Nigeria New Government: Taking Buhari By His Words

By: Ifeanyi Izeze
No doubt, the inaugural speech of President Mohammadu Buhari could aptly be described as historic and very promising as the President laid out a very powerful agenda for his administration.
President Buhari hit the maze on the head when in his speech he said With depleted foreign reserves, falling oil prices, leakages and debts the Nigerian economy is in deep trouble and will require careful management to bring it round and to tackle the immediate challenges confronting us, namely; Boko Haram, the Niger Delta situation, the power shortages and unemployment, especially among young people. For the longer term we have to improve the standards of our education. We have to look at the whole field of medicare. We have to upgrade our dilapidated physical infrastructure.
His words: At home we face enormous challenges. Insecurity, pervasive corruption, the hitherto unending and seemingly impossible fuel and power shortages are the immediate concerns. We are going to tackle them head on. Nigerians will not regret that they have entrusted national responsibility to us. We must not succumb to hopelessness and defeatism. We can fix our problems.
In recent times, Nigerian leaders appear to have misread our mission. Our founding fathers, Mr Herbert Macauley, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Malam Aminu Kano, Chief J.S. Tarka, Mr Eyo Ita, Chief Denis Osadebe, Chief Ladoke Akintola and their colleagues worked to establish certain standards of governance.
They might have differed in their methods or tactics or details, but they were united in establishing a viable and progressive country. Some of their successors behaved like spoilt children breaking everything and bringing disorder to the house.
Elsewhere, relations between Abuja and the states have to be clarified if we are to serve the country better. Constitutionally, there are limits to powers of each of the three tiers of government but that should not mean the federal government should fold its arms and close its eyes to what is going on in the states and local governments.
Not least, the operations of the Local Government Joint Account. While the Federal Government cannot interfere in the details of its operations, it will ensure that the gross corruption at the local level is checked. As far as the constitution allows me, I will try to ensure that there is responsible/accountable governance at all levels of government in the country. For I will not have kept my own trust with the Nigerian people if I allow others abuse theirs under my watch.
On the amnesty programme in the Niger- Delta which is due to end in December, President Buhari said his government intends to invest heavily in the projects, and programmes currently in place. His words: I call on the leadership and people in these areas to cooperate with the state and federal government in the rehabilitation programmes which will be streamlined and made more effective. As ever, I am ready to listen to grievances of my fellow Nigerians. I extend my hand of fellowship to them so that we can bring peace and build prosperity for our people.
As said by the President, no single cause can be identified to explain Nigerian poor economic performance over the years than the power situation. It is a national shame that an economy of 180 million generates only 4,000MW, and distributes even less. Continuous tinkering with the structures of power supply and distribution and close on $20b expended since 1999 have only brought darkness, frustration, misery, and resignation among Nigerians. We will not allow this to go on. Careful studies are under way during this transition to identify the quickest, safest and most cost-effective way to bring light and relief to Nigerians.
As already noted by the President, the Boko Haram scourge is not the only security issue bedevilling our country. The spate of kidnappings, armed robberies, herdsmen/farmers clashes, cattle rustlings all help to add to the general air of insecurity in our land. And on these, he said We are going to erect and maintain an efficient, disciplined people friendly and well compensated security forces within an overall security architecture.
Based on conviction, the President believes that it is only when the three arms act constitutionally that government will be enabled to serve the country optimally and avoid the confusion all too often bedevilling governance today.
He said The Federal Executive under my watch will not seek to encroach on the duties and functions of the Legislative and Judicial arms of government. The law enforcing authorities will be charged to operate within the Constitution.
The legislative arm of government must keep to their brief of making laws, carrying out over-sight functions and doing so expeditiously.
While the judicial system needs reform to cleanse itself from its immediate past as the country now expects the judiciary to act with dispatch on all cases especially on corruption.
Nigerians want him to tackle the issue of insecurity in northern Nigeria and Nigeria at large. We want him to bring steady power supply that would help to boost companies and industries that are collapsing. We want him to create jobs with the needed urgency and we want him to do this and that but the tragedy of the Nigerian situation today is that the country is literally broke because of corruption, selfishness and misplaced priorities across the various strata of our economic development.
If you look at expectation and look at funding, there quite a gap. Buhari is going to be running a government without the necessary funding, which is a big problem because expectations are very high.
Buhari has talked about cleaning up the opaque state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. and the military, though a quick fix won’t be easy, as rightly observed by John Campbell, a former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria. True as said by the former diplomat, The trouble with cleaning up corruption is that it takes time, and particularly when the corruption is structural as in our case.
So when he declared that My appeal for unity is predicated on the seriousness of the legacy we are getting into, he was soliciting Nigerians should pity him and be patient as there is no quick fix for the enormous problems this country is facing despite that he remains the same old Buhari of the Buhari/Idiagbon regime but with perceived excesses limited by the Nigerian Constitution.
So what does he owe Nigerians as he wants them to show understanding and cooperation? Sincerity of purpose; genuineness of intents and actions; and above all, openness and fairness, these are some of the key attributes Nigerians expect from their new leader and his team when fully constituted. Nigerians would want their new leader to zero-in on two or three critical areas (sectors) and stamp tangible impacts in the next few months rather than take on the entire gamut of the Nigerian problem which obviously would be too heavy to carry at once especially as the president has already raised alarm that he would need to look for money to spend.
(IFEANYI IZEZE lives in Abuja and can be reached on: iizeze@yahoo.com; 234-8033043009)