“Page 65 of the report titled, Leadership Style and Economic Outcomes effectively showed that APC government of Buhari’s leadership style has resulted in the poorest economic outcomes for Nigeria.”
Today, we are all experiencing the consequences of electing incompetence dressed in borrowed robes as president. See the mess that Nigeria has become – a tragedy of monumental proportions. In just eight years, Buhari and his All-Progressives Congress (APC) have turned Nigeria upside down, a land flowing with milk and honey, has been turned into a famished land. They say once bitten, twice shy, but strangely, many are at it again, eager to repeat their foolery.
As I have consistently stated, Nigerians are incredibly smart people, with a history of foolish choices. Is it not baffling that despite the damage done to this country by the APC in nearly eight years of staggering misrule that is palpable even to the blind, that some people still support it to remain in power, from top to the bottom of the social class?
Fellow Nigerians, it is the season of politics and another election cycle is upon us. Candidates are presenting themselves to the electorate to be considered for various positions. But this cycle is looking more and more like 2015 when men and women, young and old, reasoned in reverse order. All efforts to make them see the danger and demagoguery that then-candidate Muhammadu Buhari represented proved futile. They were deaf to reason and blind to the red flags.
“Rewane is not a PDP member but a member of the president’s own economic advisory council, he gave a tactical jab at Buhari saying, “Nigeria is approaching the fiscal cliff with a fiscal deficit of N3.09 trillion and the actual debt service was more than revenue between January and April 2022
Really, I don’t know what to make of such people. I have argued in many private discussions that a lot more people need psychiatric examinations than I had previously thought. Because I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone in their right senses is promoting APC to retain power, how much more campaigning for someone with a reputation for dirty dealing like Bola Ahmed Tinubu as a candidate for president. How? Is this what our country has become?
On what basis is the party even presenting candidates for various positions in the forthcoming general election? Shouldn’t it rather be apologising every day for the escalating insecurity in the land? Why are Nigerians not holding the APC to account for the nation’s worsening insecurity?
You see, the current nationwide insecurity was largely created by the APC. At least, we now know how far it went to win the 2015 presidential election. In February 2021, Abubakar Kawu Baraje, former acting chairman, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and later chieftain of the APC, revealed the latter’s culpability in the security crisis plaguing the country. He traced the origin of the increasing insecurity to the activities of the Fulani that were brought in from neighbouring countries, viz. Sierra Leone, Mali, Senegal, Niger and Chad to facilitate victory for the APC in the 2015 election.
“Is it not baffling that despite the damage done to this country by the APC in nearly eight years of staggering misrule that is palpable even to the blind, that some people still support it to remain in power, from top to the bottom of the social class? “
Baraje, who also once served as the chairman of the breakaway faction of the PDP that merged with other groups to form the APC had this admonition to Nigerians: “We are not asking the right questions on how the same Fulani we have been living with suddenly turned out to be a menace. We also must ask how they had access to their guns. The security agencies have not been open about the nature of the problem. They have made arrests. Why haven’t they told the public who the terrorists are. After the election, the Fulani refused to leave. I and others of like mind wrote and warned those we started APC with that this was going to happen but nobody listened.”
With this revelation, which has not been disputed, it is difficult to understand the basis for anyone to associate with this party, except of course if the many lives that have been lost and the frightening state of insecurity do not mean anything to such a person. Does Baraje’s revelation not jolt and frighten you?
“Are we cursed as a people not to be able to decipher good from evil? On what basis is anyone in his right senses even mouthing the APC to retain power at the federal level?”
What does it tell you of the character of these people? And does it not partially explain the reluctance to deal with these bloodthirsty renegades? If those at the highest echelon of power have no hand in creating the security mess, we have found ourselves, certainly there would have been more willingness and energy to deal with these terrorists, bandits and mass kidnappers that have effectively held the whole nation hostage.
Merely looking at the havoc these savages brought in by the APC to help it win election in 2015 have wreaked on this country, and continue to wreak, one is surprised that a lot of people still even associate with such a political party – an assemblage of vultures that has soaked this country in unprecedented carnage. Are we cursed as a people not to be able to decipher good from evil? On what basis is anyone in his right senses even mouthing the APC to retain power at the federal level?
“the APC-led government is in bed with terrorists. We must shine our eyes – all the more so because the Chief propagandist himself is the APC presidential standard-bearer and the majority of us have no ‘Plan B’. Many of those wilfully-blinded countrymen and women who put us in this tragedy have either fled to Canada or other parts of the world,”
On the basis of what are you going to vote for this party and its presidential candidate when your neigbhour or someone you know has been affected one way or another by the activities of the bandits, terrorists, or is even still languishing in the hands of kidnappers somewhere in the forest?
Thousands of Nigerians – poor and innocent people are in the hands of criminals in bushes with huge ransoms placed on their heads. How can anyone with a conscience associate with a party that deserves a root and branch removal from our psyche? This party needs to be denounced and not associated with. Its presidential candidate needs to be denounced and not supported for making a man with roaring incompetence president of Nigeria.
It beggars belief that nothing outrages us anymore. We have become numb to mindless atrocities and embraced mediocrity as excellence.
Now, let’s look at the activities of those accused of financing terrorism. Over a year after federal authorities announced that about 400 alleged Boko Haram sponsors and financiers had been arrested in a nationwide operation, they have not been prosecuted. The government has kept quiet on the issue in the we’ll soon forget.
“From the data and deductions provided by Rewane, one can see clearly that this government has nothing to offer. It has made things worse for everybody. It has created more economic pain and worsened the security situation in the country.”
Fellow Nigerians, the APC-led government is in bed with terrorists. We must shine our eyes – all the more so because the Chief propagandist himself is the APC presidential standard-bearer and the majority of us have no ‘Plan B’. Many of those wilfully-blinded countrymen and women who put us in this tragedy have either fled to Canada or other parts of the world, where terrorists and killer bandits are not treated with kid gloves, or allowed to kill and maim people unchallenged by security forces. Where mass kidnapping or even kidnapping at all, is a rarity, and when it does happen, the security forces would spare no effort and leave no stone unturned to bring the culprits to justice.
But here in their country, the government they helped to power is accused of colluding with terrorists to kill and maim people, in pursuit of whatever goal or agenda that is shrouded in a web of conspiracy of feudal desire to forcefully appropriate other people’s lands said to be in fulfilment of an ancient prophecy. Nigerians are weeping and gnashing their teeth in despair and near hopelessness at the reckoning that is upon us. And things can even get worse.
However, the remnants of Buhari’s brand of governance by incompetence, (they call themselves Buharists, to claim a false sense of distinction from others, but I call them lost souls in the wilderness of emptiness), remain obstinate about what they have done to this country. Luckily, we know some of them. We know their names. They live among us, as neighbours, friends, acquaintances. Hopefully, they will not be able to shake off the label they have given themselves for many years to come.
Now, they are rooting for another flawed character whose resume reeks of a lifetime of misdeeds and perfidy. A man who declared publicly that he made Buhari president but is trying hard to distance himself from the disaster that Nigeria has become on the president’s watch.
Regardless of everything else at play, and even though some APC supporters may be pretending to be less than devastated by their party’s performance, the daily reality of our situation and the indisputable fact is that the country is worse off in every material sense and things have reached a particularly perilous cliff
A report by a member of President Buhari’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC)/Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Derivatives Company Limited, Mr. Bismarck Rewane, which compared major economic indicators under the present administration with that of past governments since 1999 says it all. The report busted the bubble of false claims consistently made by this government, the APC and their complacent supporters about PDP’s ‘16 years of waste’.
Page 65 of the report titled, Leadership Style and Economic Outcomes effectively showed that Buhari’s leadership style has resulted in the poorest economic outcomes for Nigeria. The economist arrived at this conclusion by comparing the country’s average Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate, average inflation rate, percentage of exchange rate depreciation at the beginning and end of each presidential tenure, external reserves, external debt in dollar terms, and external reserves minus external debt.
He pointed out that the average GDP growth rate was 7.7 per cent, 7.1 per cent, 5.5 per cent, and 1.1 per cent, while the average inflation rate was 12.19 per cent, 13.18 per cent, 9.70 per cent and 14.07 per cent under the administrations of Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan and Buhari respectively.
Furthermore, Rewane showed that the external reserves at the end of each presidential tenure and the percentage of depreciation in the exchange rate were $43.17 billion, 26 per cent; $32.34 billion, 27.4 per cent; $28.57 billion, 63.5 per cent; and $39.18 billion,150.2 per cent in the same order.
The data he presented also showed that Nigeria’s external debt and external reserves less external debt stood at $3 billion, $40.17 billion; $10 billion, $22.34 billion; $15 billion, $13.57 billion and $40 billion, $-0.82 billion under Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan and Buhari respectively.
We can safely deduce from the above data that the Buhari administration had the least average GDP growth of 1.1 per cent; highest average inflation rate of 14.07; highest exchange rate depreciation of 150.5 per cent; highest external debt of $40 billion, with a negative reserves less external debt of $-0.82 billion.
“You see, they met Nigeria in a far better state and have turned it into the poverty capital of the world. These people are the perfect examples of the saying, empty vessels make the most sound.”
In terms of leadership style and economic outcomes, the economist (Rewane is not a PDP member but a member of the president’s own economic advisory council) gave a tactical jab at Buhari saying, a political leader could be fully engaged hands on; or aloof and effective; or incompetent and ineffective or willing but unable.
Then he delivered the final clincher that under Buhari, “Nigeria is approaching the fiscal cliff with a fiscal deficit of N3.09 trillion and the actual debt service was more than revenue between January and April 2022. In addition, the excess crude oil account was depleted to $375,000 in July 2022 from $35.7 million in June 2022.”
You see, they met Nigeria in a far better state and have turned it into the poverty capital of the world. These people are the perfect examples of the saying, empty vessels make the most sound. From the data and deductions provided by Rewane, one can see clearly that this government has nothing to offer. It has made things worse for everybody. It has created more economic pain and worsened the security situation in the country. The roads are no longer safe to travel, the rail and the airports are just as unsafe. Corruption is so endemic in this government that it has become the official language of doing business. Yet, this government rode to power on propaganda of lies and mantra of change. Nearly eight years after, what has changed? Things have gone from bad to terrifyingly worse.
Article Previously titled: Buhari’s Legacy and Tinubu’s Albastros.THIS REPUBLIC By Shaka Momodu.
