Femi Aribisala


Truth has fallen in the street of this misguided Buhari administration; so much so that abject failure has been camouflaged as its triumph.


It is amusing, if not very disturbing, to see the number of people the Buhari administration has brought out of the woodwork to sing its praises on this its one-year anniversary. Having arrested key spokespersons of the opposition, intimidated the press into silence, threatened the judiciary, and even arrested its non-politician critics, such as Olu Adegboruwa, on trumped up charges, the government has become confident that it has a free pass to feed Nigerians with lies about its woeful performance in office.

Having won a “famous” election by telling Nigerians a tissue of lies which it then repudiated on assuming office, the government continues to believe it can also govern just by continuing to tell lies. Thus, assessing his performance in office over the past one year, the president even went as far as to boast that it has been “a year of triumph.” This shows conclusively that truth has fallen in the street of this misguided Buhari administration; so much so that abject failure has been camouflaged as its triumph.

Deceitful election campaign

In all my years of living in Nigeria, I can say, along with the overwhelming majority of Nigerians, that we have never had it so bad. Only one thing explains the extremities of Nigeria’s miserable predicament today: we have in office a government so singularly inept and incompetent, it has triumphed in making a bad situation so much worse.

In an article last year entitled: “Why Nigerians Must Reject the Second-Coming of Buhari,” I made this observation after listening to Buhari’s vapid campaign speeches:

“It is amazing that, for a man who is running for election as president for a marathon fourth time, Buhari is so bereft of ideas as to how he would do anything if he were to become president. No man becomes president of Nigeria on the basis of vain platitudes. No man becomes president as a result of social media blogs and sound-bites. No man becomes president by giving two-minute speeches in craftily-packaged rallies, one minute of which is spent introducing his entourage.”

However, many Nigerians refused to heed our warning. Now the chickens have come to roost.



Inaugural mumbo-jumbo

After listening to President Buhari’s inaugural speech in May 2015, I also had this to say in an article entitled: “Is President Buhari Born Again?”:

“Buhari has been running for president for the last 14 years. Nevertheless, listening to his inaugural speech, it is clear he does not have a clue what exactly to do when in office. Either the APC never really believed it would win the election, or it was too preoccupied with winning to pay sufficient attention to what it would do in the unlikely event that it won.”

Of course, Buhari apologists promptly came to his defence. They claimed it was too early to make such assessment. Let the man settle down.

Baba Do-Nothing

The first 100 days of a new administration provides the best opportunity to proclaim giant strides and pass difficult legislation because it is still the honeymoon period. But our man Buhari squandered this opportunity by doing absolutely nothing. At his 100 days inaugural, I had this assessment:

“After 100 days, it should now be abundantly clear that Buhari is not qualified to be president of 21st century Nigeria. The president has neither agenda nor direction. His cardinal objective is apparently the prosecution of Northern hegemony. The APC desperately needs to organise an intervention, before Buhari drives the country into the ditch. It is time to admit it. Electing Buhari as president was a big national blunder.”

Again, the paid chorus-singers jumped to the president’s defence. They insisted again that 100 days is not enough to make an adequate assessment of a president’s agenda or direction. Buhari still needed to be given more time.

Buhari wasted seven months to choose the members of his cabinet, receiving in the process the ignominy of being nicknamed “Baba Go-Slow.” He promised Nigerians his ministers would be unimpeachable saints and angels. But when the time finally came, they turned out to be the same old and tired politicians, some with serious allegations of corruption hanging over their heads. In an uncharacteristic moment of clarity, Buhari himself castigated them as “noise-makers.” In office, they have been singularly unimpressive without exception.

Abubakar Malami, the Minister of Justice, dropped a fictitious bombshell by declaring that the EFCC has recovered 2 trillion dollars of stolen loot. The Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, dazzled our credibility by saying his ministry has the capacity to generate about 3.4 million jobs in 2016 alone through pencil production. Lai Mohammed, another of the government’s bamboozlers, said the government would use the N1.4 trillion in the TSA as Father Christmas handouts for Nigeria’s poorest 20 million. This kind of blatantly false hot air has become the stock-in-trade of this APC government.

All Promises Cancelled



Now it is not just 100 wasted days, it is 365. It is one full year and there is no difference, except that things have gone terribly wrong. I repeat: Nigerians have never had it so bad. No electricity, no petrol, no economic policy, no government. Just vain platitudes.

When a political party wins an election by deceiving the electorate, filling the people with false promises, it is easy to conclude it can also rule by deceit, feeding the populace with false hope. However, sooner than later, lies will be exposed to be lies. Judging by the president’s failure to fulfil any of his vaunted campaign promises, his government is not only a failure but a fraud.

At the APC South-East rally in Owerri in 2015, Buhari declared he would make the naira equal to the dollar if voted into office. He continued: “It is sad that the value of the naira has dropped to more than 230 to one dollar. This does not speak well for the nation.” If N230 to one dollar is sad, what shall we say today of the exchange-rate of N350 to one dollar under his administration? How does that speak for the nation, Mr. President?

Just take a look at the following anomalies. Buhari promised to create 740,000 jobs within a year in the 36 states of the federation, as well as one million jobs for Igbo youths by revamping the huge coal deposits in Enugu State for electricity generation. However, in one year in office, his administration has created no new jobs. Instead, it has lost jobs by the lorry-load through its go-slow and do-nothing stance.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in the first quarter of 2016 alone, another 1.5 million Nigerians became unemployed; increasing the country’s unemployment rate from 10.4 percent in the last quarter in 2015 to 12.1 percent.

Buhari promised to generate, transmit and distribute electricity on a 24/7 basis. At the beginning of his administration, APC propagandists went to town boasting that there was already regular power supply as a result of the alchemy of the president’s “body language.” But, in no time at all, the only language the president’s body has been speaking is power blackouts.

In 365 days of Buhari’s tragic presidency, Nigeria has suffered more blackouts than at any time in its history. In April this year, the entire country was thrown into darkness as a result of system collapse. The minister of power has become a minister of darkness. To date, there is no reprieve in sight.

From bad to worse



Before Buhari, our primary security concern was the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East. But thanks to Buhari, insecurity has become nationwide. Now the threat is not only Boko Haram in the North-East. It is also the Shi’ites in the North-West. It is the Biafrans in the South-East. It is the Niger-Delta Avengers in the South-South. But for the incompetence of the government, these new fissures would not have gained new prominence.

At his inaugural, the president claimed grandiloquently: “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody.” But after 365 days in office, we now know that he belongs to Fulani herdsmen, after all, he called them “my people” to Lam Adesina of Oyo State. These herdsmen have been allowed to go from state to state on repeated murderous rampages, with nary a word of reproach until recently from the president who, with his 270 declared cows, is apparently their patron.

Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information, said in December 2015: “We can confidently announce here today that the (fuel) scarcity will end in a few days. We can assure you that we won’t be caught in this kind of situation again.” However, the kind of scarcity we have experienced since the making of this vain promise has been unprecedented in Nigeria’s history. On some occasions, the fuel queues at petrol-stations everywhere have been as long as half a mile.

When Jonathan reduced the petrol pump price from N97 to N87 per litre in January 2015, former Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola said the N10 reduction was too low and that Nigerians would get a better deal under Buhari. Later, in April 2015, one of Buhari’s arch-propagandists, former Minister of Petroleum and Energy, Professor Tam David-West, told Nigerians that, since a drastic decrease in the international price of oil had taken place, Buhari would reduce the fuel pump price from N87 to N40 per litre.

But all this turned out to be just another tissue of lies. Rather than decrease the price, Buhari has now increased it by a massive N56.50 to N145. This has fed into already high price increases and has led to further devaluation of the naira on the parallel market. The result has been even more hardship in Nigeria, especially among the poor.

National impoverishment

At the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho, Tinubu declared that the APC would eradicate poverty in Nigeria. He said: “A progressive government must turn its face from the austerity policies of the outgoing administration that tried to manage poverty, but not end it. Such policies serve only to deepen and prolong the hardship of the average person.”

But it is now abundantly clear that no government has impoverished Nigerians as much as this APC government. The rate of inflation in the country has grown astronomically. If the members of the lying brigade the government has trotted out in this one-year anniversary to deceive Nigerians are so sure of Buhari’s triumphant success, let them go to any market in the country today, North or South, and shout “Sai Buhari.” They should not be surprised if they are mugged or even lynched.

After just 365 days, Nigerians are completely fed up with Buhari and the APC. At the moment, the country is a powder-keg waiting to be ignited. This is the assessment of Balarabe Musa, former governor of Kaduna State: “It is quite obvious that this administration is a complete failure and does not have the capacity to solve any problems. The unfortunate thing is that the situation in Nigeria is so bad that the electorate is now cursing their luck for electing it.”

TO BE CONTINUED

Wailers food don ready oo. Make una come chop ooo

Uncle Femi is always on point stating it as it is without any sentimental attachment to unnecessary emotions. This is the need of the hour and a clarion call to all sleeping youths of Nairaland to open their eyes and see that Nigeria is precariously hanging on a cliff as a result of lame approaches of this TEST AND RUN government of Buhari. Uncle Femi Aribisala, a pragmatic analyst, may you live long Sir.

tomakint:
T

Sorry

Aribisala

Part 2

In its one-year in office, the government has not established a single institution or passed any legislation necessary to fight corruption. The much-ballyhooed Whistle-blower Act is still blowing in the wind.

In Buhari’s first coming, he bamboozled Nigerians with a so-called War Against Indiscipline. This entailed treating Nigerians, young and old, like primary school children. We were forced to queue at bus-stops under the watchful eyes of soldiers wielding whips with orders to flog publicly those deemed unruly. Late-coming civil-servants were required to do frog-jumps. The pathetic thing about this was that the government actually believed such charade constituted cogent public policy. Once Buhari left, Nigerians stopped queuing. So much for the War Against Indiscipline.

The truth of the matter is that President Buhari is a retired military officer; he has little idea what constitutes effective public policy. As military strongman in the 1980s, he dealt with food shortages by sending soldiers to break into private warehouses and shops. He fought trade imbalances by taking Nigeria back to the stone age of trade by barter (counter-trade). He sought to extradite a Nigerian from Britain by drugging and crating him. These are the indices of a man bereft of modern and judicious policy ideas.

Fighting corruption with corruption

The same goes today for Buhari’s newfangled “war against corruption.” The whole thing is one big farce. The president clearly does not know what corruption means and how to fight it. As a result, he ends up with the contradiction of attempting to fight corruption with corruption; an exercise in futility.

As military head of state in the 1980s, Buhari failed to understand that imposing retroactive decrees and killing Nigerians under them was corruption. Putting the Igbo vice-president in Kirikiri prisons, while placing the Fulani president under palatial house arrest, was corruption. Detaining people like Michael Ajasin in jail, even after they were discharged and acquitted by kangaroo courts, was corruption. Jailing journalists for telling the truth was corruption. Shepherding 53 suitcases of contraband unchecked through customs during a currency change exercise was corruption.

Today, Buhari still does not understand that corruption is not limited to stealing money. The government claims to be fighting corruption, but at the same time it has been corrupting the political system. Disregarding the rule of law under a democratic system is corruption. Flouting judicial verdicts is corruption. Trying politicians on the pages of newspapers instead of in law courts is corruption. Unlawfully killing hundreds of Shiites in Kaduna is corruption. Detaining Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky and his wife for over four months without trial is corruption.



Corruption cannot not be fought with human rights abuses and violation of the rule of law. It is better for the guilty to go free than for the innocent to be wrongfully accused and convicted.

If President Buhari were truly interested in fighting corruption, he would be faithful to the pledge he made to Nigerians in his acceptance speech as president in April 2015. He said then: “I pledge myself and the government to the rule of law, in which none shall be so above the law that they are not subject to its dictates, and none shall be so below it that they are not availed of its protection.” If he was true to his word, he would not have gone on national television to declare Dasuki and Kanu guilty without the benefit of trial in courts of law.

Not surprisingly, the State Department of the United States came out recently to accuse the government of the following abuses: “Vigilante killings; prolonged pretrial detention, often in facilities with poor conditions; denial of fair public trial; executive influence on the judiciary; infringement on citizens’ privacy rights; and restrictions on freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and movement.” These are not the indices of a government engaged in a war, or even a fight, against corruption.

Promoting corruption

The government claims to be fighting corruption but continues to create and sustain institutions that promote corruption. In its one-year in office, the government has not established a single institution or passed any legislation necessary to fight corruption. The much-ballyhooed Whistle-blower Act is still blowing in the wind. Instead the government has gone a long way to undermine anti-corruption institutions established under previous administrations.

EFCC, ICPC, and DSS are all legacies of past administrations. Under Buhari, these organs of government have been converted into organs of the APC for the persecution of the political enemies of the president and his party. Under Obasanjo, the EFCC went after the members of the president’s party first and foremost. Under Buhari, the EFCC goes primarily after members of the opposition.

Under Jonathan, INEC was a champion of free and fair elections. Under Buhari, INEC has become a champion of inconclusive elections. Under Jonathan, the privacy rights of Nigerians were respected. Under Buhari, the privacy rights of Nigerians are disrespected. Even the sanctity of the government house in Uyo, Akwa Ibom was violated by the DSS.

Buhari’s anti-corruption double-standards are becoming legion. The president insists Abacha never stole any money, and then institutes the probe of the PDP for the mismanagement of the recovered non-existent Abacha loot. He accuses the PDP of using public funds to finance its 2015 election campaign, but fails to disclose where the APC obtained the money to finance its own very expensive election campaign. The APC commends INEC for running the ostensibly free and fair election that brought it to power in 2015; then it challenges in court every election conducted by the same INEC in the same election cycle that APC lost.

The government fails to recognise that sustaining a wide margin between the official naira/dollar exchange-rate and the parallel market rate (currently 198 to 320) has created a major avenue for corruption in banking circles. It is corruption to employ the children, relatives and friends of members of the Nigerian political establishment into juicy positions in the Central Bank of Nigeria without the scantiest regard for professionalism. It is corruption to pad the 2016 budget with literally billions of naira of hidden fraudulent allocations; so much so that the budgetary process has become stalemated: the victim of a battle royal between a grasping presidency and a self-serving legislature.

Corrupt APC politicians

Surely, President Buhari knows he cannot fight corruption successfully while he is surrounded and sponsored by corrupt APC politicians. Like charity, an APC war against corruption must begin at home; in the APC. The president makes a song and dance about fighting corruption, yet his APC party is steeped in corruption.



However, APC members are exempted from Buhari’s anti-corruption prosecution; except perhaps for Bukola Saraki who must be prosecuted for committing the same crime Bola Tinubu was absolved of. Saraki became Senate president by playing the same party-betrayal card Aminu Tambuwal played to the delight of the APC under Jonathan, which is now to the annoyance of the APC under Buhari.

If Buhari were serious about fighting corruption, he would have fought against the dubious protocol within APC that all presidential aspirants must fork out a nomination fee of N27.5 million to the party. Costly elections lead to corrupt governments, because the excessive money spent is inevitably recouped from government coffers. But instead of fighting against this dubious protocol, Buhari claimed he was constrained to borrow the money from his bank. A few months later, the president declared he has N30 million in his bank account.

The APC does not even pretend to be anti-corruption. Both the corrupt and the clean are welcome with open arms into the party. No politician with corruption allegations hanging over his head is ever denied membership of the APC. As a matter of fact, the party is a safe harbour for corrupt politicians seeking protection from APC persecution. A large chunk of APC membership is now made up of defunct PDP members; and the “navigator” of the APC is none other than Olusegun Obasanjo, PDP president for eight years.

Apparently, if you are a member of the PDP, you are deemed by Buhari’s APC to be corrupt. But once you cross over to the APC, you automatically become squeaky clean.

As military strongman, Buhari jailed Bisi Akande on corruption charges in the 1980s. But come 2014, the same Bisi Akande became the interim chairman of his anti-corruption APC. In 2015, Femi Gbajabiamila was the APC choice as Speaker of the House of Representatives. Today, he is the Majority Leader of the House. However, Gbajabiamila was convicted for professional misconduct by the Supreme Court of Georgia, U.S.A. in 2006 for defrauding a client of $25,000.

While the government is busy grandstanding about anti-corruption in the press, its APC legislators are busy fighting over “juicy” committee positions in the House and Senate. Surely, “juicy” legislative committees are anathema to anti-corruption. What makes a committee “juicy” is precisely its scope for providing avenues for corrupt enrichment to legislators.

Anti-corruption hypocrisy

APC’s anti-corruption crusade has become so lopsided, it is clearly no more than an instrument for check-mating and decimating the opposition. The standard retort is to insist the singling out of PDP members is inevitable because the party had been in power for 16 years. However, some of the legacy parties of the APC, such as the ACN, have also been in power for long in the states. The EFCC has gone after PDP governors, such as Sule Lamido and Godswill Akpabio, but has ignored APC governors, such as Rotimi Amaechi and Babatunde Fashola.



A judicial commission of enquiry set up by the Rivers State government maintained that, under former governor Rotimi Amaechi, a whopping N53 billion disappeared from the Rivers State Reserve Fund. However, the EFCC has not even invited Amaechi for questioning. Neither has he been excoriated in the government’s media war on corruption. On the contrary, Amaechi has been awarded the “juicy” new super-ministry of Transport, which now includes road, rail, maritime and aviation.

Similarly, Babatunde Fashola was accused of spending N78 million of government money upgrading his personal website. Among other allegations, he was said to have inflated the cost of the Lekki-Ikoyi link-bridge from N6 billion to N25 billion. However, the EFCC hears no evil and sees no evil in the Fashola case without even investigating it. Instead, Fashola was awarded the “juicy” new super-ministry of Power, Works and Housing.

Abubakar Audu was under prosecution by the EFCC for misappropriating N11 billion of state funds when he was governor of Kogi between 1999 and 2003. Nevertheless, he was nominated as APC governorship candidate for Kogi in 2015. In spite of the fact that the EFCC had filed charges of corruption against Timipre Sylva for defrauding Bayelsa State of N19 billion between 2009 and 2012, he nevertheless became the governorship candidate of the APC for Bayelsa in 2016.

How can the government expect Nigerians to believe it is sincere in fighting corruption under such hypocritical circumstances?

Anti-corruption public relations

Anti-corruption is good public relations, but it is no substitute for a viable programme for economic growth. In the final analysis, the government’s anti-corruption campaign is all sound and fury signifying nothing. Making a difference means fulfilling the government’s campaign promises. It means ending the petrol shortage. It means increasing electricity generation and distribution. It means providing jobs for unemployed youths. It means providing social security for the teeming poor. In these practical decibels of government, the APC is at sea. It simply has no idea what to do.

http://opinion.premiumtimesng.com/2016/04/19/dont-believe-lie-no-war-corruption-nigeria-2-femi-aribisala/

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zombies should come here and counter what ever sir femi said with facts and figures not just to call him "wailer" and run away without tackling what he said.

watch all these Yoruba folks who accused us of tribal politics or politics of bitterness to come here and lambast one of their and call him all sorts of names just because he doesn't share the same sentiment with them. hypocrites.

pmb lead government is full of nothing, but deceit & hypocrasy

Next time don't steal and lose election to opposition.

mrnigerdelta:
pmb lead government is full of nothing, but deceit & hypocrisy

Trust me as much as I appreciate the current fight against gross corruption across the land, I get miffed by the two words you just indicate up there "deceit and hypocrisy" how do you intend to fight corruption when the likes of Amaechi, Fashola, Dambazzau, Lai Mohammed, and some incompetent hands (like the sick Mama Taraba wasting away in a US hospital for weeks now) in your government. Buhari must be joking.

who is listening to this slowpoke, your hatred for PMB will never let you see anything good in this government. shio

Topleague:
who is listening to this slowpoke, your hatred for PMB will never let you see anything good in this government. shio

I can't believe a damsel like you can stoop this low..... education is worthless when presented but no willing minds you know

Femi on point again. Meanwhile, how come we now have a dearth of zombies on NL?

tomakint:

I can't believe a damsel like you can stoop this low..... education is worthless when presented but no willing minds you know

Beaauty without brain is ordinary ashawo.

ckmayoca:



Beaauty without brain is ordinary ashawo.

Honestly our ladies need to step up their games when politics is involved. We only have few Amazons in this section.