New Telegraph

Buhari and his anti-corruption agenda

In seeking for public office to preside over Nigeria in 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari anchored his campaign on anticorruption, security and the economy.

 

On all the counts, he has failed woefully. He started sleeping on duty from the very first day he assumed the responsibility of leading this great country by trying to do a pre-audit before he sat down to the full business of governance.

 

He delayed the composition of his cabinet, footdragged on the idea, and by the time he finally unveiled his cabinet, the economy was already summersaulting down the slope like a rolling stone that gathers no moss.

Six years down the line, with the prevailing socio-economic climate, president Buhari has succeeded in dealing a lethal blow on the psyche of Nigerians, crippled the system massively in economic terms, grown insecurity with celebrated abandonment and left corruption to be walking the streets of power in decorated garb. If there is anything wrong with Nigeria,

 

President Buhari will take a larger share of the issues. He has not shown enough depth, enough content, enough character and rich understanding of the dominant issues in the polity. And Nigeria is running away from him, dragging the country on the way edge of the precipice.

 

The three fundamental agenda of president forms the core of what agitates the minds of Nigerians at this time. Corruption in governmental corridors is still rife. Insecurity has taken over as the number one narrative across the divide while the gloomy economy has become the order of the day.

 

Unable to chart a road map out of this economic logjam, with increasing challenges on a daily basis coupled with increasing poverty and impoverishment, President Buhari has become the debtor-general of the federation.

 

Humongous debts are piling up at regular intervals, exposing the weakness in a system that is standing on very frail foundation. Our debts have risen from an inherited N12.3trn to N34.8trn within six years of President Buhari’s intervention.

 

The debts are eating deeper and deeper into the fabric of our collective patrimony, increasing poverty and suffering, and beefing up the number of beggars on the street on a daily basis. Nigerians have never been this impoverished despite the humongous resources government often prides itself of spending to mitigate the ferocity of poor economic interventions.

 

The end result is simply that the government is borrowing so much at the expense of the people, but the positive effects are not being felt in such a manner that would make us appreciate government efforts.

 

The insecurity agenda of the president has defied all solutions and creativity. The government comes across as one that is largely confused, unable to generate ideas to confront the insecurity that has b devilled the country for sometime.

 

Tongues against tongues, voices against voices, Nigeria’s insecurity tell-tales are the copious signs of failures and misgovernance. From North East to North-West, from North Central to South West, Nigeria is perpetually hounded by crimes and criminalities of life threatening dimensions.

 

Killings are predominant. Deaths are everywhere. Wailings are habitual sound bites. Tears of blood are the prevailing characteristics of a system that is being pummeled by insecurity occasioned by criminal gangs across the country. The president appears grossly unfit to generate the right tools to combat the menace.

So, assessing the president’s on the basis of insecurity which he promised to reduce, will amount to scoring him F9 in capital letters. He needs to wake up from slumber.

 

He needs to put on his thinking cap, generate ideas outside the box, and set in motion a holistic process of healing the wounds in the land. In trying to solve the imbalances in the system, he introduced nepotism. In trying to fight corruption, he deploys selective amnesia.

 

In trying to please his circle of friends, he created agitations that are threatening to dismember the country. Buhari’s anti-corruption drive has taken a nose dive in recent times. He now receives defectors with red carpet at the presidential villa, especially persons who are having outstanding issues with the EFCC or standing trial as a result of financial malfeasance. It has become more a matter of “join APC, your sins are forgiven” kind of scenario.

 

It ridicules his crusade of anti-corruption. The very people who are accused of corruption, those who are standing trials, are the same people that the president accords red carpet reception. Once they saunter into the confines of the villa, they sing praises of him, massage his ego, and pour mouth watering adjectives to raise him beyond what his persona radiates.

You are likely not going to hear stories about their corruption again, maybe when the president leaves. This is the full circle of the president’s present anti-corruption engagement and the rottenness of the system continues to dig deeper and deeper without qualms.

 

So, in terms of scoring his achievement in this anti-corruption agenda, we may manage to score him a grade D. All the promises of a no nonsense Buhari that was coming to deal a blow on the corrupt elements in the society has gradually waned.

 

He is no longer feared, because the ostentation around him are copious realities of excesses beyond the rubrics of legitimate earnings. His son’s ostentatious and lavish wedding would continue to hunt this resolve.

 

The point must be made very lucidly that president Buhari has failed abysmally in the three agenda he set out to pursue and achieve in his second coming as president. We are seriously enmeshed in corruption now than ever before. The insecurity across the country has attained a climax.

 

The economic deprivations and dislocations have brought untold hardship to Nigerians in their millions. The country is now branded as the poverty capital of the world.

 

Despite billions of naira set out to cushion the effect of poverty and hunger, they pale into insignificance when you juxtapose the effort with the volume of persons involved. We are not just in dire straits, the hope of rebounding the nation back to reckoning is becoming bleaker.

 

Hopelessness has set in. Blood is flowing unabated, killings have become the normative order while Nigerians are agonizing under inclement economic conditions occasioned by malfunctioning interventionistic initiatives that are dead on arrival.

 

Nigerians can no longer sleep with their two eyes close. The insecurity in the country is the signboard of a tactless government that is genuflecting on the highway of near-zero policy implementation.

 

In the last 18 months of this government, President Buhari still has a unique window to make amends. He needs to rejig his cabinet, flush out dead woods and implant those who have something to offer.

 

He needs a holistic revamping of the system. He needs to cultivate Nigerians who have something to contribute not those who sang crucifixion yesterday, and are now singing hossanah in the inner sanctuary of the Villa.

 

If you fail on all fronts, chances are that, with extra mural lessons, you may gain new ideas to tackle what seems unassailable. President Buhari, please wake up, you are fast losing grip of Nigeria. Nigeria is running away. You need to grab it within your reach.

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