 |
| President Muhammadu Buhari |
By: Comrade AbdulRahman Agboola
Argument on perfection in human nature has never been proved beyond the consensus of negation in humans’ perfection, this paradox brought to fore the common maxim “to err is human” and in absolute reality there is no perfection in humanity. Often, people tends to attach perfectionistic stance to some personalities at variance with human frailties, which eventually leads to contrite when shortcomings evolve in the general performance of the idolized personalities. We should be guided by the fact that we rested the mantle of leadership of this Country on the shoulders of a human who is equally prone to shortcomings, people regarded as exemplary are not flawless, but fortunate to record greater positive feats that overshadows their inadequacies, every action in life has an implication, people of good characters conflicts with bad-mannered people and the vicious circle continues.
Before the emergence of President Muhammadu Buhari a year ago, Nigeria was in terribly bad states at all fronts, but today, the fronts can be disjointedly appraised, where economy has gone worse, added with poor cost of living through new government policies of increased electricity tariffs and petrol pump price due to economic comatose, where our exchange rate hit the worst taste in a Country mainly dependent on importation for economic survival, the commoners are struggling harder than before for survival of the woes, but reposing high confidence in the government to change the present cantankerous tides to a rewarding future of economic stabilities and fortunes, our cranky situation in Nigeria is not beyond redemption under this present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Geniuses concentrate on solving problems and not blame shifts to distractors or agent’s provocateurs, the emergence of this administration was premised on populace acknowledgements of the horrendous and terrifying state of economy, governance, security and effective service delivery, that era was regarded as era of paddy paddy, arrangee, army arrangement, embezzlement of public funds, protection of vagabonds in power, promotion of social malaise and deepened chasm between the rich and the poor, that era eradicated the middle class and changed the order to just the extremely rich people and the extremely poor people.
A year after we constituted a new government to wipe away those odds we ought to regard as gory past, the government has recorded notable achievements that partially addressed most of the challenges, perpetual contest confronts the achievements with the prominence of economic hardship over leverages. The President undoubtedly is discharging valuable services to the people of this Country, his services must be best enough to solve the numerous problems and excuse can never be an option, even though we acknowledge several causes of hindrances staring him in the face, he must bravely overcome those challenges and earn resounding applause, until then, no applause for Mr President.
The Media team of Mr President released a script captioned “One Year Achievements in Office” which is a pointer to content of the Democracy Day Speech by Mr President; the documents listed the success of this administration in the last one year, initiatives on restoration of effective security services, anti-corruption crusade and address of global image/perception of Nigeria were well captured. The Media team like most allies and supporters of Mr President, in the bid to promote the good intentions and positive actions of our master in the last one year downplayed the constraints and sabotages like depleted foreign reserve, reduced earnings from international trades and terrific attacks on oil pipelines which has hindered the wishes of Mr President to reposition the Country for abundance wealth and greatness.
It is a great disservice to enumerate our gains without counting our losses, where the Country is gaining momentum in prudence management of resources and protection of commonwealth against abuse and misappropriations, the emergence of an egalitarian society remains a mirage. Where peace has tactically returned to the Boko Haram ridden South East, pockets of violence in Zaria from fracas between the Military and Islamic Sect recorded scores of deaths, Ethnic Militias in Nasarawa and Benue remains unabated, while the South South Militias have returned to the creeks and launch attacks against the Country’s asset in a declaration of war against the government.
Mr President is neither naïve nor clueless, but guided by democratic norms and values hence could not frontally launch assaults against violators of laws and promoters of disorderliness, summary executions and brutal attacks conflicts with democratic governance, while separation of powers and rules of law handcuffs the mightiness of an elected President, but proactive responses to circumstances of treasons and felony differs, when sovereignty of the Country is attacked by any group.
Democracy offers the populace the rights to decide how they should be governed, but those rights are grossly abused by the people themselves, instead of having consensus among our artificial divides of political, race, region and tribes to resolutely support the efforts of President Muhammadu Buhari in his bid to restore sanity to the polity, and facilitate home grown economy as a respite for total dependency on importations, the ethnic irredentists who promoted and coordinated the misguided Biafra agitations conveyed the first volatile distractions to the present administration, followed by the renascent of Militancy in the Niger Delta as economic sabotage against our collective welfares and lastly, the clash of interest among political gladiators that undermined the performance of the present administration.
A study of the revelations contained in Engels, in the light of researches of Lewis H. Morgan on the Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State appropriately captures the rivalry among tribes and regions in Nigeria, which impugned on the unity of purpose among Nigerians across the divides of River Niger and Benue with the failure of marriage of North, South, East, West and Central as one, where signal of divorce remain invincible, sabotage of government in power by ethnic chauvinists remains our greatest albatross and constitute reasons for our economic woes in Nigeria.
Aligning with Engels, the inequality of the two before the law, which is a legacy of previous social conditions, is not the cause but the economic oppression of women, in the old communistic household which embraced numerous couples and their children, the administration of household entrusted to the women was just as much a public, a socially necessary industry as the providing of food by the men, this situation changed with the patriarchal family and even more with the monogamous individual family, the administration of the household lost its public character, it was no longer the concern of society, it became a private service. Our dependency on oil exploration as the only source of wealth in Nigeria is the monogamous individual family and women are the Nigeria Citizens in this antithesis, the order must be changed to polygamous extended families of diversified economy.
In corollary, Mr President himself failed to commence the activities of his administration as promised, to hit the ground running as revealed by his running mate when they secured the populace mandate, the major actors of the last administration that aided and abetted fraudulent practices were not substituted until recently, most Institutions operated without governing boards as checks against heads of Institutions, the Ministers were not appointed until recently and the budgets was lately passed. All these setbacks occurred due to the discretion of Mr President that was too careful to avoid making mistakes, but dragged back the performance of his administration.
In further corollary, the polarization among APC stalwarts over tussle and bickering on the leadership of the National Assembly adversely affected the performance of the administration in the last one year, Mr President hold the aces and would have saved the situation by categorical positions on salient worries and divisions among his party men, that should become history as unity of purpose among his team can never be undermined.
The Country is still afar from resolving the basic challenges of epileptic power supply, economic diversification and patriotism among the entire citizens, but signals appear that Mr President is setting the pathway towards achieving these lofty visions, these are only achievable if we all shun sycophancy and allow the prevalence of constructive criticism of government policies and programmes to sharpen and shape issues into proper perspectives. People must not be regarded as nuisance for reeling out opposing views in as much as those views can be debated and appropriately reviewed.
Mr President still has the next few months to achieve his visions for this Country, he needs the masses support to succeed and must reunite with the aspirations of the people, for a government to be regarded as masses inclined, populace views must be appropriately sought before policy formulations and implementations, people will feel honoured and respected by the government when their opinions counts in decision making. Mr President is presiding over a Country of numerous and abundantly neglected natural resources, where our earlier success on oil explorations and trades has now failed, efforts must be instantly re-dedicated towards prioritizing our priorities, best of luck to Mr President as we hopefully assess his administration in the next one year, happy democracy day celebrations to all Nigerians, “ale ma lowo sugbon ani alaafia”, we may lack money but we seek solace in good health.
Comrade AbdulRahman Agboola,
National Coordinator,
Mass Action for Good Governance and Grassroots Developments in Nigeria
No comments:
Post a Comment