President Buhari's Report Sheet from US visit.

The recent four-day visit of our President was another wish list event to many. The journey was propagated more than necessary in the media as if it will turn Nigeria to America. For a President with multifarious national issues that needed urgent attention to honour Obama's invitation within a month, that means expected returns would be germane in stemming our current tides.

What baffled us most was the glory attached to sleeping in Blair house, they called it historic and all sorts of accolades came from lips of our propagandists.

Except if we want to be economical with truth, the event cost us part of our claimed slim treasury. With official announced of 33 delegates and hundreds of unannounced associates as those delegates also travelled with their aides. Initially to us at GGA, spending N2.2b on such task that will help us get military latest equipment, arms and weapons, looted $150b and other diplomatic ties, quite worth it.

It also caught many unaware that Buhari could go with his son for a national engagement after promising to stop financial wastage. Our question is if Buhari's son has got automatic ticket to be a stakeholder in business of governance or has he been given an unannounced portfolio.

Back to main issue, from welcome address by both Presidents to Christiane Amanpour's interview, we got little and escalate war. In short, we just did as usual by putting a cart before the horse.

We came back with $2.1b loan to rebuild North East that is still a theatre of war, Leahy law denied us access to military assets, we established favouritism for 97%, we even lied against our host cabinet composition, searching beam light on stacked $150b in foreign accounts and goofed on many issues.

As for Governor Shettima, it was a bonus for him as he will get the largest chunk of the loan. The big question here is, can we rebuild a haven turn to a war stage while the war has not ended or won't that be a futile effort. If it costs US about $1.5 billion annually to protect her oil space from vandals, why won't we have a rethink to incur debt for a timely and more beneficial ventures. The immediate past government took $1b for arms, ammunitions and training to battle Boko Haram, we all cried but now we are taking $2.1b to rebuild again. Truly, Buhari is acting a script of 97%.

Surprisingly, we are crying foul on Leahy law against our hope of ending terrorism as if we were not there when echelons in today ruling party were painting our military with all sorts of hues. Now we are all suffering from their misguided utterances they used to get cheap political gain. Yoruba will say it is what the owner of calabash call his calabash that people will follow.

In same vein, it was evident from Obama's response that we are not ready for business, "...we're looking forward to hearing more about his(Buhari) plans...", "...I'm(Obama) looking forward to seeing him(Buhari) put together his team so that we can do everything...". We left for US with no clear cut policies on ground to show where we stand on issues we are asking assistance for. As many use to say, heaven help those who help themselves.

Also, it is quite disheartening that Femi Adesina could drag media profession into mud by repainting this lofty visit just to cover up his paymaster. It took Femi 5days after we have departed from US to give us another version when we all have what transpired in public domain. We believe what we should do now is to change market for military resources procurement and face reality instead of window dressing ventures.

In sum, reliance on foreign big brothers will not take us far as they always added conditions to their service. For instance, US gave us $5m in June to fight terrorism and loaned us $2.1b in July to rebuild when war still unabated.


Sam Obi,
sesanifedayo@yahoo.com
For
Good Governance Advocates

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