sham
employments should themselves by now be out of jobs.
Also, there are reports in the public
domain that some highly-placed officials of the presidency, under our
president’s very nose, are neck-deep in shady deals running into billions of
naira, acting as agents of some crooked business persons. By now, you expect
Buhari to have used those reports to first suspend the officers so mentioned,
and then launch an independent investigation into their activities. Any
vindication of the media reports would mean automatic sack and possibly
prosecution. No cover-up under any guise.
There are a legion other issues that
are of serious concern to a great majority of Nigerians, and that should worry
this administration. The pattern of appointments Buhari has made so far is one
of them. And truly, a dispassionate assessment of these appointments would
justify the questions Nigerians are posing. Take one for example: Why would a
man who is already chief of staff to the president also be appointed a board
member of a major government organization? Has the president by this
appointment not shortchanged another person in a different section of the
country who ought to have been appointed to this position?
Yes, Buhari comes across as credible with
an admirably high integrity quotient; the only former Head of State who as at
2011 never owned a property outside Nigeria. But this virtue, against the
backdrop of our multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society, has not been enriched
enough by a healthy dose of balancing, fairness, compassion and common touch.
This government claims to be one of
change, therefore, this president should be one who occasionally pays
instantaneous visits to areas of crisis and disasters of alarming proportions
wherever they occur in this country. Again an example: Rather than leave it to
the vice-president’s wife, nothing stops Buhari from taking a trip to Kubwa to
see the family of the slain woman preacher, and once again use the opportunity
to re-affirm the freedom of religious practice as enshrined in the constitution
and the hunting down by all means of perpetrators of such heinous crimes. Those
are the periods strong messages are necessary. It is the kind of thing a
President Obama would easily do.
By the way, the country is still waiting
for the president on his promise before the election to reduce drastically the
number of aircraft on the presidential fleet. He had said then that some of them
would be sold off to cut cost. That has yet to happen, more than one year after
he assumed office.
All of this, and much more that can’t
be cited here, fuel a contrary standpoint to Shehu’s in the answer he gave to
his question. To him I say, with all sense of modesty: No sir, this is
substantially not the change we voted for.
*Courtesy: Godwin Onyeacholem is a journalist. He
can be reached on gonyeacholem@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment