President Mohammadu Buhari, Not Fit For Nigeria!

After winning the 2015 Presidential elections, President Buhari on April 19, 2015, told Vanguard newspapers that he would assemble a small cabinet that might be active before the official swearing-in ceremony that was to be held on May 29, 2015.

Two days after his inauguration, on May 31, 2015, to be precise, he was reported to have said that he would break the People’s Democratic Party’s, PDP, tradition where ministers were nominated by governors. He boasted that he would look for people who were competent, dedicated and experienced.

On the first day of July 2015, one of Mr. President’s spokesmen said that Buhari would delay selecting a cabinet until September. The reason being that Mr. President wanted to eliminate prior corruption before the new ministers were appointed.

Immediately after that, another spokesman of Mr. President said that the delay was in order compared to the formation of previous cabinets.

It wasn’t until November 11, 2015 that Mr. President sworn in a cabinet of 36 ministers from each of the 36 states of our dear country, Nigeria.  Take a look at the following observations:

(a.)  Mr. President told us, in 2015, that he didn’t like the situation where governors nominated ministers.  Abi?  Did he not allow that to happen?

If indeed he made the selection of ministers all by himself, why then did he tell us recently that he didn’t know the people he worked with during his first tenure in office?   Something must have been wrong somewhere.  Isn’t it?

(b.)  Mr. President promised to make his cabinet ready before May 20, 2015. Did he do that? Did it not take him about six months, after inauguration on May 29, 2015, before his ministers could be sworn in?

(c.)  Mr. President promised us in 2015 that he would get us competent, dedicated and experienced people as his ministers.  Did he do that?  If yes, who were they and what did they do in the entire four years?

(d.) One of the reason Mr. President’s spokesmen gave Nigerians for the President’s delay in selecting members of his 2015 cabinet-members was to enable him eliminate prior corruption, which he inherited from Dr. Goodluck Jonathan’s regime.  Has the corruption been eliminated, more than four years after?  Over to you!

You see, nobody forced Mr. President nor put hand in his mouth to say all that he said, which he did not fulfill. The fact remains that if you make a promise of this nature, you must, as somebody with integrity and honour, do everything possible, to fulfill it.

That’s by the way! 2015 has come and gone, so, let’s forge ahead.

The 2019 Presidential Election was scheduled to take place on February 16, 2019, but for the best reasons known to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, it was suddenly postponed to February 23, 2019.

The 2019 elections, which were said to be Nigeria’s most expensive ever, costing N69 billion (sixty-nine billion naira) more than the 2015 elections, ended with the incumbent President Mohammadu Buhari emerging as the president-elect.  He was later sworn in for the second term on May 29, 2019; the day he left Nigerians dazed as a result of his failure to make a much-needed speech to the people of Nigeria.

After the swearing-in ceremony of Mr. President in May 2019, he told Nigerians that he would take his time, this time around, to select his team of ministers.  According to him, he said he wanted to work with people he knew closely.

Like in 2015, Mr. President spent nearly two months after his second term inauguration before coming out with a 43-man list of nominees that contained the names of the people he claimed he didn’t know and others who helped him in the elections that he was declared the winner.

Below are the names of the said 43 nominees and their respective states:

1. Uchechukwu Oga (Abia)
2. Mohammed Musa Bello (Adamawa)
3. Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom)
4. Chris Ngige (Anambra)
5. Sharon Ikeazor (Anambra)
6. Adamu Adamu (Bauchi)
7. Mariam Katagum (Bauchi)
8. Timi Sylva (Bayelsa)
9. George Akume (Benue)
10. Mustapha Baba Shehuri (Borno)
11. Goddy Agba (Cross Rivers)
12. Festus Keyamo (Delta)
13. Ogbonnaya Onu (Ebonyi)
14. Osagie Enakhire (Edo)
15. Clement Agba (Edo)
16. Adeniyi Adebayo (Ekiti)
17. Geofrey Onyeama (Enugu)
18. Ali Issa Pantami (Gombe)
19. Emeka Nwajuba (Imo)
20. Suleiman Adamu (Jigawa)
21. Zainab Ahmed (Kaduna)
22. Mohammed Mahmoud (Kaduna)
23. Sabo Nanono (Kano)
24. Bashir Salihi Magashi (Kano)
25. Hadi Sirika (Katsina)
26. Abubakar Malami (Kebbi)
27. Ramatu Tijani (Kogi)
28. Lai Mohammed (Kwara)
29. Gbemisola Saraki (Kwara)
30. Raji Fashola (Lagos)
31. Nimbe Mamora (Lagos)
32. Muhammed Abdullahi (Nasarawa)
33. Zubairu Dada (Niger)
34. Olamilekan Adegbite (Ogun)
35. Tayo Alasoadura (Ondo)
36. Rauf Aregbesola (Osun)
37. Sunday Dare (Oyo)
38. Pauline Tallen (Plateau)
39. Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers)
40. Muhammadu Maigari Dingyadi (Sokoto)
41. Saleh Mamman (Taraba)
42. Abubakar Aliyu (Yobe)
43. Sadiya Umar Farouk (Zamfara)

As a result of the repeated delay in releasing his list of nominees a few days ago, some Nigerians decided to nickname Mr. President “Baba Go Slow” (a slow person).  They also concluded that such attitude of Mr. President showed him as somebody whose words must not be taken seriously and who shouldn’t be regarded as a serious leader?

Apart from the list being delayed, millions of Nigerians are not happy with the names contained in it.   They are complaining bitterly about those names.

They are still wondering why it took Mr. President that length of time to come out with a list that they described as recycled, useless, and meaningless.  To them, President Mohammadu Buhari, not fit for Nigeria!

One of such aggrieved Nigerians was Tanko Yakasai, elder statesman, former presidential adviser and a founding member of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF).  He reportedly gave President Buhari a hard knock for nominating and including some corrupt individuals on his list.

Said he: “The new ministerial list submitted by the president to the Senate is representative enough, but the nomination of certain people perceived to be fantastically corrupt made mockery of the president’s war against corruption.

“The fact remains that the returnees are many means that the policy of the new government will not be much different from that of the outgoing.

“My only observation is that since the majority of the nominees are already known to the president his delay in submitting ministerial nomination is unjustifiable.”

Also angry with the list is President Buhari’s appointed Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, PACAC, Prof. Itse Sagay. Prof. Sagay frowned at the nomination of former Senate Minority Leader, Godswill Akpabio, as a Minister.

He wondered why President Muhammadu Buhari nominated Akpabio, despite his ongoing investigation for corruption by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

In a chat with Daily Independent, the PACAC Chairman insisted that a government which has anti-corruption as one of its major programmes, should not have nominated Akpabio for the role of a Minister.

Complementing that list of angry Nigerians was Dr. Thomas-Wilson Ikubese, former presidential aspirant and Convener, YesWeFit Revolutionary Movement.  He described President Muhammadu Buhari’s list as a betrayal of Nigerians.  According to him, the list is both “gender unfriendly,” short of the 2005 National Gender Policy, and also a “compensation list.”

The list of complaints and complainants goes on and on and on.  President Mohammadu Buhari, Not Fit For Nigeria!

When an ordinary Nigerians makes a promise, say, to do something for Nigeria, and fails to fulfill his or her promise, tongues would wag back and forth, but this is exactly what Mr. President does regularly. Again, why would Mr. President claim to be fighting corruption and contrarily provides a ‘soft-landing’ to “fantastically corrupt” members of his political party?”

Was this why Mr. Adams Oshionmole, the chairman of Mr. President’s ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, once said: “We have quite a number of other leaders who have come… in fact, once you have joined APC, all your sins are forgiven.”?  I see!  President Mohammadu Buhari, Not Fit For Nigeria!

If somebody is alleged to have stolen, he or she is still assumed to be innocent until proven otherwise by a court of competent jurisdiction. We know this.

However, is such person not expected or supposed to step aside until the case against him is fully disposed of before allowing him to assume a public office?

If it’s not so, why, then, did millions of Nigerians asked and prevailed on Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo of Commonwealth of Zion Assembly, COZA, to step aside until the rape allegation brought against him by Busola, the wife of musician Timi Dakolo, was proved otherwise?

Majority of Nigerians seem to be looking up to Mr. President with the respect and honour bestowed on him and his then deputy, Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon, of blessed memory, when they were at the helm of affairs of leadership in Nigeria, between December 31, 1983 and August 25, 1985.  Put in another way, Mr. President seems to be living on his past glory.

It’d be insanity, therefore, for anybody to call or refer to Mr. President as Mr. Integrity. He cannot be said to be so when his claims of fighting corruption is a lip-service and a mere newspaper propaganda.

If he is Mr. Integrity, as some of his fans think or feel, he should prove it, including waiting for some of his nominees, who have cases of corruption against them, to be given a ‘clean bill of health’ before nominating or ‘compensating’ them with any portfolio.

Doing otherwise will tantamount to saying to Nigerians: “Wetin una fit do?” (What can you do to me?)

What can they do to you? To about 200 million people, including professors, technocrats and other intellectuals?

Time will tell!

NB: For breaking news or eye-witness report, please, contact us via our contact page.