Buhari: 6 months in the saddle

  


 It is exactly six months into the new dispensation and, like the story of the children of God expecting manner from above, so are the citizens still highly expectant of the so many bogus campaign promises of the All Progressives Congress (APC), which helped them garner the votes of the teaming populace into power.

From the voices on the street, its be­coming conspicuously clear that the cho­rus echoed by so many for change before the elections is now regrettable as they are yet to feel the impact. The same voices that shouted for change and sang the Sai-Baba, Sai-Buhari praises are all now sing­ing a different song.

According to a recent vox-pop, a large chunk of the ruling party’s supporters who believed so strongly in the person of Pres­ident Muhammadu Buhari and his change agenda now feel they have been bamboo­zled and deceived to vote for a change that is not visible. Although some schools of thoughts have said that six months is not enough to scale the performance of a new administration that took over power from a government that used 16 years to ruin and put the nation in shambles with its odd pattern of leadership. Contrary to this, like a saying goes, the present determines the outcome of the future. The body lan­guage of the present government so far is that of a government not sure of bringing about the real and desirable change even in the remaining years ahead.

A clear justification of this fact is the drama that led to the emergence of the heads of the National Assembly, the Sen­ate president and the speaker of the House of Representatives. Their rise to the re­spective positions shows how individual interest always exhibited by our politi­cians has continued to keep the nation in the state it is. With the continuous war of words between the ruling party, APC and the opposition, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), there’s no gain saying that the change mantra was basically to seize power from the PDP for its 16 years of dominating the political scene -nothing more, nothing less, so as to have a fair-share of what the opposition had always enjoyed in power. Little wonder why some analysts had said there’s little or nothing to expect from the new govern­ment, as almost every member of the rul­ing party were once active players in the PDP, stating its nothing but a clear case of an old wine in a new bottle; re-christening the APC into “Association of Past Crimi­nals,” a name one can say befits it, as it has continued with the trend of the former, using party politics as a channel to loot the national

treasury and impoverish Nigerians.

Six months down the line, insurgency is yet to be eradicated judging by the cam­paign promises of eradicating the dreaded Boko Haram sect just two months of as­suming power. The stipends promised Nigerian non-working graduates and the free meals for nursery, primary and sec­ondary schools are yet to be effected. Still patiently waiting for the reduction of the fuel pump price to N50 even at the linger­ing crisis in the petroleum sector and the pain to purchase the product.

It is important to note that not every­one who voted this new government into power did so because of its too-good-to-be true campaign promises. It wasn’t oblivious to majority of the electorates who turned out in their numbers to vote that it has always been the history of the Nigeria electioneering process to use big promises, too good to be true as campaign tactics to win elections.

Just some few months back, the APC senators proved this constructive criticism right when they all in their numbers turned down the bill passed by the minority par­ty, PDP on the proposed N5,000 stipend by the APC to all unemployed graduates praying that it gets signed. The reason ac­cording to the senators for objecting the bill was; it will constitute laziness amongst the teaming youths and that the money in­stead of paying them as stipends should be used for job creation.nThe singular act by the APC senators showed that Nigeri­ans are in for a serious game. Didn’t they put the instances into consideration before airing it as a campaign promise? This no doubt proves it right that Nigerians were deceived into voting in a party not true to its words.

Instead of providing solution to urgent challenges confronting us a nation, utmost attention is rather given to trivial issues that should be least on the agenda. The deliberation on the floor of the Senate at one time asking telecommunication out­fits to develop apps capable of wiping out social media and websites with explicit contents such as pornography and other things that affects our moral value as a na­tion, showed how insensitive the govern­ment really are as to why they are elected into office by Nigerians. The backlash of criticism the bill received from angry Nigerians sure made them withdraw it. There are better bills that should be passed and implemented into law than such bills. Moral values have no effect when citizens have no access to the basic amenities of life. Instead of deliberating on such base­less issue, why didn’t they ask the tele­communication outfits to help develop apps to detect corrupt officials looting the nation’ treasury? Why didn’t they delib­erate on how to use the online media to track down the cabals behind the epilep­tic state of power supply in the country? Why didn’t they pass a bill to tackle the high rate of unemployment within a time frame? The latest also is the bill to clamp­down on citizens who through the social media and other means like T.V, radio and print criticise the government and its poli­cies, stating that whosoever is culpable of the offense is liable to an imprisonment term of two years or a fine of N4million.

This action is the height of insensitivity by the government. The same social media they rode to power through its platform is now regarded a tool the citizen uses as at­tacking their “innocence.”

The rise of APC into power did not come to it as a result of its too many bo­gus campaign promises, but in what can be termed, opportunity meeting prepared­ness.