President Muhammadu Buhari and Alexander Thandi Ubani
President Muhammadu Buhari rode on the goodwill of millions of Nigerians to emerge as the 7th democratically elected President of Nigeria. The hope and optimism expressed by the people towards his change mantra was unprecedented.
Three years down the line, many of his supporters have been left disappointed, disillusioned and defeated by his woeful performance so far. Notable personalities like Olusegun Obasanjo, father Ejike Mbaka, Bisi Akande, Dele Momodu, Aisha Buhari (his wife) and many others who had in the past given their full support to his administration have expressed sadness over his inability to effect the change he promised. Even his wife Aisha publicly revealed that her husband’s government has been hijacked by a powerful cabal who take decisions without his knowledge and input.
In October 2016, Aisha had raised alarm saying she will not support her husband’s re-election bid because he was not in control of his government. In a BBC interview, Aisha Buhari suggested his government had been hijacked by only a “few people”, who were behind presidential appointments.
She said the president did not know most of the officials he had appointed. It is two years since she made that statement and nothing has changed. She recently showed signs that her husband hasn’t changed after she retweeted two video clips lambasting the President over his nonchalant attitude towards the massacre of Benue indigenes by Fulani herdsmen. If the President’s wife can openly reject her husband, what do you expect from the poor masses who feel abandoned by Buhari?
The past three years have been one of mixed feelings. Buhari’s effort in tackling Boko Haram is undeniable, however, it has been mainly overshadowed by the military’s false claims over and over again that it has defeated the terrorist group and killed its leader, Abubakar Shekau. Such blatant lies put the government of President Buhari in a very bad light as one fueled by media propaganda. The military was given 40 days to capture Shekau in late 2017, the days came and passed like any other day. The military nicely kept mute as Shekau appeared in videos taunting them. Boko Haram continues to claim more and more lives as it gets stronger and stronger. Over 300 of its captured members have been released by Buhari’s government. Yet, the government through its propaganda machine regale Nigerians with tales how the terrorists have been defeated. In spite of all this claim, the government has gone ahead to seek approval for $1 billion to be used in the fight against Boko Haram – a group the government claimed it had defeated on numerous occasions.
How Buhari failed his supporters
1. During his election campaign, President Buhari promised to give the power sector a total repackaging considering the outcry by millions who yearn for steady electricity supply for household and business consumption.
The government through its Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola claimed it has jerked up power supply from a mere 3000mw to 7000mw in October 2017. But the issue of electricity supply still remains a matter of the more you look the less you see.
Joy Ogaji, Executive Secretary of the Association of Power Generation Companies revealed that Transmission Companies in Nigeria can only distribute a capacity maximum of 5,500mw. Even at that, she believes the country has only been able to transmit a mere 4,500mw. What this means is that the government’s claim of generating 7000mw of electricity is just a bogus statement to titillate the ears as millions of Nigerians will still sleep in darkness because only about 4500mw of electricity or less can be transmitted.
According to a World Bank 2017 report, 75 million Nigerians do not have access to electricity supply.
The Spectator Index of the world’s worst electricity supply in 2017 ranked Nigeria as the second worst electricity supply nation in the world. This was contained in a report it released in 2018.
Of the 137 countries examined in the report, Yemen ranked as worst electricity supply nations in 2017, followed by Nigeria, Haiti, Lebanon, and Malawi.
The claim by the government that it has improved power supply in the country can only be seen on paper as Nigerians are yet to witness any significant change. They sleep and wake up in darkness. Buhari’s government continues to make bogus claims on the pages of newspapers without anything to show for it.
2. Many of Buhari’s supporters especially those from Benue state have come to see the President as an ethnic warrior and a political bigot following his remarkable ‘silence’ while Fulani herdsmen murder, rape and massacre people in Agatu, Logo and Goma areas of Benue, including other parts of the country.
Buhari did not visit the people to console them after the massacre some weeks ago. He was totally nonchalant as he found it even difficult to condemn the killer herdsmen.
Buhari is viewed as a president who enjoys crushing any uprising from other ethnic groups with brutal force but romances the bums of his kinsmen who have raped, pillaged and massacred innocent villagers in hundreds.
Buhari’s reluctance to prosecute killer herdsmen has become a weakness too intolerable. 73 innocent villagers were brutally murdered in their sleep By Fulani herdsmen last three weeks, yet the government has not arrested let alone prosecuted them. The President instead of hunting down the killers had admonished Benue people who visited him in Abuja to accommodate the herdsmen. The Fulani herdsmen are viewed as an untouchable group that no matter what crime they commit, nothing can be done to them, that is why they fearlessly murder innocent people without security operatives making any arrest.
In 2015, Global Terrorism Index named Fulani militia as the fourth deadliest terror group in the world, yet Buhari’s government has consistently claimed that Fulani herdsmen are not terrorists. But each time they take their cows to graze in people’s farms, those people end up dead. In February 2016, suspected Fulani herdsmen attacked a village in Agatu, Benue State and reportedly killed at least 300 people. They are yet to be arrested and prosecuted as I write.
These herdsmen attack helpless communities with Ak47 guns and other dangerous weapons without security operatives arresting them. They invade farms and ruin goods worth millions of naira. They murder and rape farmers who challenge them, yet President Buhari has not found it worthy to stop his killer kinsmen.
The failure of Buhari who is indirectly siding with his kinsmen has won him many enemies including those who supported him in 2015.
Buhari didn’t waste time to deploy the army against the helpless Indigenous People of Biafra members protesting peacefully in the South East. They were dehumanised, murdered and killed by the men of the Nigerian army under Buhari’s order. These young IPOB members had no weapon but were declared a terrorist group by Buhari. IPOB didn’t kill anyone, didn’t rape anyone and didn’t set communities ablaze.
But the murderous Fulani herdsmen who murder, rape and set communities ablaze are allowed to walk around free with the government defending them. One should not look far to see the reasons why many people have been left disappointed by Buhari.
3. Buhari has a history of sheepishly supporting those he feels are his own. When Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal was indicted by the Nigerian Senate over alleged breach of Nigerian laws in handling contracts awarded by the Presidential Initiative for the North East (PINE), President Buhari defended Mr. Lawal.
The ad-hoc committee on “mounting humanitarian crisis in the North East” led by Senator Shehu Sani had discovered that Mr. Lawal received N200 million contract to clear “invasive plant species” in Yobe State through a company, Rholavision Nigeria Limited.
The Senate asked for Lawal’s suspension and sack. The Senate said Mr. Lawal remained a director of the company till September 2016, over a year after his appointment, in breach of Nigeria’s code of conduct for public officials as enshrined in the 1999 constitution.
Mr. Lawal denied the allegations, dismissed the Senate as saying “balderdash”, and accused the lawmakers of attempting “to bring him him down at all cost.”
President Buhari defended Lawal and refused to sack him. However, after setting up a committee to probe Lawal, he had no option but to fire the loud-mouthed Lawal. The report of the probe headed by VP Osinbajo was never made public. Many of Buhari’s supporters are disappointed that he has the penchant for defending his own people even when it has been established that they are not innocent. Yet, he wastes no time in sending security operatives to harass and intimidate opposition party members ‘accused’ of corruption. It was under Buhari’s watch that men of the Department of State Security Services invaded the houses of Judges in gestapo style after they were accused of corruption. Some of the judges were acquitted, as the agencies rushed to arrest them without proper investigation. Too bad for a man said to be an anti-corruption czar.
In his three years as President, Buhari has been accused of surrounding himself with people of questionable character.
For instance, his Chief of Staff (CoS), Abba Kyari was accused of taking N500m from operators of MTN to help the telecommunications giant mitigate the fine imposed on it by the federal government, according to a Sahara Reporters investigation. Shockingly, the matter died a natural death.
Just recently, the Attorney-General of the federation and Minister of Justice, Ibrahim Malami was accused of secretly aiding the controversial reinstatement of embattled former head of Presidential task force on pension reform, Abdulrasheed Maina to the position of a director in the Ministry of Interior after he had been sacked by former President Goodluck Jonathan over allegations of fraud. Malami up till now still holds the view that he did the right thing. Instead of answering questions on his alleged role in the embarrassing incident, Malami ran to the court to get an ex parte order stopping the probe by the Senate Committee. If he is innocent, why run to court to stop the probe? These are the kind of people Buhari has surrounded himself with. People of questionable character.
On Wednesday, a sycophantic Minister was stopped from distributing Buhari’s 2019 campaign materials during the Federal Executive meeting even when the President has not made his intention to re-contest in the 2019 Presidential election public. This is totally against the Independent National Electoral Commission’s directive that no such thing should happen outside the calendar it gives for political campaigns. These are the type of charlatans Buhari has surrounded himself with without knowing that they are doing all these to consolidate their own individual interests. Yet, Buhari looks on like a kid who got lost in the market place.
4. Buhari has failed on his electoral promises. The President before the 2015 election had promised to ban all government officials from seeking medical care abroad in order to reduce government expenditure. He did ban government officials but flouted the ban himself. As a firsclass hypocrite, the President shocked the nation by spending over three months treating himself in London. While many cannot afford standard healthcare because of the abysmal condition of our hospitals in Nigeria, the President rushes to London for treatment at the mere sign of a cold. A leader who exhibits this kind of hypocrisy does not have the interest of his people at heart.
Buhari promised to create 720,000 jobs in the first year of his administration. It was Vice President who made this public in January of 2015. He had said that the government of Buhari had created plans to employ 20,000 young persons per state as such, urged people to vote them into power to actualize the grand plan. Apart from the N-power scheme which the government claims has employed about 200,000 graduates in late 2016 on a meagre N30,000 less than $150, there is nothing to show that the government is ready to redeem its pledge.
According to statistics released by the national Bureau of Statistics for the 4th quarter of 2016, about 3.67 million Nigerians lost their jobs under Buhari in 2016. Also, the number of unemployed Nigerians rose from 7.51 million at the beginning of October 2015 to 11.19 million at the end of September 2016.
The government is yet to create 20,000 jobs per state as it promised in 2015.
While Buhari’s benefactors, media aides, advisers and people of interest continue to feed his ears with all what he wants to hear, millions of Nigerians have since realized that the Buhari they voted for in 2015 is not the same person in 2018. He promised them change, but gave them chains.
Buhari is preparing himself to be shocked the same way ex-President Goodluck Jonathan learnt that the voice of the people matters if he doesn’t do something fast.
Never in the history of this country have we seen a president so clannish and unapologetically bigoted in his reasoning so much so that he set aside the federal character principle only to feed the whims of his kinsmen by using them to fill strategic positions of authority.
Buhari has handed Nigeria’s security apparatus to his kinsmen. Does it mean there are no other people qualified from other ethnic groups to hold these positions other than his kinsmen from the north? Here is a summary of those holding strategic security positions appointed by Buhari:
Chief of Army Staff – Lt. Gen. Tukur Yusuf Buratai
National Intelligence Agency – Ahmed Rufa’i Abubakar
Nigeria Immigration Service – Muhammed Babandede
Minister of Defence – Mansur Dan-Ali
Nigeria Police Force – Ibrahim Idris
Director, Department of State Security Services – Lawal Daura
Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission – Ibrahim Magu
Nigeria Customs Service – Hammed Ali
Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps- Abdullahi Gana Muhammadu
Nigeria Prisons – Ahmed Ja’afaru
While Buhari continues to say that the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable, he has unwittingly been heating up the polity with his nepotic appointments. His inability to understand the dynamics of internal politics betrays recent insinuations that he’s a true democrat.
Not only does he lack the intellectual clout to force the promised change, he doesn’t possess the wherewithal to negotiate the country out of its latest economic and political quagmire.
5. Nigerians were sold a bait when the government selfishly and in a heartless manner removed fuel subsidy and hiked the price of petrol to N145 per litre. Buhari’s government had sold millions of Nigerians the dummy line that removing subsidy would allow the government the ability to use the resources to develop the refineries, stop fuel scarcity and make fuel readily available for millions. It was a good script Nigerians in their numbers bought it. Sadly, the removal brought untold hardship on Nigerians, forcing goods and services to triple in price. People mourned, shouted, cried but the government promised them a sweeping change. The government said it was better for Nigerians to suffer its effect for a short time as things are likely to change. That was just another falsehood. Nothing has changed. The suffering has increased leaving many boiling with anger.
The Senate some weeks back were shocked to have discovered that the Buhari government is still paying fuel subsidy after it had told millions of Nigerians that subsidy had been removed. It means that the government is paying itself subsidy which it said it had removed. According to the Senate, the government-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation solely imported fuel last year and paid itself subsidy. This grand conspiracy the Senate said is an act of corruption, happened under Buhari’s nose.
Even with the removal of fuel subsidy and the hike of petrol to N145 per litre, Nigerians have been suffering since November as fuel scarcity crippled the nation even as I am writing today, there is still no fuel. Many people have been forced to buy fuel at N500 per litre at the black market.
This simply shows that Buhari is either an accomplice in this grand act to defraud Nigerians or he’s not in charge of his government. Many Nigerians have been left disappointed by Buhari as he continues to prove that he was certainly ill-prepared for power.
6. The many gaffes of Buhari’s government has left many people wondering if this is the change they voted. If not for Obasanjo’s scathing letter to Buhari, the push-around Economic and Financial Crime Commission wouldn’t have realized that it was time to investigate and arrest disgraced Babachir Lawal months after he was sacked by Buhari.
Just the same way Buhari is expecting another letter from Obasanjo before he can punish high-ranking members of his cabinet who were complacent in the secret reinstatement of Abdulrasheed Maina.
What other grand way to show that Buhari is not in control than the epic appointment of dead persons into boards of government agencies. How irresponsible can this government be?!
It is over two years since men of the Nigeria Army following a minor dispute reportedly invaded the residence of El Zakzaky razing it down. Over 300 of his members were brutally murdered by soldiers according to reports, his children were killed before he alongside his wife were tortured and locked up in custody for over two years now. His religious members have protested and campaigned for his release endlessly, but instead have been hunted and attacked by security operatives. There is no freedom for Zakzaky and his wife at sight.
It is the same case for former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki who has been in detention for 3 years now. Even though he has been ordered to be released by the court, the government has refused to release him.
In conclusion, the general feeling of Nigerians towards the government of President Muhammadu is that of disenchantment. Many have been left totally disappointed with Buhari, even his die-hard supporters. The worst thing to have happened to Buhari is the sycophantic shouts of his numerous benefactors who have refused to allow him see and know what Nigerians feel about his government. They have continuously fed his ears with juicy stories about his performance so far which is totally false. They have continued to shout down on people expressing sincere opinions about the ills bedevilling Buhari’s government. These nitwits are all over social media praising Buhari even when he goes wrong.
Whether he listens or not to the words of wisdom, his fate will be ultimately sealed in less that a year and half, if he continues with this shambolic attitude. Even the blind can see that he plunged millions of Nigerians into poverty and suffering since he took over power more than 2 years ago. If he doesn’t take a firm grip of his government, what happened to Goodluck Jonathan awaits him.
About The Author
Alexander Thandi Ubani writes from Lagos
He’s an Editor at Tori.ng
Twitter: @thandiubani
Email: [email protected]
Stay updated with the latest Nigerian news from Information Nigeria
