This topic, in its third installment, recalls my earlier articles in my weekly column in the Sunday Telegraph, where I discussed critical issues concerning this government and its leadership. I was ignored and deserted as a lone voice crying in the wilderness. But, today, all my predictions and thinking have come to pass. Read on.
Ozekhome – Sunday Telegraph – August 16, 2015
In my Sunday Telegraph discourse of August 16, 2015, I advised PMB on the following issues:
Implement Confab Report
“One of the greatest achievements of GEJ was braving all odds to set up the National Conference in 2014. The report is ready. Your APC party and its chieftains never bought into this laudable national project that will surely give Nigeria a total rebirth and re-engineering. Surprise your APC handlers by executing the over 600 commendable recommendations of the Confab. If you fail to do so, all your anti-corruption platitudes, attempts at growing the economy and wiping out insecurity will be forlorn, because the Confab report adequately took care of these challenges, how to solve them, and more. Do you hear me, sir? Please, sir, do it as urgent as yesterday…”
Reduce high cost of governance
“Perhaps, the biggest bane of past governments lies in the humongous cost of governance, where over 75 per cent of our national budget is spent on recurrent, rather than on capital, expenditure. You do not need more than the 36 constitutionally prescribed ministers. To have a lean government, and plug all leakages and wastages, you must drastically reduce, if not totally eliminate, the laughable number of Special Advisers, Senior Special Assistants, Special Assistants, Personal Assistants, etc. You must halt all unnecessary foreign trips by government workers, strengthen the capacity of our hospitals and health institutions to handle health challenges and improve on general infrastructure. You must do something very quickly about education, agriculture, transportation and, perhaps, more importantly, the power sector. Get back our Chibok girls and build on the present efforts of government against terror, which has greatly degraded Boko Haram and its insurgency.
“We cannot continue to operate a “disarticulate economy” (apologies to Professor Claude Ake), where we consume what we don’t produce and produce what we don’t consume. In this wise, refurbish all our refineries, as you promised, build new ones and encourage the private sector to be fully involved in this national enterprise”.
Like Nostradamus, but not possessed of his esoteric and clairvoyant capabilities, everything I predicted in the last two years have since come to pass.
Has Senator Bukola Saraki now joined me?
On June 27, 2016, the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, said that there is another “government” within the administration of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government, who “have seized the apparatus of Executive powers to pursue their nefarious agenda.”
Saraki, who stated that the Senate was innocent against the charge, over which he appeared before the Federal High Court, Abuja, declared that he would rather go to jail than succumb to “the nefarious agenda of a few individuals who are bent in undermining our democracy.”
“.…Over the past year the Senate has worked to foster good relations with the Executive branch. It is in all of our collective interests to put aside divisions and get on with the nation’s business. We risk alienating and losing the support of the very people who have entrusted their national leaders to seek new and creative ways to promote a secure and prosperous Nigeria. As leaders and patriots, it is time to rise above partisanship and move forward together.
“However, what has become clear is that there is now a government within the government of President Buhari, who have seized the apparatus of Executive powers to pursue their nefarious agenda.
“This latest onslaught on the Legislature represents a clear and present danger to the democracy Nigerians fought hard to win and preserve. The suit filed on behalf of the Federal Government suggests that, perhaps, some forces in the Federal Republic have not fully embraced the fact that the Senate’s rules and procedures govern how the legislative body adjudicates and resolves its own disputes.”
Saraki is not only the Senate President but the Chairman of the bi-camera NASS, the third arm of government. Are we listening to him? Forget that the NASS is the whipping child of the Nigerian family, as regards corruption, even though it does not spend up to 10 per cent of what the Executive guzzles.
Mrs. Aisha Buhari cries out
The President’s wife, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, on October 14, 2016, cried out and warned that her support for her husband for the 2019 election rests on her husband’s readiness to shake up his government. The soft-spoken Aisha, in a BBC Hausa interview, lamented that Buhari’s government had been hijacked by a “cabal” (remember late Dora Akunyili’s famous “cabal” in the President Umaru Yar’dua government in 2010?). Aisha said it was the cabal who were “behind presidential appointments.” Mrs. Buhari revealed that, “he is yet to tell me, but I have decided, as his wife, that if things continue like this up to 2019, I will not go out and campaign again and ask any woman to vote like I did before. I will never do it agai.”
Aisha Buhari, who spoke against the backdrop of growing discontent over Buhari’s popular declaration that he belongs to everybody and belongs to no one, emphasised that most of the officials of the government were not known to the President and the first family, adding that “they are usurpers who did nothing to help the APC struggle in 2015 … I don’t know them either, despite being his wife for 27 years.”
If the President’s wife who “belongs to the other room”, and so knows her husband intimately for 27 years, can cry out this way, then there is big trouble.
El-Rufai: “Our APC administration has failed”
Kaduna State Governor, loquacious Malam Nasir El-Rufai, in a memo to President Muhammadu Buhari in September 2016, which was leaked on March 17, 2017, told the President that the APC party “has not only failed to manage expectations of a populace that expected overnight change,” but “has failed to deliver even on mundane matters of governance outside of our successes in fighting Boko Haram insurgency and corruption.” El-Rufai lamented that, “overall, the feeling even among our supporters today is that the APC government is not doing well…”
Thank you, El-Rufai, for saying the truth, even if belatedly, two years after my concerns that were put in black and white.
Emir Sanusi II comes to the rescue
On March 24, 2017, outspoken Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, warned President Buhari to be wary of praise-singers and sycophants in his government. The revered Emir made the comment at the 10th Kehinde Sofola (SAN) memorial lecture in Lagos.
According to the Emir, the praise-singers around the President are the real enemies of the government who could destroy his efforts: “I feel sorry for the people in government because they are surrounded by enemies.”
He observed that the President needed people who would tell him where he goes wrong. The Emir said, because he knew power was transient, he spoke the truth during his time as the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, no matter the consequences.
He said some were afraid to speak out against evil because they were afraid of losing their jobs: “You forget that the person, either the President or the governor, is also occupying a transient position. All the people they were afraid of years ago, where are they today? For those who are still in power, remember that it is transient, if you want to be a true Nigerian, tell the present government where they’re going wrong.”
Emir Sanusi has keyed into my thinking of over two years ago.
Senator Misau fires from all cylinders
In a widely reported contribution at plenary of the Senate on March 23, 2017, the Senator representing Bauchi Central Senatorial District, Senator Isa Hamma Misau, disclosed to a shocked nation that President Buhari’s enemies were very close to him.
He pointedly accused Buhari’s associates of creating tension to “distract him from delivering his campaign promises to Nigerians.”
Senator Misau noted that, prior to the President’s arrival from his medical vacation abroad, there were no attacks in any part of the country. He lamented that it was clear that Buhari’s associates do not want him to succeed in his mandate to Nigerians. Angrily, but patriotically, Misau debated: “If you look at the kind of advice people close to the government are giving the President, you will find out that they are trying as much as possible to distract the President from working. Over 50 days ago, the President went for medical vacation and the Vice President was made Acting President for 49 days. Did you hear about Niger Delta Avengers, Fulani herdsmen, media attack or tension in the country? Just two weeks of the President’s return, the people surrounding the President are creating tension in the country. I want Nigerians to know that the enemies of this government are very close to the government and the President. This tension that they are creating is just to distract the President from concentrating on his good plans for the Nigerian people. It is important for the people to know that the enemies of this government are within the circle of the presidency. I want to call on Nigerians to begin to pray for President Buhari because those that do not want him to succeed are very close to him.”
Senator Misau is simply repeating what I had shouted myself hoarse about for nearly two years. Me, Nostradamus? Who am I? But with this new emerging ad idem, Nigeria may yet be awakened.
Senator Shehu Sani and his theory of contradictions
On January 24, 2017, Senator Shehu Sani categorically made an accusation in response to a letter by the President dismissing a report by the Senate Committee indicting the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, of corruption. The vocal Senator declared most lyrically, as follows: “When it comes to fighting corruption in the National Assembly and the Judiciary and in the larger Nigerian sectors, the President uses insecticide, but when it comes to fighting corruption within the Presidency, they use deodorants.”
Buhari had in his letter, which was read during plenary by Senate President Bukola Saraki, accused the Committee of failing to give the SGF a fair hearing, adding that the Senate report was signed by only three out of the nine Committee members. But Sani fired back that Buhari’s letter was based on “misinformation and outright distortions.”
“They lied. The Committee invited the SGF and the letter was acknowledged by the Permanent Secretary in the Office of the SGF.
“To make sure that we buttress our point, we made a paid advert in three or four national dailies: this one (Daily Trust) was published on December 2, 2016, and the SGF was clearly mentioned as one of those that were expected to come and appear before the National Assembly.
“I have a copy of the interim report, which was initially signed by seven of the nine members of that Committee and I am going to submit it to the Clerk of the Senate.
“I know I am not very big in frame but I believe my name shouldn’t have been omitted. This shows clearly how the SGF and his minions in the Presidency misinformed the President to sign this letter.”
Sani, who said corruption must be fought without bias, described the President’s letter as “a funeral service for the anti-corruption fight”, adding that it was unfortunate that “we have a political atmosphere where you have a saintly and angelic Presidency and a devilish and evil society.”
Nigerians, join me in speaking up. Eternal vigilance, says Learned Hand, is the only price we have to pay for our liberty.
Thought for the week
“Fighting corruption is not just good governance. It’s self-defence. It’s patriotism”. (Joe Biden).
Yes, but, fight it uniformly, not selectively, opaquely and vindictively.