THE word has been there all the while. Nobody in Nigeria invented it. It’s called clueless. But in 2015, in the run up and the heat of the acrimonious and very divisive general elections in our country, the then opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) virtually gave a new meaning and indeed life and currency to that word.
In almost every statement, at press conferences, at campaign grounds, in the media and all over the country, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the spokesman of the APC and Shehu Garba, the head of communication of the candidate Muhammadu Buhari presidential campaign organization, and other leading lights in the party were relentless in ensuring that the tag of cluelessness stuck with the then president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and his administration.
And they succeeded. In what appears to be it living up to the tag, that administration fumbled and wobbled for many months before it was routed and defeated in the March 28, 2015 presidential election and then buried in the subsequent April 11, 2015 nationwide governorship poll. Like a dog with its tail between its legs President Jonathan turned over the reins of power to Buhari on May 29, 2015. That event marked the final surrender of Jonathan and the rudderless (aka APC) Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Fast forward to 15 months from May last year and you are confronted with a déjà vu. The very word, clueless, that was popularised by the APC and by association its then presidential candidate Buhari has returned to haunt them in a menacing manner. Even without an effective opposition party given that the PDP is in intensive care, the ruling party has lost its nerves and their president has panicked. It is the mode of panic that has forced this administration to fly a kite this past week on the need for Nigerians to award it emergency powers ostensibly to stabilise Nigeria’s fast collapsing economy. It has just been confirmed that the economy has slipped from technical to full blown recession. The special adviser on media to the president, assigned to the vice president’s office, Laolu Akande, has been striving to hide behind one finger over  the existence or otherwise of an economic stabilisation bill without success.
The executive bill is real but the government is aware that it is a hot potato. The administration is careful on how to present it when the National Assembly (NASS) resumes from its holidays this September. But the government needs to be reminded that it cannot be careful enough. The bill is bad even without the benefit of a fuller insight into the details. The bill is dangerous given that it is seeking to hand arbitrary powers to a man, to a president who is insular, parochial, divisive and insensitive to critical sections of the Nigerian population. If we can we will explain later though my assertion should be obvious to the neutrals and the discerning in our political divide.
The snippets from the proposed Emergency Economic Stabilisation Bill 2016 indicate that if it becomes law, President Buhari would be awarded sweeping powers to act as it pleases him ostensibly in the quest to arrest the national economic decline. He would be beyond the control of the NASS in his actions under the bill/law and there would be ouster clauses/provisions that would render the courts impotent. The media and other opposition elements would not be spared. Any opposition to any action by the president under this looming dangerous law, if Nigerians and the national lawmakers allow it, would be treated at best as economic sabotage, and at worst as treasonable felony. None of the two treatments would be palatable to our countrymen.
The bill claims that if the president is allowed or awarded maximum and absolute powers he would be in a better stead to shore up the value of the Naira which currently exchanges at over N400/$1; he would boost our vanishing foreign reserves; he would be able to revive Nigeria’s manufacturing sector; and that the president armed with this law would summarily reverse our pathetic public power supply situation. In addition the proposed law or better still decree would help abridge the public procurement process, award the president power to spend (probably without appropriation), to issue Executive Orders ala the United States of America (USA), favour local contractors and suppliers in contract awards.
The law would also allow the president to sell or lease government assets, our commonwealth, from which could be raised about $50bn; divert (virement) budgetary allocations to whatever projects he considers more important and urgent without recourse to the NASS; and then make it possible for him (president) to fast track the issuance of visa to potential foreign investors. Balderdash! Bunkum! No brainer. The reasons or better still excuses in the public domain, and the ones that may come later, are just clever ploys by the ruling APC and President Buhari, a former military dictator, for power grab. Ahead of the presidential election in 2015, Buhari sold himself to Nigerians as a born again democrat. And this was amplified by his backers and sponsors. But the man is now unraveling. Buhari is no democrat, born again or born before. He does not have the temperament for dialogue and debate and conversation and compromise. He is steeped in the culture of command and control, and zombie-like obedience. He brooks no opposition and treats wise counsel with disdain.
President Buhari, the APC and their administration want to shut the stable doors after the horse has bolted away. Inflation is gone; recession is here; unemployment is rife; job losses are frightening; exchange rate is yoyo; misery is all over the land; hopelessness is becoming infectious; despondency is spreading; the budget is not performing, padded or not; armed robbery is on the increase; agitations are spreading; people are dying; and to cap it all this administration appears not to know what to do: it is clueless. Completely. To be sure, there is nothing that is being sought under the so-called emergency law/power that cannot be accomplished otherwise. Let us start from the most ridiculous fast track issuance of entry visa into Nigeria.
Who needs a law to fix that? How would any new law cure the bottlenecks in doing business with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) or the National Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC)? For the Procurement Act that would reportedly not allow the award of contract until after six months of the decision on a project or the Universal Basic Education (UBEC) law that frustrates states from accessing the $58bn reportedly trapped in banks or in the treasury single account (TSA) on the requirement of provision of 50 per cent counterpart fund, the amendments of relevant sections/provisions can be achieved within two weeks on the resumption of NASS next week. The last time I checked the APC still has majority in NASS. The problem is that the president does not like to work with the NASS, even less so courting the opposition lawmakers to support his programmes and policies. He also loathes the judiciary. And that is what a country gets when it pretends to have elected a messiah president. If it becomes necessary in future we will expatiate as we stated above why an insular and parochial and divisive and insensitive president like Muhammadu Buhari should not be tempted with absolute power.
President Buhari and his team as presently constituted are incapable of taking us out of the woods. I can only pray that I am wrong.

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