President Buhari and his praise singers (2)

This shouldn’t be allowed to continue with our leaders. How many foreign investors were attracted into the Nigerian economy as a result of the foreign trips of former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan? For a man who portrayed the aura of frugality and austerity before assuming office to have spent such gargantuan sum of money on foreign trips under one year in office can’t be a matter of thrift.

Again, Buhari and his praise singers also vilipended Jonathan for not visiting every scene of bomb blast detonated by the Boko Haram insurgents but today, Buhari has never sent messages of condolence to the families whose members have been mowed down by the mindless Boko Haram insurgents and lately by Fulani herdsmen not to talk of visiting them as they demanded of Jonathan! Not even the unprovoked killing of the Obi of Ubulu Uku Kingdom, HRM Obi Akaeze Ofulue 111 could elicit a message of condolence from Buahri to the people of Delta State or the immediate family of the murdered king! Since assumption of office, how many places where bomb blast occurred or innocent Nigerians were killed has Buhari visited?

Buhari and his diehard supporters condemned Jonathan over the budget of N1 billion to the feed the Presidency in 2015 but the same Buhari had budgeted N1.7 billion for same purpose but his hailers don’t see anything wrong with that budget. Buhari reprimanded Jonathan for having many aircrafts in the presidential fleet and promised to convert them into a national carrier but he has spent one year in office without converting aircrafts to a national carrier or selling them. Former President Joyce Banda of Malawi on assumption of office in 2012 sold the only Presidential jet the country had because she felt it was too expensive for the country to maintain! This is what Nigerians expect Buhari to do-either to sell some of the aircrafts or convert them to national carrier as he promised but the reverse is the case here.

Since assumption in office, Buhari and his cabinets have resorted to excuses for their failure. They blame the immediate past administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan for all the woes that have befallen the country since independence. Since the ministers took the oath of office, none of them has made policies as to the direction of their ministries. This government has no economic team and direction hence it is in recession. The Nigerian stock market has lost N1.732 trillion within one year of this administration and many companies have shut down. The few companies that are still operating on a skeletal basis are downsizing due to the poor management of the economy by this administration. Prices of goods and commodities have skyrocketed. The Nigerian economy was not in depression under former President Jonathan but Buhari and his hailers still blame the poor economy on Jonathan.

Buhari and his hailers say this administration couldn’t have corrected the misrule of many years in one year but couldn’t this government have laid a foundation for any new project within one year in office? Nobody said this administration should have built new refineries, skyscrapers, multiple roads and railways, houses etc. or solve all the problems confronting the country within one year. But couldn’t this government have laid the foundation for one new refinery, hospital, housing estate, railway, road or university? Which project has this government laid its foundation in the past one year? Is it not all about blaming the past government?

In summary, all the things former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, late Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan did which Buhari and his praise singers condemned are the same things Buhari is doing: unnecessary foreign trips, not visiting places of attacks, large fleet of aircrafts and cars, large entourages, DSS invading state assemblies, incessant fuel scarcity, lopsided anti-corruption war, huge recurrent expenditure, building helipad and wastefulness. When Buhari is on the wrong track his hailers keep applauding him. Nothing destroys a government more quickly than praise singers and hailers. This is why Buhari must beware of his hailers; they are not his friends!