The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Buhari’s ‘Next Level’

  • Setting agenda for Buhari’s next level governance

    Former Chairman of Campaign for Democracy (CD) Comrade Mashood Erubami highlights the challenges that President Muhammadu Buhari should tackle in his second term.

    President Buhari’s victory on the 23rd  of February, 2019, must once again set new agenda for earning greatness for the Country, such that must reaffirm his strong commitment to end Corruption and insecurity as necessary impetus to gaining the confidence of local and foreign investors to want to subscribe into businesses in Nigeria.

     

    Multi stakeholder government

    The next level government  must begin with the outright dissolution of the present Cabinet, Boards and Commissions appointments to enable  a new Cabinet that is inclusive of Nominees foremost  from  parties that contributed members  into the coalition which form the APC, while extending the hands of friendship to opposition parties in terms of concrete appointments that will make them participate in the government, so as to get the system working for the country without prejudice to the ongoing corruption fights which must continue unsparingly.

    After dissolution of the cabinet and the Boards of the MDA’S, a meeting of the APC should be called to discuss and adopt  the sharing of the benefits of the Coalition in equitable manner. Also the adoption of sharing formulae  with the Opposition Parties, Professionals from the Private Sector, Labour, Women, Youths  Civil Society and Pro- Democracy Groups to form a multi stakeholder government that will ensure inclusiveness and participation.

     

    Buhari and the people

    To achieve well in the three critical areas set by the President  in the next level, he must begin to build the people around his government  turning the people and the  critical mass into safeguards against political interlopers who might once again attempt to slow down governance or make it fail, creating a new government of the people by the people and for the people. A new government that will  seek the promotion and defense of democracy and good governance in which the people and the critical mass must become the oxygen of democracy that will act as catalyst for social progress and economic growth.

    Government should re introduce quarterly briefings on its budget execution and performance, stating projects locations,  state of project completion, threats, opportunity, monthly revenue generated  and shared, expenditure incurred, savings made  within the quarter to underscore the mantra of transparency and accountability.

     

    Decision taking and the party

    President Buhari should  relate very well with the Party. The party owns the government and he  is the instrument that will be  used to realise the objectives set by the party as contained in its Manifesto. All decisions to be taken by the President must be informed by the outcomes of dialogues, discussions and consultations with the Party which must not be allowed to go into disarray in any of the Constituency either in the state, local government or at the Federal level. Whatever divisions arising at those levels must be strategically resolved  to avoid polarisation in the party.

    The Government at the centre must carry the Governors along  to respond rapidly to resolve all conflicts brewing among the members in the party to underscore the significance of internal democracy. The policy thrust of the government must conform with Party Manifesto while the party must have a good say in every government decisions, in how members are being selected and appointed  to serve in government making those appointed  to be responsive to party issues and responsible for party obligations.

     

    Corruption

    All inconclusive enquiries into how oil money was diverted, misused, personalised, and embezzled between 1999 and 2014,  particularly allocations for construction of roads, building of rails, airports, the $16b meant for Power Stations, and the Niger/Delta Bridge, should come under special scrutiny,  so that the guilty could be adequately sanctioned.

    Corruption must be tackled head long,  fought strenuously and unsparingly in a nonselective manner to ensure non protection of one side of politics against the other in which political carpet crossing will not guarantee the forgiveness of  corruption offences of defectors into the ruling Party.

    The anti corruption agencies must be reformed to be more effective and proactive in responding to corruption issues in line with global best practices.

    President Buhari must continue to demonstrate boldness in tackling corruption in the military, legislature and the judiciary and the searchlight must be further beamed on the executive in a more visible and confidence building manner without creating any shred of doubt about providing coverage for anybody however highly connected and placed.

    In fighting against corruption, all toes must not only be ruthlessly stepped on, the legs that carry the toes must be crushed using the law.

    With Corruption out of the way of Nigeria, there will be available resources left for the building of Roads and Bridges, Construct power infrastructures which will  be available for the Manufacturers, Industrialists and for social services towards inducing  employment and creating  new capacities for better revenue generation.

     

    Education

    Human capacity development must be brought to its expected level of International standard and the money that would have gone into private pockets of Civil Servants and Politicians should be utilised to fund University Research on Science and Technology to make Nigeria become great from a government that works.

     

    Boko haram insurgency

    Concern by the escalating incidence of insurgents activities and general insecurity, we suggest that  the President must review  government strategies used in the last four years to combat insecurity and bring about a new measure that will focus not only  on the Insurgents but also their Masterminds.

    Government must extend its dragnets widely  to cover all areas experiencing insurgency namely Borno, Yobe, Bauchi, Kano, Zanfara, Gombe and adamawa to expose and arrest Masterminds and their Agents for unsparing and non- selective prosecution.

    Immediate measures must be put in place to engage the Book Haram Insurgents frontally and in more preemptive manner, chasing them out of their cocoons and halt their counter attacks against the Nigeria fighting forces.

    Never again must the Insurgents attack any Barracks without counter repelling force on standby to ward off their menace instantly.

    Infact, everything must be done to prevent direct Boko Haram insurgency on Civilian targets and Military bases. The heart warming steps being taken by the Buhari’s Administration must continue to halt permanently, the bombing of people, habitations and destroying of properties.

     

    Labour and employment

    The new cordial relationship that will be engendered by the APC majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives must be effectively used to review past bills that were not signed into law by the President and the Executive bills rejected or not passed by the Legislators for conjunctive  re evaluation and Consideration for  immediate enactment into law.

    The National Minimum Wage Act should be  considered for immediate signing by the President to complete the processes of lawmaking.

    The president should encourage the State Governors to also pay the minimum wage as signed into law regularly and should seriously consider the review of the Revenue collection and allocation towards increasing the revenue accruable to the States and Local Government Councils.

    This is without prejudice to finding out states  that mismanaged the bailout funds with adequate sanction on whoever embezzled the money meant for payment of backlog of salaries and pensions.

    The president should continue his efforts to reduce unemployment, in addition he  should open more  space for massive recruitment of  unemployed Youths Graduates, that will be paid decent wages in the Agricultural Sector, Oil and Gas Industries particularly in the Service  delivery sectors while re emphasising areas for  self employment.

    There  is need for a systematic short time restructuring of the economy, starting from redistribution and redirection of  National Revenue through which the Federal arm of government will be divested  of its huge share of National revenue and  many of the projects in which it  competes with the States and local Governments  of the Federation.

    Another step will be to recognise the autonomy of local government and encouraging states to invest in areas where they  have comparative advantage.

  • Buhari’s next level through Fashola’s prism

    Works and Housing minister, Babatunde Fashola, and Transport minister, Rotimi Amaechi, are among the most ingenious of President Muhammadu Buhari’s ministers in selling his re-election ambition. This of course is not to discount the combative, wholehearted and aggressive marketing embarked upon by the national chairman of the ruling party, Adams Oshiomhole. But in sheer ingenuity, few ministers can hold the candle to Messrs Fashola and Amaechi. Whereas some ministers and supporters constrain their enthusiasm in a manner that indicates their inner doubts and perhaps too the pawky caution intellectuals are accustomed to, the two ministers let go with a fervency that is at once troubling and infectious.

    Mr Amaechi, a former governor of Rivers State, is used to the animated display of enthusiasm, an attribute that helped him, in his second term especially, battle his political opponents in the years of rebellion against the Goodluck Jonathan presidency. It is not surprising that he is bringing those attributes in the service of the Buhari presidency, particularly the president’s re-election ambition. Mr Fashola’s charismatic style is harder to explain. But notwithstanding his aloofness, the Works minister’s rhetorical flourish and preachy and didactic manners are as beguiling as Mr Amaechi’s earthy humour and accessible style.

    On Tuesday, however, Mr Fashola took the liberty of unfurling, with panache and logic, a verbal treatise on President Buhari’s second term ambition which his watchers found truly confounding. He used to act as a technocrat, and administer as a disinterested ruler. Now, finding himself having to prove his political skills, he has begun to act thoroughly involved, eager and even remorseless.  His new form came to the fore early in the week when he inaugurated some 5,000 foot soldiers for the Buhari/Osinbajo campaign in Lagos. During the ceremony, he needed to tackle a few knotty political questions. Hard-pressed to explain why there seemed to be a dissonance between the APC’s promise of change in 2015 and the seeming lack of change today, the minister averred that although the APC promised change in 2014, the party did not promise to do it in four years. Brilliant sophistry. And recognising that the Southwest could once again determine the outcome of the presidential election, he threw a bait to the Yoruba, suggesting that the re-election of Buhari would guarantee that power would come to the Southwest in 2023.

    Mr Fashola said much more. Hear him: “As a Southwest indigene, I will vote for the Buhari/Osinbajo ticket because my people stand to gain more from it. The Southwest is currently occupying the position of the vice president. We have three sitting ministers and many different federal appointments from the present administration which we cannot afford to lose…The APC has done more in three years than 16 years of PDP administration, yet they say president Buhari is too slow. President Buhari is taking Nigeria to the next level. We are going to the next level. The 2019 presidential election is a choice between going back and moving forward to the next level and also a choice of whom Nigerians can trust with their money. Buhari has inaugurated a structural infrastructure fund for road construction. N15 billion has been released for the continued construction of Lagos-Ibadan expressway.”

    Mr Fashola’s logic is both faultless and irresistible. The PDP is still in a quandary just how much concession to make to the Southwest. They have talked of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), but little else thought to be of any serious significance. The presidential and vice presidential positions, should the PDP win, will go to the Northeast and Southeast. So, Mr Fashola’s reminder may help jog the memory of his fellow south-westerners to remember what they would lose should they take their 2019 balloting decision with levity. Undoubtedly, the Southwest will do a cost-benefit analysis in order to determine how they would vote, whether to stick to their current gains or hanker after the birds in the bush.

    It is, however, unlikely that the Works minister does not recognise the implication of reducing both the presidency and the decision about whom to vote for to the crass politics of distributing political pork. It is untrue that the APC has done in three years more than the PDP in 16 years, as Mr Fashola asserted. But, really, how can anyone challenge the incontrovertible fact that the Southwest has gained much more under this administration than it gained under the three PDP administrations of the past 16 years? If regional gains are all politics is about, then the Southwest will find little difficulty in voting for President Buhari next year. But if far more noble and lasting benefits are considered — and the Southwest has the depth to expertly make the right assessments — they are unlikely to find it easy to do what both Mr Fashola and Mr Amaechi expect of the electorate, particularly the Southwest voters.

    But the Works minister can take consolation in the fact that no matter how cracked his prism is, the Southwest is not the only region trapped in the sectional mindset. Both the North and the Southeast have also immersed themselves in sectional calculations, computing just what they stand to gain as the gravy train rumbles on over Nigeria’s rough and treacherous political and economic terrains. They recognise the more ennobling virtue of seeking and fighting for the national interest, but they lack the foresight and discipline to include that interest in their politicking. There is indeed little anyone can do, as far as the 2019 elections are concerned, to rouse Nigerians to higher ideals. If, as the APC and PDP leaders have shown, their leaders are shamelessly not encumbered by issues of national interests, and if in their short-sightedness these leaders cannot envision how that noble interest can deliver high positions and immediate pecuniary benefits to them, it is pointless preaching to the already damned ordinary voter to beware of their own private and ignoble interests.

    It is not clear who Mr Fashola was addressing when he spoke that Tuesday about voting President Buhari so that the Southwest could retake the presidency in 2023. The Southeast is desperate for the prize; a few ambitious politicians in some zones in the North hanker after it; and the so-called minorities also pant for it, believing that they are best placed to look selflessly after the national interest in the most patriotic and unaffected way. The pro-Buhari/Osinbajo campaigners whom Mr Fashola addressed can hardly be bothered about his 2023 calculations. On the contrary, it is a calculation Mr Fashola probably designed for politicians like himself. His principal, whom he is campaigning for, never respected zoning in all his attempts at the presidency. So, come 2023, the elections are likely to become an all-comers’ affair. They will not be circumscribed by the politics of Elections 2019.

    What is most probably true is that for politicians like Messrs Fashola, Amaechi, Oshiomhole, and other top APC leaders eager to get President Buhari re-elected, their own interests are more at stake than any other thing, not whether the APC government returns to office in 2019 to complete projects. Indeed, for most of them the prospect of leaving office and sinking into the gruelling nothingness some of their colleagues have found themselves is too depressing and damning to contemplate. They will, therefore, go at this presidential election hammer and tongs. They will not contemplate any other outcome but victory, and no other fate but one that does not injure their person and future. Yes, Mr Fashola’s prism may be cracked, but as far as he knows, no cracks are visible, and his vision and perspective cannot be more peerless and immaculate than any he has ever taken advantage of.

  • Buhari’s Next level…lest we fade in the chorus

    Muhammadu Buhari is perhaps one of the most misunderstood Presidents of Nigeria. Cynics project a rigid moralism upon him but that is because he has affected such; politically expedient Buhari, however, seeks to dispel notions of his perceived intolerance and disregard for rule of law by adopting an administrative tenderness alien to him.

    That tenderness, mutates atrociously, thus making him pander to expediences that sometimes, portray him as ‘insensitive’ as occasioned by the herdsmen killings, then ‘clueless’ or ‘lethargic’ as he had been described in certain quarters, particularly in the first few months of his tenure.

    However, Buhari has metamorphosed in the estimation of his most virulent critics, from ‘Baba Go-Slow,’ who took several months to pick his cabinet, to all shades of character.

    Every action and utterance of Buhari attracts criticism, thus like his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, he unwittingly becomes the punchline of every comedian and publicity junkie’s tripe on public stage or social media.

    Comedy skits alluding to widespread discontent with his second term dream, currently flood the social media but to these, Camp Buhari responds with witty ripostes and poetry of his successes, mostly ‘remarkable firsts.’

    Whatever the arguments for and against him, Buhari will contest the 2019 presidential election dreaming of victory. Unlike his rivals, he seeks redemption, or rather ‘to redeem Nigeria,’ to echo Buhari-speak.

    Buhari seeks redemption because he is a casualty of unfinished purpose, an unfulfilled mission, a life not fully lived. But does anyone fully lives?

    His first term, barely six months to an end, is a whirlpool of tragedy, conflicts and mixed blessings. Had it not been for the precious months he spent fighting off an illness, he could have done more…achieved more, argues a spirited segment of his camp. There are others who would gleefully reel out, perceived feats and progress, achieved on his watch.

    On the flipside, critics of Buhari, mostly People’s Democratic Party (PDP) members and hitherto apathetic sections of the populace, would cynically tell you that Buhari failed and it is time to ‘change his Change.’

    The blame for such notion should be shared by the President and his team. While Buhari set to work, frantically seeking to make up for the months he spent incapacitated by illness, his cabinet devoted time and resources to editing out familiar ugliness experienced on his watch rather than own it and explain progressive measures been taken to mitigate impact of such happenstances.

    Several aides and associates of the President, for instance, wasted quality time editing out of his first term narrative, the brute reality that Nigeria faces on their watch, if they are not blaming it on the locust years in which the country bore the affliction of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

    Perhaps Buhari could not bear to live with the ‘consequences’ of a Nigeria without him at the helm, come 2019, if truly, there would be ‘consequences.’ Perhaps his spirited bid to govern Nigeria for another four years is meant to correct perceived misinterpretations of his inactions in matching imagination to reality, will to morality.

    Maybe Buhari is simply ravaged by guilt and not the virulent hubris that incapacitated his predecessors in power. If he feels guilt, let’s hope he knows that, guilt too could be a facet of hubris.

    To understand, we have to journey with him through crevices of his redemptive vision, into the social and economic realms of humane good wishes, where the misjudged visionary is often beset by doubt, anxiety and guilt.

    There is no gainsaying the PDP personified horrors of ineptness, corruption, infantile hostility, social and economic crimes, but is Buhari’s APC any better? This is discussion fit for another day.

    Recently, Buhari launched his campaign for a second term in power, professing his wish to take Nigeria to the ‘Next Level.’

    This, sadly, offers too little in terms of conviction, hope and passion for actual positive change as marketed via his ‘Change’ mantra. What really is the ‘Next Level?’ Perhaps the incumbent president should be given the benefit of doubt and accorded the opportunity to actualise his campaign beyond the precepts of stereotypes and pseudo-reality.

    Is he consciously set to do that, or is his second term bid yet another act made for Nigeria’s political theatre?

    The audience is crucial to the politician’s performance in contemporary politics. Thus in search for applause, the politician stages pseudo-events and declarations, often orchestrated by publicists, political mercenaries, with intent to appear real. The unmasking of a stereotype and pseudo-reality, however, destroys its foundations and credibility.

    Such is the task required of the citizenry as Nigeria prepares for the 2019 general elections. An electorate that cannot distinguish between fiction and reality, will forever interpret reality through illusion.

    It’s about time we disregarded random facts or obscure bits of data and trivia used to sanctify illusion and give it authenticity.

    If Camp Buhari will continually project him as the candidate to beat, let them establish their claims with verifiable facts and data – the type that are amenable to and truly reflective in the lives of the people.

    Come 2019, Nigeria deserves a President, among other public officers, who is inured to the shift in values from humaneness to humour, fixed morality to the artifice of presentation.

    In that candidate subsists, the old political culture, that, values thrift and hard work, integrity and culture above charm, fascination and likeability.

    Is that candidate Buhari? If he isn’t, its about time we sought him out, far from the propaganda of ‘remarkable firsts,’ happy thoughts, ethno-religious sentiments, and fickle truths, lest we become part of the chorus, or the loser that fades on our bankrupt reality show.

  • Buhari’s ‘Next Level’ big on promises, vague on policy, says Atiku 

    The Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign Organisation has described President Muhammadu Buhari’s campaign document, “Next Level” as very big on promises but vague on policy.

    President Buhari, who is seeking re-election on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), unveiled his campaign document yesterday.

    Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, who is the presidential candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will unveil his today.

    The Atiku campaign group, in a statement yesterday, raised issues about promises made by the President and his party during the 2015 electioneering campaign but which they claimed had not be fulfilled.

    The statement said: “Reading through the presentation, we note that it is very vague on policy and very big on promises. Promises are cheap. Anyone can make promises and, indeed, President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC did make quite a number of promises which they either denied or did not fulfil, such as the promise to create 3 million jobs per annum and to equalise the value of the Naira with the dollar.

    “However, policies are the plans and roadmaps that will be used to achieve those promises. Promises made without policies are like a house without a foundation, they will fall. And we have seen proof of that in Nigeria in the last three years.

    “Without a concrete policy, these ‘next level’ promises are nothing more than next level propaganda. We counsel the Buhari campaign that the time for propaganda has gone and Nigerians are now interested in proper agenda.”

    The Atiku group said the feedback received from Nigerians on Buhari’s policies was one of alarm, adding that in last three and a half years of the administration, Nigeria was officially named as the world headquarters for extreme poverty.

    “Nigerians are asking if this administration is planning ‘next level’ poverty for them”, Atiku said, adding that, under this government, 11 million Nigerians have lost their jobs.

    This, the campaign said, has driven the administration into panic mode, as it has refused to fund the National Bureau of Statistics to release the latest unemployment numbers.

    Continuing, the Atiku group said, “Nigerians are asking if this administration is planning ‘next level’ unemployment for them?

    “Under Buhari, the value of the Naira has been so devalued that Bloomberg rated the Naira as the worst performing currency on earth. The nation wants to know if this government plans ‘next level’ devaluation of the Naira for them?

    “In 2018, Transparency International announced that Nigeria made her worst ever retrogression in the Corruption Perception Index, moving 12 steps backwards from 136 under the Peoples Democratic Party to 144 under Buhari. Nigerians are asking if this administration is planning ‘next level’ corruption for them?”

    The campaign office said the ‘next level’ launch was an anti-climax in that it just exposed the fact that all that the Buhari government is promising Nigerians is more of the same.

    It stated that if the state of the average Nigerian has not improved in the last three and a half years, more of the same was obviously not what they needed.

    “We, therefore, urge Nigerians not to lose hope, but to await the launch of the policies, plans and programme of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to Get Nigeria Working Again.

    “Remember those who fail to plan, plan to fail. Atiku has a plan. Atiku means jobs and at 12 noon on Monday, November 19, 2018, you will hear from the man with the plan,” the statement added.