By Adeyemi Johnson
RECENTLY, some APC stalwarts principally the
party’s chairman claimed that Nigeria has deteriorated
under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan
and that APC offers a better solution, but is that true ?
Rather than make subjective claims, it is better to examine
the facts by global verifiable standards.
The most acceptable global composite standard for judging
progress or development is the HDI Index. Many accept
that Nigeria has not moved as fast as it should in this index.
It measures three basic dimensions of human development,
such as long and healthy life, knowledge and a descent
standard of living.
The highest development is measured as 1, and anything
below from 0.9 to 0.01 are a continuum from very high to very
low respectively. But if we examine the facts from this
measurement, in 2013 the Nigerian measurement on this
index is 0.504. ln 2010 when Jonathan assumed office the
Nigerian measure was 0.492, but in 1985 when Buhari left
office Nigeria was second from last at the bottom of the
table with our rating at 0.421. So, although Nigeria has not
reached the highest ratings such as 0.810 to 0.870, under the
Jonathan administration, it has moved up the Index since
the time of Buhari.
But to show that this is a factual measure, If we examine
some of the key indicators which make up this index such as
life expectancy, which measures how long a person will live if
all the prevailing conditions at his/her birth remains so
throughout the person’s life, we also see that, in 2012 the life
expectancy of a Nigerian was 52.7, in 2010 it was 51 when
the Jonathan administration assumed office. There are some
who will say that this is an effort to polish the image of the
administration, but these measures are not conducted by
Nigeria but by independent organs allied with the United
Nations to measure the progress of mankind, and they often
speak frankly to developing nations to let us know that where
we are presently is far from the ideal and we should keep
aspiring to that ideal. But what is the APC offering ?
Looking back at the life expectancy of Nigerians in 1985
when Buhari left office, it was 47.18years and by 1999 when
the civilians took over from the military that claims to have
come to correct the ills of democracy, the life expectancy of
Nigerians had actually fallen to 46.71years.
Moreover, it must also be pointed out that, although the
national average in terms of HDI measurement is used as
the standard for a country, it does not reflects the lived reality
of everyone or the reality everywhere in a country. This is
especially true for some of the indicators used to measure the
HDI such as the standard of living which usually takes
account of things like poverty rate and distribution of poverty.
If we take the national distribution of poverty, low life
expectancy and low literacy rates in Nigeria, it is discovered
that the worst indicator measurements can be found in states
that were formally ANPP.
The leadership value of ANPP can be directly associated
with the leading presidential candidate that APC is offering
as an alternative to the Jonathan administration. And the
APC is saying publicly that the development that Nigeria
is boasting about does not reflect on the people, but in actual
fact, it is states under the leadership of the legacy members
of APC which is pulling down the national average. The
data from states under Buhari’s former legacy parties, are
pulling down the national average. If we take away the data
from these states, we might fare a lot better, what this means
therefore is that what has worked better in other states should
be emulated by these states, not the other way round.
So ,the question is: What is APC offering Nigerians? Is
it progress or regression? Because apart from these
quantitative facts, the APC is also offering qualitative
expectations. They tell us that Buhari is an upright leader
without administrative blemish. But many have pointed to the
public records not political statements to verify this claim.
They point to human rights abuses. For example, Tai
Solarin spent 17months in jail arrested with an illegal warrant
of arrest which had only a photocopy of the signature of the
Chief of Staff Supreme Headquarters. A Nigerian
journalist, Vera Ifudu published that she was informed by
the late Chief Olusola Saraki who was then in the Nigerian
senate when the matter was probed that, the 2.8Billion
United States Dollars which was missing at the NNPC
under the Obasanjo regime while Buhari was Minister for
Petroleum was traced to Buhari’s private account’at the
Midlands Bank in the United Kingdom. She was forced to
resign because of this story without evidence to refute her
story. While late Fela Ransom-Kuti was arrested for
possession of Foreign exchange by the Buhari regime, money
that was meant for the upkeep of his band on a foreign tour.
He was forced to spend 18months in jail, by a judge who was
forced to imprison him by the Buhari regime, whereas on the
same matter of illegal foreign exchange, when the Buhari
regime was kicked out, his head of security, Lawal Rafindadi
was found to have operated several personal foreign accounts,
and until he died he was still fighting to unfreeze the accounts
seized from him.
Also,Buhari and his deputy, Tunde Idiagbon made a law
for Nigerians, that no one, under 18years should go on
pilgrimage to the holy land Mecca but Idiagbon himself was
found returning from Hajj with his 14year old son, when they
were dethroned. Buhari was aware that Idiagbon went on
hajj with his under-aged son. So they made one law for
themselves and another for Nigerians. Similarly, while
Buhari was Chairman of PTF, an audit of the Agency
found that over 25 billion Naira was missing though the
agency, his relative Ahmad Salihijo, whom he appointed as
the soleconsultant in charge of all the transactions of the
agency, died when the audit committee was constituted, some
say he committed suicide to hide the facts, we will never
know. But the audit report found many cases of clear over-
invoicing and importation of expired products by the agency.
Therefore, looking at the quantitative progress of HDI
indicators since 1985 and qualitative evidence the farce of
Buhari’s mythical uprightness, it is hard to understand,
where the confidence of the APC lies that it is offering
Nigeria a better choice for 2015