By Ehi Ekhator
The coming of the All Progressives congress (APC) into the rescue of Nigeria was the best hopes Nigerians had gotten in centuries. Both home and abroad were agog with flyers, press releases throwing support on the only man, a 72 years old former military general who alleged to have had the solution of the economy and the people.
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Nigerians came out in mass to make that demand and anger known to the former administration led by President Goodluck Jonathan by voting him out, making it the first time a ruling party has ever been defeated at the central level.
Going to two years after the election, the solution party (APC) is yet to figure out what the nation really needs to get back on its right path again, instead things have gone worse. The dollar that was met at N201 to $1 is now N400. Fuel price was the first to receive the Change promised by the current administration which led to a hike in the price of everything in the market.
Rather than sit and find the ultimate solution for the nation, APC and Buhari have not stopped blaming Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP for the current state of the nation.
In August 2016, in Port Harcourt, the minister of information, Mr. Lai Mohammed blamed Jonathan by accusing him of mismanaging the country’s oil wealth. He said “He said “Nigeria has nothing to reply on to cushion the effects of the lost earnings. Many other oil producing countries and fellow OPEC members are faring better, because they saved for the rainy day”
The APC acting National Publicity Secretary, comrade Timi Frank who granted an interview to Vanguard on January 17 also blamed Jonathan for the country woes as a result of the financial recklessness of his administration.
According to Frank, the financial recklessness was responsible for the fall in naira and the dwindling economy. He added that Jonathan administration squandered the economy resources, claiming that Buhari did not meet anything on ground to run the country.
Though he acknowledged the state of the economy, he said “Personally, I am worried about the current situation of the economy but again I am letting you know it is not our fault because this is what we met. We met a bastardised system. We took over from a government that destroyed our economy. The PDP government embezzled the wealth of our nation. So our economy is something we are fighting to survive.
“The current situation of our country today, I am asking Nigerians not to blame President Buhari because he is working very hard to make sure things go well with Nigerians that voted APC government to power. They will not be disappointed.
“So the blame goes back again to the previous government, the PDP government which squandered the resources of our country. And today, Nigeria as a nation is suffering because of them.
But by the grace of God, things will be fine again.”
In November, 2015, the same party blamed Jonathan for not able to keep to one of their electoral promises of giving N5000 stipend to 25 million most vulnerable Nigerians
Again, this statement was made by the party Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed who claimed that the payment policy was not included in the 2015 budget which was prepared by Jonathan-led government.
Before election, the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Chief John Odigie Oyegun went as far as blaming Jonathan for the impeachment of the then governor of Adamawa State, a man accused of embezzling millions of the state fund.
Speaking with the journalists at a press conference, Oyegun said Jonathan has bastardized the economy and has now moved to the impeachment of a sitting governor.
Oyegun said: “Having bastardized the army, the police, the courts, aviation and the electoral commission, he has now moved to the next level: Impeachment,” Mr. Odigie-Oyegun said. “Every impeachment or threat of it in recent times has the imprint of President Jonathan.”
This last blame game only explained that the idea of blaming the previous administration did not only start today but even before the journey began. It is in the mind of many Nigerians that the President did not make any plans before the election, he was not even sure he would win the election since it has never happened before.
At the state level, the home town of the former President, his name is like a bell in the mouth of the members of the APC who also followed the footstep of the central administration to blame the same former President for the problem of the state.
In a statement issued in Yenagoa by the Publicity Secretary of the party, Fortune Panebi, the APC challenged Governor Seriake Dickson to showcase whatever benefit the state derived from the six year rule of former President Jonathan, lamenting that both the immediate past president and his party, the PDP were more of liabilities than assets to the people of the state.
Panebi said ““Does it not show much of political liability that while Jonathan, a son of Bayelsa state held sway for six years, the state is yet to take off on? What template of development did the former president lay before he was voted out of office? For us in the APC and indeed the generality of Bayelsans, both Jonathan and his party, the PDP were liabilities than they were assets to the people of the state,they underdeveloped Bayelsa state.
In the United State, the current administration met a dead country under Bill Clinton. United State was suffering economically and Barrack Obama took over without casting blame on his predecessor, he changed the face of the country to what it is today.
In Nigeria, the Central Bank of Nigeria has run out of ideas, the President is at the state of his worse confusion to the point that he has proposed a bill to the senate requesting for ultimate power to change the economy, a bill that has been rejected by some senators saying Buhari was seeking to transform himself into a tyrant and would foist a dictatorship on the nation.
The bill entitled, “Emergency Economy Stabilisation Bill 2016”, will be sent to the National Assembly by the president upon resumption from its summer vacation and after the Eid el Kabir holidays.
According to them, if the bill is passed as proposed, the president will gradually transform himself into a dictator and draw Nigeria back to the path of military rule, which it exited 17 years ago.
As provided in the bill, the president is seeking unfettered powers to set aside some extant laws and simultaneously be empowered to come up with an economic recovery initiative within the next one year.
Among others, the bill also seeks to empower Buhari to abridge the procurement process with a view to guaranteeing stimulus spending on critical sectors of the economy; make orders to favour local contractors/suppliers in contract awards; abridge the process of sale or lease of government assets to generate revenue; and allow virement of budgetary allocations to projects that are urgent, without a recourse to the National Assembly.
It also seeks to amend laws such as the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) Act, so that states that cannot access their cash trapped in the commission’s accounts as a result of their inability to meet the counterpart funding can do so.
With the move by the President, it is obvious that he no longer believe in his economic teams. He intend to take the power into his own hands to change things around, the same policy he can communicate to his cabinet to be put into effect. One cannot but wondered why Buhari would need more power to do what could be done without extra power.
Despite the numbers and numerous ways the APC had blamed its main opposition, there are some ways they haven’t been able to cast their blame games but refused to also admit that Buhari and its government are running out of ideas.
The Buhari-led administration has not been able to blame Jonathan for its inability to rescue the Chibok girls which formed one of their bases for campaign and wining the 2015 general election. Buhari during the campaign promised to go to Sambisa forest and rescue the girls within two weeks after his assumption of office.
Two days ago, rather than give an audience to the angered Bring Back Our girls protesters and the parents of the Chibok missing girls, the President ordered his security to blocked them from entering Aso Rock. The protesters stayed about 3 hours aside the Aso Rock with no single aides addressing them.
The current administration could not blame Jonathan for the time it took the President to pick his ministers. After spending six months to pick his ministers, Buhari appointed someone like Solomon Dalong, the Nigerian sport Minister who couldn’t differentiate Nigeria from America.
If you have areas Buhari couldn’t blame Jonathan, list them below
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