Exactly 2 months from today, we would be going to the polls to elect our new set of leaders and the importance of the decision we make cannot be overemphasized. We all need to exercise this civic duty after careful consideration of the options at hand. Do we want the same of same, or do we deserve a change for the better. I must state clearly that I am a non-partisan Nigerian who is extremely passionate about seeing a greater Nigeria. Let me start by stating my preferences at the state and national level. For the Lagos state election I believe Jimi Agbaje deserves to win. Not that Fashola did not do well comparatively, but he was greatly impeded by his Godfather Tinubu. A sizeable portion of the state’s IGR was diverted through ABC (which (un)coincidentally was the brainchild of Ambode). Some would claim the emergence of Jimi would just be a substitution of Godfathers with the former criminal Bode George being the new don of Lagos. However I believe this would be unlikely because compared to Ambode, Jimi can be said to be a man of his own and would be able to withstand the pressures of Godfatherism. So for Lagos, PDP deserves our vote! At the national level I believe that APC should be elected simply because the current GEJ led administration has been tactless and to say the very least performed extremely tepid in the last 6 years. The bases of my conclusion are as follows: Corruption: Nigeria is presently at a very low ebb when it comes to corruption we consistently rank very poorly in the Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (currently 36th most corrupt country out of 175). The looting of Nigeria’s treasury which GEJ considers as ordinary stealing and not corruption has taken a whole new dimension. Ex- militants are the new elite with most of their leaders owning private jets and also obtaining lucrative security contracts to supposedly secure the creeks and our crude oil infrastructure. As we speak, about 20% of Nigeria’s crude oil is stolen via bunkering perpetrated/encouraged by the same people paid to be providing security. The claim of former CBN governor that over $20billion of the country’s oil revenue is unaccounted for has just been shoved under the carpet, nobody is asking questions. Not one indictment has come out of the subsidy scam matter, infact these criminals are still receiving subsidy from government till date. The number of suspected criminals that have gone scot-free under the GEJ administration is alarming (Alamesiegha, Bode George, Abacha’s thugs, Stella etc) are a few cases in point. What message are we sending about the so called anti-corruption drive??? I will not fail to mention the electoral reforms under the GEJ administration this is quite commendable and I give kudos to him in this regard, but that commendation stops short at the signpost of Ekiti and the gross electoral misnomers that recently occurred there. If I start the corruption issue, I will not end today o, so let me just cap it here. Economics: The Nigerian economy has continued to grow at an impressive rate however, income distribution has worsened. In February 2012, the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics released what is today its most up to date survey on living standards, the so-called Harmonised Nigeria Living Standards Survey 2009/2010, which found that at that time 61.2% of Nigerians lived on one dollar a day or under. That was an increase of almost 10% since the last measurements were taken in 2004, and meant that at the time around 100 million Nigerians were living on less than a dollar a day. The World Bank’s benchmark for poverty measurement was then at or below one dollar a day. Nigerians are still poor, they are not feeling the impact of our supposed ascendance to the prime spot of “the biggest economy in Africa”. The excess crude account has been frittered away by the GEJ administration so has our external reserves, Nigeria is at a desparate state of financial health and failing extreme measures to shore up tax receipts we would soon be bankrupt and unable to meet our financial obligations. Our currency has constantly being defended throughout the GEJ administration and the perceived stability in the fx rate was not due to economic reasons but unsustainable defense of the Naira. The punishment for that unwise decision seems to be steering us in the face now! Our stock exchange remains in a comatose state, companies are failing every day, import dependence remains rife, manufacturing has not picked up and the economy seems to be in a general state of flux. However it would be unfair of me not mention the efforts made by government with respect to inflation and food security. I salute the efforts of the minister of finance and agriculture in this regard. Also efforts of the minister for trade and investments are laudable, the automobile policy is quite laudable. As I said earlier GEJ’s performance extremely tepid but not totally useless. Energy: The prosecution of the power reform has at the very least been wishy-washy. The reform in itself is quite laudable but the prosecution poor. Two years after we are worse off than the previous administration and we are still in the dark with government making useless promises of 10,000MW before the year runs out. To start with the power assets were sold to cronies of the government with little experience in power matters. Also the entire effort has been uncoordinated with no concrete plans made for gas supply and effective transmission network. Today we still generate under 4500MW same as under Obasanjo’s administration after 6 years of Dr. GEJ. The situation is still Never Expect Power Again (NEPA) but only in with different looters. The petroleum industry bill has been a pipe dream for over 6 years now and this a gravely stunted the growth of the oil and gas sector. For those in the know about the PIB saga I do not need to overemphasize the failings of this government in this regard. The Minister of Petroleum has constantly stifled all attempts to get the bill passed into law. Now to the Minister of Petroleum, I am sure I do not need to expatiate on her excesses as this has been well documented. The whole petroleum subsidy removal saga was quite alarming. As an economist I know subsidy regimes are unsustainable and I agree with subsidy removal but the way the administration went about the removal was totally wrong and without the provision of any safety nets for the citizenry. Also alarming was the way the Occupy Nigeria protest was handled. 5 innocent Nigerians lost their lives and till date no indictment what so ever for their killers. The full strength of the military was unleashed on innocent Nigerian civilians now he is asking for our votes??? Security When it comes to security, even a blind man can see the failings of GEJ in this regard. GEJ has simply not done enough to curb the spate of insecurity in Nigeria. We can blame the northern leaders as much as we want but at the end of the day the buck still stops with the C in C of the armed forces. The No1 responsibility of a president is to provide security to its citizens and its territory but GEJ is completely clueless in this regard. Our girls are still missing despite several diabolical lies by Okupe that a seize fire has been reached and they would be released soon. The spate of bomb blast has been sustained and noble men of the Nigerian army have been sent to their untimely death with obsolete equipment to prosecute the counter insurgency effort. In football, if the team consistently fails to perform and keeps loosing, you can blame the captain as much as you like, you can blame the supporters for not doing well enough, you can even blame the players for not following instructions but at the end of the day, it’s the Coach that gets fired! GEJ’s ineptitude has changed the map of Nigeria with 3 states cut off! If only for his security failings I believe we have to vote him out. In the Niger Delta militancy days, Yaradua was able to tactfully use GEJ to reach a peace agreement, why has GEJ not tactfully used Sambo in this case??? Also do not let us forget that BH is not the only security challenge we have today, the spate of kidnappings and armed robbery across the nation is still on the rise. Also our military is at its lowest level of potency ever an aggression from outside forces might be difficult to withstand. Nigeria is seriously exposed and our territorial integrity can be challenged at anytime. Conclusion I believe GEJ is overwhelmed by the pressures of being the president of Nigeria, he never prepared for nor expected to be the president of Nigeria. It just happended on him. It is time for us to take our future in our hands and ease Dr. GEJ of this pressure he has failed to cope with. We cannot be beclouded by the isolated cases of benefits professed by rent-seekers, some clansmen and other GEJ sympathizers, the overwhelming majority of Nigerians are simply worse off. I have personally profited in this current administration but it is not about me or the other middle to high class Nigerians commenting on this post, it is about the Nigerian masses. If we do not act now, the “poor will have nothing else to eat but the rich”. The oppression of the proletariat by the bourgeois always leads to class war. May Nigeria never get to that extreme, but the truth is it is steering us in the face. Just take a look at our country, Doctors and University teaching staff perpetually on strikes, long queues at our petrol stations, bad roads, plane crashes, wide spread corruption, disregard for the rule of law etc. This is all too reminiscent of the dark days of Abacha and an end must be put to this. Don’t get me wrong Buhari is not the best candidate that APC could have thrown up, Kwankwaso would have been a better option. Buhari’s purported religious insensitivity and ethnocentrism coupled with his previous authoritarian “rulership” style makes him a tough pill to swallow, but this pill is needed to cure the plague that GEJ has put upon Nigeria. Let us remember that Buhari ruled during the military authoritarian administration and had all the powers to turn Nigeria to a Sharia state but that never happened. It is unlikely that anybody can change the circular nature of the Nigerian state without it leading to full-blown war, so if Buhari could not do it when he had absolute power how do you think he would achieve it now. We are now in a democracy, Buhari will not have absolute power, there are checks and balances, so anyone that wants to use Buhari’s past excesses as a primary justification for us to stick to this inept GEJ administration should think again. Nigerians are a lot wiser now. As for the choice for a vice for Buhari, no decision has been made yet so let us hold off all speculations and discussions on that until we know who the chosen one is. I do not intend to and neither can I overrule anyone’s personal choice of who you cast your vote for but let us remember that the decision we make today would affect the lives of our children. We stand a real and present risk of not having any nation called Nigeria again if GEJ wins a second term and continues this level of ineptitude. Let us vote not just for the purpose of satisfying our present leanings (religious, ethnic, political etc) but let us vote for posterity. Let us vote for Nigeria’s revival. Let us vote for a better tomorrow. We cannot continue to do the same thing and expect a different result. We need a change now. God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria! Lami Moses Adekola is an economist and believer in a greater Nigeria.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 09:31:33 +0000
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