I’ve generally refrained from
overtly criticizing this President and his predecessor, because I’ve always
perceived them as very bad bill of goods- Greek
gifts, bestowed on Nigeria by the very hateful ex-President Obasanjo as a
punishment for denying him, his inordinate third term ambition. Hence, it was
patently unfair to criticize a man whose maximum ambition was to become
governor of a back water state suddenly stumped into national limelight by head
honcho Maximus. This was a bad dream.
But that was then, and this is
now. This clueless deputy governor turned governor, turned vice president has
now been President four years going. That is a lifetime in politics; it is an
equivalent of a full term in office and if he were learning on the job- he
should be an expert now. Indeed, he is already showing the worst traits of a
political operator in Nigeria i.e. expert- unanimously suspending enemies,
yanking diplomatic passports, withdrawing security aides etc. This man is
playing hard. He has a new swagger in his steps, but they seem to be swagger of
missteps – the worst lessons a student of Nigerian politics can pick up in this
school of hard knocks.
The President has his supporters
no doubt; most of who are either ethnic based sympathies (“Oh he didn’t create
the problem”, forgetting the man was elected to solve problems), or “denialists”
(“it is not only Nigeria with the problem” or “the President is trying, he is
okay”). To both camps I’ve begun to ask them to pray that the Almighty handle
their life the way GEJ has handled Nigeria or the Boko Haram crisis, and none
of them said “Amen!” There goes the true believer!
Nigeria definitely has never had
it this bad. When in the history of Nigeria, even under Abacha has the Federal
Government been so broke it cannot pay state allocations? This was not even a
possibility under the military. Now under this administration, states are owed
2 months arrears. Contractors and civil servants are not being paid; yet this
President is the first to get on international jamboree and stay in expensive
hotels in world capitals. What a joke!
This disaster was one of our own
making. We elected a clueless man with no moral compass into the highest office
in the land; a man who does not mind literally dining with criminals; whose
mentor is a convicted criminal, and an international fugitive. His idea of
loyalty was
to award the security of our marine petroleum assets – the crude oil and gas
processing facilities to a group of ex-militants. No wonder the stealing of
our crude oil have gone up since then, such that we cannot even pay our bills!
A President that claimed in his
last media chat that corruption was not one of Nigeria’s top problems even when
the blind knows otherwise! Certainly, it makes sense that such a man that has
figured an even more brazen way to steal than General Sani Abacha (who relied
on looting the vaults of the Central Bank) by stealing the crude oil at source
and just complaining about it, he will need to figure how to repatriate the
funds into Nigeria.
To pull that off, it was obvious
they needed to import dollars to do that; and according to the Central Bank of
Nigeria- the rate of this important metrics is up crazy, such that they decided
to shut down the process to prevent the destruction of the value of Naira last
week. Nigeria reportedly was the second largest importer of US Dollars after
China! Just imagine the magnitude of the ongoing thievery. If you think I made
this up, read
this report in international news sources.
Nigeria now stands at a crossroad
where we have our own leaders bankrupting the nation; note this is remarkably
different from stealing. You can steal profits, income and cashflow- but when
you undermine the asset (the goose that lay the golden egg) then you’re
bankrupting the company.
Nigeria cannot afford another
four years of this; we can do better than the charade now going on in Abuja.
We’ve never had it this bad. If the stealing were bad, check the great rise of
insecurity in the land. Just last week we learn that the leader of the Boko
Haram movement that have killed hundreds of Nigerians in terrorist attacks,
after ceaseless assault on his team- is still alive even when we were told
otherwise.
Just on Sunday, innocent students
were slaughtered under the watch of this President while he made inane remarks
during his media chat to the effect that ordinary journalists are better at
finding Shekarau the leader of this terrorist better than him, our commander in
chief. The man neither inspires fear, nor respect nor even confidence.
The incompetence of this
administration is beyond security; it extends to mundane construction projects.
The East-West road is stalemated and even when the governor of Rivers State
from the same state as the President volunteers to complete it, he was denied
the opportunity because the President does not like his face or his ambition.
Even the Lagos-Ibadan expressway
is a disgrace and the various airport refurbishment projects started under his
predecessor are moving at disheartening snail speed. An inspection of the
railway projects that were started under President Obasanjo’s administration
shows they are languishing under lack of funding and commitment from this
government, yet we are given platitudes of “fresh air and transformation”.
Indeed, I have to admit “Baba” is right – “you can get someone a job, but you
cannot do it for them”.
If Nigeria allows this charade to
continue beyond 2015, it will be our fault. Among nearly 170 million people in
Nigeria, and even as morally bankrupt as our political class can be, Goodluck
Ebele Jonathan is definitely not near the Top 90% of what we can do. Give us a
new team; enough of the embarrassment.
