By John Danfulani, Ph.D
Nigerians “were not satisfied” with the leadership of President Goodluck Jonathan hence their refusal to renew his request for a fresh mandate on 28th March 2015. Promises of Dr. Jonathan’s main challenger, the APC’s candidate Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (Now PMB) contributed to that historic denial of President Jonathan’s bid.
After leaving the handing and taking over ceremony venue (EAGLES’ SQUARE) on 29th May 2015,Nigerians assumed the tough talking PMB will hit the ground running.People hoped for; better power supply, workable financial policies, end of insurgency, reviving of our ailing refineries, rehabilitation of our decayed infrastructures, and building of social bridges between and amongst Nigerians.
Instead of seeing genuine and concerted attempts to meeting the yearnings and aspirations of his compatriots, his countrymen and women saw confusion, cluelessness, procrastination, disarray, redundancy, and wobbling of effort. Where speed was desperately required PMB hesitated, and where caution was abundantly desired he zoomed with speed of light. It was a complete hobbling of effort and swimming against the tide of ideas and time.
When PMB and his men in the loop reconciled themselves with impeccable reality that they lack the faintest clue of running a complex nation like Nigeria they started playing the blame game like the character disorder narrated in Robert Schullar book “Tough Times Never Last But Tough People Do”. Thus PMB’s predecessor was blamed for everything wrong under Nigeria’s political sun.
When PMB tampered with 30/70 ratio of fuel importation between NNPC and independent marketers and it triggered the longest fuel scarcity in the history of the nation, he blamed Jonathan’s regime. When his consistent inconsistency in monetary policies led to the crash of the Naira, he blamed the immediate past regime of not leaving much in foreign reserve. When he reneged on his promises of not removing subsidy on fuel and devaluation of Naira,he blamed President Jonathan for his failure to stick to his words. Recently, Mr. Lai Mohammed the regime’s Minister of Information blamed the recently discovered Tomoto Ebola, and the Avengers on opposition PDP. They may very soon begin to attribute natural and human disasters to President Jonathan.
It’s clear that, PMB and his men lack the technical knowhow to walk their talk. It appears, the adage “talk is cheap” was invented with PMB and his APC kingpins in mind. Nigerians are tired of hearing rumbling echoes of excuses from the people that bamboozled them and got power. What Nigerians desire and hope to see is work and result, period. Can PMB and APC excuse us of their excuses? Let PMB and his team of ” puritans and geniuses” demonstrate their mettle and sagacity in managing Nigeria. By the way, good times aren’t the right moments to know great leaders, they are known in very turbulent moments.
Will PMB stop his many excuses and get to work? The problem now is how to stimulate economic growth before this unfortunate recession turns to depression.
Dr. Danfulani can be reached through email: Johndanfulani@gmail.com
