In Defense of the Masses: No, This is Not the Change We Voted For! - Nigerian Writes Touching Piece

President Muhammadu Buhari

 

A Nigerian writer has blasted Garba Shehu's piece with this epic reply why Nigerians are losing it over abysmal performance of this administration. 

First, let's get certain things very clear here. President Buhari is an employee of the Nigerian people and so are his appointees. As such, we have a right to criticize them whenever we feel they are progressing in error. Holding the government accountable is the duty of every free citizens of every free state. It is the government that should fear her citizens, not the other way round. Our job is to pay tax and be law abiding. We only need to respect our government officials, not fear them and the respect should be mutual.

 

I hereby wish to respond to the article by presidential senior media aide; Garba Shehu titled "In Defense Of Buhari: Is This The Change We Voted For? Yes, It Is!" written few days after I wrote a piece titled "In Defense Of Goodluck Jonathan".

 

Let me start by stating categorically that the title of Mr Shehu's article is an outright insult to our sensibilities and a mockery of the hardship millions of Nigerians are currently going through.

 

Thousands of people have lost their jobs, millions have continued to troop to the labor market in search of nonexistent jobs, desperate parents have resorted to using their kids as collateral to collect food items from sellers, people are now stealing their neighbors' food from the fire etc.

 

And we yet pretend that this is the ‪#‎Change‬ we voted for??? How about we stop lying to ourselves?? People are really suffering and there is really no way this could have been the change they voted for.

 

//When they ask the question, is this the change we voted for, the critic forgets how far we have come from the scam tainted years of the PDP rule//

 

I don't think we have forgotten the 'scam-tainted years of the PDP rule'. We only seek to know why a scam-free party such as the APC welcomed members of this 'scam-tainted PDP' into its fold such that almost 70% of public office holders under the APC today were members of the PDP. Does the APC have some kind of special corruption cleanser with which people are washed once they crossed over??

 

Let's not get it twisted. We knew the PDP for what they really are and that explains why we fired them and hired you, only for you to now welcome the same people into your fold. Today, they are still ruling over us in different capacities but under a different party called the APC. The only difference between the APC and the PDP is the acronyms. Nothing more.

 

By the way, when do we get to know how the APC campaign was funded? Was it funded with sand from the river Niger? Who was their own Dasuki?

 

How can we claim to be fighting corruption when budgets are still being padded with no one punished for it, due process is still being trampled upon and civil service rule broken just so the children of the very rich and powerful could be secretly recruited into the civil service, orders of our courts are being treated with disdain etc?? You cannot fight corruption when we are yet to know how your own election was funded. That is the first place to start in order to engender confidence in the anti-graft war.

 

Has the president declared his assets publicly as he promised us?? No, he hasn't. He only listed some of his belongings and promised us a full public assets declaration once the CCB finished with the verification. The CCB has since finished their verification of those assets but the president is yet to honor his promise.

 

Now, this is not good for the image of the president and his integrity.

 

If we do not know how much our president is worth when he became our leader, how can we determine if he has corruptly enriched himself when he leaves office?? Isn't this the whole essense of the public assets declaration he promised us during the campaign?? Hasn't this wonderful idea of fighting corruption been defeated by his refusal to fulfil this promise?? Hasn't this painted the whole anti-graft war with a very bad brush??

 

We cannot be doing action movie and claim we are fighting corruption. Corruption is not fought on the media. It is fought in the law court before a judge with facts...solid facts. Corruption is not fought by arresting a suspect and nicodemously running to a magistrate court to obtain an order to keep him for two weeks and then another three weeks, hoping to coerse him into giving you the information with which you intend to prosecute him. No! A suspect owes you no explanation. The only person he/she owes explanation is the judge. I repeat, the judge. You are supposed to conclude investigation or at least establish a solid case against a suspect before moving for his arrest. And you are not supposed to interrogate people in the absence of their lawyers.

 

You must not treat your own laws with contempt just so you could be seen to be fighting corruption. If the laws are weak, strengthen them. If the institutions are not strong enough, strengthen them. Ideal societies are not built on the whims and caprices of one man. It is built on laws!

 

//There are many today who take for granted the declared victory over the Boko Haram terrorists//

 

Today, the Fulani herdsmen kill and maim Nigerians with impunity. They've killed thousands and displaced millions according to an Aljazeera report backed by what we are experiencing on the ground. Remember Agattu massacre, Nimbo killing and several such incidents of the mindless bloodletting by the fulanis across the country?

 

Defeating one security problem while deliberately allowing another to gain ground does not call for celebration. Why should I roll out the drum in celebration of the victory over boko haram when I can still be killed or maimed by the Fulani herdsmen right there in my own village??

 

Nigerians are tired of hearing about millions, billions and trillions of naira and dollars recovered from the officials of the last government. We want to start hearing how those monies have been used or are being used to improve our conditions. A dead man has no need for naira and dollars. We are dying of hunger! And this is not about the PDP versus the APC. This is about the common man on the street who has probably never heard of those acronyms.

 

We don't care who caused our problems. We just want you to fix them because that is why we elected you! That is why we are paying you! To fix problems, even if they were created by Lord Lugard.

 

Accusing law abiding citizens of this country who are discharging their duty of holding their government to account, of being funded by corrupt politicians is absurd. Very absurd. And I wish not to breathe any more life to that lie by discussing it any further.

 

Reminding us of Buhari's inaugural speech serves no purpose here. We know he promised to tackle insecurity, corruption, fuel and power shortages etc. What we wanna know is how far he has gone in fulfilling them. Are we now secure?? Is there no more systemic corruption in the government?? Has problem of fuel scarcity ended? Do we now have stable power?? How many megawatts have been added to the national grid???

 

//The government has begun rolling out several social welfare packages: the direct cash transfer to the poorest of the poor, the school feeding and the recruitment/skills training of about one million jobless citizens are such an example//

 

This is a noble initiative. I've got questions, though:

How are these 'poorest of the poor' selected?? Do we have data base for such people? How did the government determine those who fall into that category??

 

How can we feed school children if we cannot feed the IDPs?? How??

 

And who are those one million jobless citizens being recruited or trained in the skill acquisition program? How were they picked??

Why can a government that is spending billions in oil exploration in the north be talking about diversification of the economy?

 

Did we budget anything for fertilizer subsidy?? Are the farmers even being protected?? How can we be talking of diversification when we are still suggesting that farmers should be paying special protection fees before being protected by their own government?? When the president donned a military fatigue for the first time in 3 decades just to inaugurate a taskforce against cattle rustling, how many did he launch to protect the farmers??

 

So much for diversification.

 

The Ogoni clean up: what has been done since the exercise was launched? Is gas not still being flared in Ogoni-land??

 

//The subsidy removal has saved the government more than two trillion naira annual expenditure in this respect//

 

If only you guys knew how much it grieves an hungry man to keep hearing those high sounding figures without feeling the impact of what those figures are being channelled into.

 

//The president many foreign trips have brought many things to the country//

 

We know and we have never doubted this. We only seek to know when all those good things will translate to food on our table. This, here is the immediate concern of the common man. As long as a bag of rice is still sold for 18-19 thousand and 'mudu' of garri is still N260, telling the poor man what the president's foreign trips have achieved is more like pouring water on the back of the duck. Na Foreign Trip We Go Chop??

 

//The president is the victim of the tyranny of high expectations//

 

With all due respect, this is a very big lie. There is only one victim here: the poor masses! The president is not a victim of anything here. Let's get something very straight here: Buhari made some impossible promises during the campaign. He looked us eye ball to eye ball and promised us things he knew were impossible. If he has now realised he couldn't fulfill those promises, he should just come forward and face us just like he did when he made the promises and say; "please my people, I have now realized that some of those promises upon which I got your votes are unrealistic, please, can we just adjust our expectations?"

 

This is the honorable route to take. You cannot raise people's hope to the sky with impossible promises during the campaign period only to start playing the victim after securing their votes on the strengthen of those promises.

 

I find it negatively funny that the presidential media aide talked about the president being prudent in spending when we still have 11 planes in the presidential fleets. So long as those planes are still being used and maintained by the presidency, any talk about the president being prudent would never sit well with most Nigerians. He promised to sell off most of those planes and he is a man of integrity, is he not? Why has he refused to sell those jets to cut cost in government spending??

 

His good intentions for cutting down his cabinet from 46 to 24 has since been defeated by his insistence in keeping those jets.

 

//The president should be credited with the unblemished record of his ministers. This is a government that has stayed above board for a year//

 

It is okay for us to lie to ourselves sometimes but it is unacceptable for us to start believing our own lies.

Budget was padded left, right and center, submitted, stolen, resubmitted with ministers denying their ministries budget and blaming rat for inserting extra figures into it. The president even admitted it and promised to punish the culprits only to just redeploy them.

And we say there's been no scandal?

 

What about the interior minister; Gen. Dambazzou who was accused of owning properties abroad and helping the NPS boss falsify his age??

 

Note, I, Charles Ogbu, I'm not the one accusing the minister of anything here ooo. It is Sahara Reporters that made the accusation with back up proof. So that "cyberstalking" thing should go to them, not me.

 

We've had scandals. We need to stop living in denial here.

 

The president needs our support. No doubt about that. But that is exactly what we are doing in our own little way. How best to support your president other than by telling the truth at all time. I mean my president well and that is why I am telling him those things his close aides may be too uncomfortable to tell him for fear of loosing their jobs.

 

We need to understand one thing here, as long as the president's aides cannot look him in the face and tell him the bitter truth about the amount of hardship in the country, we will continue to be in this mess no matter how good the president's good intentions may be.

 

- Written by Charles Ogbu