BUHARI: What Spices Make A Failing President?

By: Ali Faagba 

Buhari: What spices make a failing president? 

In the year 2015, an event of historical remark was about to take place in Nigeria. To unseat an incumbent government, a political party long restricted to the South West part of the country introduced an acclaimed "discplinarian" as its forerunner in a presidential race. It launched a huge campaign of disregard and disdain against the country's most dangerous enemy: corruption. This came at a time when corruption was reaching its highest peak ever and human welfare was at the lowest ebb. From millions of Naira stashed away to foreign shores to billions of Naira and unimaginable luxuries possessed by the politicians home and abroad, the citizens were gradually getting used to corruption in trillions. The problem was not limited to squandering of public funds, there was also the incessant destructions of life and property perpetrated by Boko Haram as well as many cases of total black out and many more. Put simply, the country was beginning to become extinct and end up in history book. 

In other to foil this apocalypse and write a better history book, APC came in with its most viable candidate, a man whose history of incorruptibility was well documented and pronounced, General Muhammad Buhari. His war against indiscipline as a head of state is well chronicled. He headed a petroleum sector yet had no filling station. He was a military head of state for once but did not worth a billion, a total opposite of what his peers are. He had declared his asset many times and would still do that were he to emerge the next president of Nigeria. The list is endless. He therefore came out boldly, stood the test of blasphemies and attacks ad-hominem and promised to bring an end to the country's most vile enemy and, in so doing, bring succor to the trammelled masses. 

Among President Muhammad Buhari-APC's agenda, fighting corruption stands at the centre. He promised to tackle the BH menace head on, once given the mandate. He would make Dollar equal to Naira. He would end grandeur medical tours of our politicians. He would diversify and revive the economy. He would breath life into our refineries and would have zero tolerance for mediocrity. He would engaged the youth and dignify his administration with majestic technocrats. He would generate 3 million jobs every year. He would embark on a robust infrastructural development. With all these on ground, one would simply assume there is a clear vision. But two years down the road, is the assumption still the same? 

No, it is still an assumption and here is why. 

Let me begin by telling a personal encounter with a commercial bike man when this administration was still infant. He was taking me to a nearby location at a fixed price which I personally assumed was inflated. Within a few minutes of that transit and a fitful conversation that ensued between us, the man went on to tell me of how, in the next few months, PMS price would go down. He did this in esteemed anticipation of the effect of PMB's magic wand. But was this a sheer belief in magic wand or a justifiable belief  in the word of President-Elect who in his own words "does not know what subsidy means". We all heard the word and were all jubilant. All trusted a disciplined general whose word is his bond. Months after this, the ongoing queue he inherited from the past administration had not stopped and to end it, subsidy was removed and the action was modestly applauded. Until today we are yet to see or feel the dividends of this subsidy. And thus he broke one of his major promises to us. 

The most brazen disappointment of common man would come in form of campaign, a carricature of common sense. I used the word "common man" because the disappointment came in various ways, none of which affected the aristocrats in any deep way. The most pre-eminent of all remain the brutally unpopular campaign dubbed "change begins with me". Shall we call this a gift of morality when it brought out, writ large, the fact that the role of our religious leaders is ostensibly lacking? In a nation where it has now become the duty of the president to start appealing to the the heart of the masses, religious leaders have proven worthless. In this untoward campaign the president was quoted as saying: "Before you ask 'where is the change they promised us', you must first ask how far have I changed my ways, what have I done to change my way for the greater good of the society. At what point exactly did the president overtook the role of a national preacher? What inform the thought of a president that preaching will put food on the table of his citizens? This campaign offers the most glaring example of absent planning and barrenness of ideas and solution. It is an arid and banal exhibition of obscene confusion. An exercise in futile! 

Rift with the Legislature 

No President ever succeeded without a strong backing from the parliament. Even when, in rare cases, the mantle of leadership of the parliament falls in the hand of the opposition, a bipartisan approach becomes the model for working out solutions. It is true that the squabbles between the two arms of government is not peculiar to our nation. It happens in all countries that practice the same system of government as ours, including the most successful democracy in the world, America. But never has it happened that a ruling party becomes his own opposition. This is happening in our country right now, the opposition body remains but has been relieved of its portfolio. I shall not fail to claim that a president who failed to be frank nurtured a disrespectful generation of legislature and such a president must bear  the consequence. And when we look at his handling of the National Assembly, one sees a man whose governing inclinations are at war with each other. 

This administration is overlapping with its predecessor!!!

How have many people flagrantly ignored the fact that this President and his immediate predecessor are already overlapping? Is it a result of ignorance or just a deliberate failure of people to take cognisance of the matter? Remarkable how many of us have forgotten that the same love and admiration we poured on PMB was once given to Goodluck Ebele Jonathan(GEJ). He came in as well as a Messiah. We all admired a gentle looking man who would advance the good work of his dead boss. The hands down defeat he gave this incumbent President in those days is the most valid evidence. And such a man was he until the interest to hold on to power inspired that some political warlords, whose wings he may lean on to fly in the next election, must be treated as sacred cows. There is a strong feeling that it is under this light that GEJ left the looters under him to loot unchecked. Hoping one day, they would repay him in coins of our votes. The same men -names withheld- brought about his downfall. And today, anyone who still believe Buhari does not want to hold on to power should follow closely the saga of his SGF his likes among the president's closed circle. This cockeyed presumption of success lying with individuals remain the bane of our leadership since sometimes ago. And here is the line where two failures are crossing. 

Unhealthy president 

Health wise, the president remained agile and infirm. Even before he finally made his controversial foray to London for a so-called routine medical check up, the president has not always been up and doing. We all saw a man who globetrotted all he can but once he gets home, the story ends in talks and meetings, much of it vacuous.

Aside being made privy to his leave, all of us were left in the darkness as to why our President had taken a French leave. It was during this same time that the minister of information and all other presidential spokespersons lost their credibility in reporting to the nation. While one of his aides stammered on TV just to say he talks to people around him everyday, the minister of information continue to gag us with his persistence on wrong information on President's condition. While we may denounce this as a mere internal confusion among the presidential circle, the promise of ending all medical trips abroad for our politicians has been jettisoned by the same man who made the promise. How do we, then, still believe there is any truth in their promises. They lost their credibility when they lied to the public and at the same time lost a promise. 

Tirade against predecessors 

When warned in the past of the fruitless blaming of the past administration, PMB insisted he would continue to apportion blames. Blames took the condition of planning and when this happens excuse usually take the position of success. But why should he desist from such things when his ascendancy to presidency was based on frontal attacks on the ruling party. Shall we begin to see Stephen Bannons in Nigeria, or to whom shall we attribute this kind of hateful manifestations? Are we to ignore the IStandWithBuhari(ISWB) campaign that continues to gulp millions of Naira. Who, if we may ask, is the sponsor of this movement? Is PMB really unaware that some are busy spending millions to campaign for him? Or are we to just maintain decorum at the face of political wreck.

Untenable schemes

What do we do when we realise that all money recovered from looters so far is going into the sickly scheme of feeding school students? Too many schemes of this government are juvenile and untenable. They plan to pay 5,000 Naira monthly stipends to some sanitized number of poorest people. What is so bad and sad about this? Almost 90,000 citizens of this country live on 1 dollar per day. How does this benefit the hardworking men and women who walk down miles and miles each day to eke out a living? When the USA was in recession some years ago, Obama also did introduce some sorts of unemployment benefit to rebate it's effect. But comparing the two schemes, what semblance do they bear? None! Our market is streaming with inflation. This is coming not only as a matter of necessity but also as a result of lack of governmental interest in how things work for the common man. We still do not know where the agency created to regulate good price headed to during this needful moment. And what would 5000 Naira do to a few people for a whole month at this time? 

Job creation and stubborn refusal to increase minimum wage

According to APC's manifesto, APC shall deliver 3 million jobs in a year. The record so far has proven otherwise or, more aptly, far worse. Statistics have it that since the inception of this administration, over 3 million jobs have been lost. While the N-power programme employed 200,000 youths in 2016, a large portion of this number are still struggling to get their allowance while some were sent away base on some inexplicable problems. 

Sadly, the administration let the labourers continue to enjoy the minimum wage enacted since the year 2011. If anyone misses the frank PMB we knew during he 80's, the question of minimum wage is a good place to see the frank man again. "Labourers can protest all they want, we will neither increase their salary nor cut down that of the officialdom. 

Unhealthy President

Who can think of what happened the last time a president was chronically ill? Two things happened then, neither of which is desirable: the developments became stalled and the sick president eventually......  We all know the rest of the story. Today, one can not pray that a president dies, one can only pray that Nigeria and Africa as an extension has the kind of good leaders who understand the burden of leadership and would resign when they can no longer shoulder the responsibility. We only hear of these wonderful leaders in other continents, never have we had the lucky of their mind likes on our own soil. When a president becomes terribly ill and still hold on to power, it goes without saying that he is controlled by "Government within Government". Now who knows the Government within Government of President Muhammad Buhari. May the good heaven bless David Cameron, a good leader who resigned when he realised his country was heading towards a great self annihilation. This he did, in commendable consternation, after trying everything he could to salve the situation. 

On the question of "Government within Government",I placed the Senate President as an outsider who only observed and Aisha Buhari is the lab scientist who only confirmed. Of course, she was their in the lab when all substances were meet together and she surely has some authority to explain how the catalyst reacts. 

The government of president Muhammad Buhari is controlled by ghosts unknown to the public. Add this fact to the many things you know and you will realise that all spices that make a failing president are almost complete. In a few months to come, the struggle for another election will be full blown, one wonders how a sick president who failed in time of peace plans to juggle together the business of governing and campaigning.

Let Nigerians, when next we are going to poll, be on the look out to see whether campaign promises are surmountable or mere rhetoric and castles built on the air. President Muhammad Buhari has of course succeeded in many perceptible ways, yet he had already gathered all spices that make a failing president. 

Ali Faagba is the Editor-in-chief of Themedia.com. He writes via opeyemi.hamed@yahoo.com