DURING the 2015 electioneering campaigns, many Nigerians had fears whether the All Progressives Congress (APC) would be able to fulfill most of its electoral promises or not. They were not so sure if APC would govern Nigeria better than the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The choice then was between Dr Goodluck Jonathan of PDP and General Muhammadu Buhari of APC which a notable critic described as two bad options. And the latter won and all is now history.
Almost seven months after assumption of pow- er by the APC, our fears are being confirmed. It took President Muhammadu Buhari six months to constitute his cabinet in which the South-East was sidelined because it did not give the president many votes in the March 28 presidential poll.
More appointments were given to those zones that gave Buhari 95 percent than the one that gave it five percent. That was the first blunder of the administration that promised to unify all Nigerians and treat them equally. Some people are of the view that the South-East alienation is the cause of new Biafra.
Sad enough, the government has not set up its economic team. Investors do not know where the economy is going. The exchange rate is high against the naira now more than when Buhari took over from Jonathan. The stock market has record- ed more losses because foreign investors are daily dumping their shares and moving elsewhere that promises good business.
It is even not better for local investors as well. All of them are groaning under the APC economy. Local contractors are being owed. Prof. Chukwuma Charles Soludo had in a recent public lecture in Lagos lampooned Buhari’s administration for lack of economic blue-print.
Instead of listening to him, he was called names as if that will solve the nation’s economic woes. Recently Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu criticized the government handling of the economy in the past six months and guess what he got from Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture.
Mohammed blamed the nation’s worsening economy on PDP’s alleged misrule. We have heard enough of that. APC should stop sounding like a broken record. Such propaganda is too cheap. It is nauseating. Let APC understand clearly that the campaign is over. It should face governance and fulfill its promises to Nigerians.
It is on record that the party is yet to fulfill any major promise it made to Nigerians. It has not paid the N5,000 stipend to the unemployed. It has not created any job. It has not crushed the Boko Haram insurgency within its own two months promise and it is unlikely that its December deadline will be met.
The implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy is not without its own controversy over payment of one percent cut to the software owner and others. How can one percent of the nation’s money be fritted away on commission alone? Let the TSA policy be reviewed now before it leads to another bigger scam. I do not think that this is actually the change Nigerians expected.
The only work the APC government is doing now  legedly pocketed billions of our money. I support the ongoing war against corruption and the imperative of recovering looted funds but I am op- posed to trial of suspected looters in the media. I am also against the selective nature of the war against graft.
What are the courts doing? The issue of prosecuting suspects of looted funds is a matter the anti-graft agencies, the police and the judiciary should handle. It is not a matter of Buhari will step on toes or Buhari will jail somebody or not as some of his media aides are regaling us with.
Buhari, the democrat, cannot prosecute anybody and cannot even step on anybody’s toe. This is a democracy and not a military regime. Let all the actions of the government be guided by due process. Let the courts try the suspects.
This is why I think that the Edo State governor, Adams Oshiomhole has spoken too much on this. He should concentrate in governing his state and allow the prosecutors to do their job. I do not know what Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala did to him that he should not allow her to drink water and put down the cup like others. Oshiomhole should leave our Ngozi alone.
Although General Sani Abacha’s loot was recovered and some are still being recovered many years after his death, it never stopped governance. APC should not hide under the cover of PDP mismanaged the economy and fail to fulfill its promises to Nigerians.
APC should not blame its lackluster performance, so far, on others. APC knew quite well that things were not okay before promising heaven and earth to Nigerians. Now that power is in its laps, it should stop lamenting and face gov- ernance. It should not behave like a chronic bachelor that was given a wife and he began to ask for the mat to sleep with her.
Nigerians have given APC power, let it use it and govern better than PDP. It should stop the mournful and irritating laments and listen to critics.
During the campaigns, the APC described the subsidy regime as a fraud. Now that it is in power, let it remove that fraud. The World Bank recently said that Nigeria spent N7 trillion in subsidy payment in the last few years and warned the country to stop its subsidy regime. How much does it cost to build a new refinery?
I do not know exactly but I think that N7 trillion would have done something to enable us refine enough crude oil for our local consumption. Prof. Tam David-West, who is conspicuously missing in Buhari’s cabinet will elucidate better on this subject. Two other missing persons in the cabinet, Professors Pat Utomi and Chukwuma Soludo are also well versed on the undesirability of the subsidy regime.
Even if APC refused to stop the questionable subsidy regime, the economy is not on their side as oil prices keep plummeting daily. There is no way the economy based on $40 crude oil price or less can sustain that jamboree.This government should stop the fruitless search for oil in the Lake Chad Basin and deploy such effort to develop agriculture in the country. Agriculture remains our next oil pot.
It is a pity that APC has wasted seven months of its 4 years. It should set up an economic team immediately before the economy collapses on its head. Nigerians never had it so bad in PDP era. There should be less confusion in an era of change. There is no electricity, no water and no petrol, no food and no money to buy food.
The confusion is increasing every day and somebody is blaming PDP instead of facing the reality on the ground. Nigerians will not entertain any excuses from the APC and 2019 is not too far.