Take a fresh look at your lifestyle.

The uninspiring June 12 speech

Since Nigeria transited to civil rule in 1999, May 29 had always been a public holiday and also celebrated as Democracy Day. That day, every four years, a new government is sworn in, either one with a fresh or renewed mandate, after which an inaugural speech would be delivered to the nation by the president.

The tradition is not peculiar to Nigeria but applies the world over, although countries choose dates that are suitable to them. Inauguration ceremonies therefore are used by the new or reelected leader to make commitments and unfold governance direction.

So, on May 29, 2019, Nigerians expected an inauguration speech from President Muhammadu Buhari, who was sworn in for a second and final term in office. They got none because a change had been effected and they were told to wait for June 12, now formerly declared as Democracy Day.

June 12, 2019 eventually came and as promised, there was not just a speech but a long one, perhaps the longest that President Buhari has ever read since assuming office as civilian president in 2015. And one many would describe as uninspiring.

The 74-point speech touched on as many issues as we can imagine, ranging from education, agriculture, insecurity, economy, foreign relations, immediate past elections, among others but hardly raised hope. As would be expected, commentators and analysts immediately went to town, dissecting it, with many picking holes.

READ ALSO: 2023: Igbo not ready for presidency – Shettima, AYCF leader

But the president believes the three cardinal campaign focus of his administration, namely security, economy and fight against corruption, praised his government, made solid progress in addressing those challenges in his first four years in office.

And so, the principal thrust of his new administration would be to consolidate on those achievements, correct the lapses inevitable in all human endeavors and tackle the new challenges the country is faced with. It would also chart a bold plan for transforming Nigeria, he said, adding that what was required was the will by the people to put their acts together.

Anyone, however, who is  alive to happenings in Nigeria would argue differently. Life has never been this bad for many Nigerians and contrary to what the president would want the public to believe, all manner of criminalities have been taken to the next level. Kidnappings and banditry have gotten more lucrative with perpetrators hardly apprehended.

The president’s claim that “the great difference between 2015 and today’s perpetration of these criminal acts is that we are meeting these challenges with greater support to the security forces in terms of money, equipment and improved local intelligence,” does not hold much water.

To the ordinary man out there, who now has to travel some parts of the country with his heart in his mouth literarily, it is hard to comprehend the president’s position that his government is also “meeting these challenges with superior strategy, firepower and resolve” when what mostly obtains is incessant killings of both security agents and civilians, whose villages and communities are often raided and razed by terrorist/bandits.

BUHARI

Killings, kidnappings and abductions of innocent Nigerians are now daily occurrences. According to the Human Rights Watch World Report 2019, for instance, despite notable military advances, and apparently premature proclamations of Boko Haram’s defeat by government forces, the group remains a threat to security in the northeast region.

The report also noted that abductions, suicide bombings, and attacks on civilian targets by Boko Haram have persisted. At least, 1,200 people were reported to have died and nearly 200,000 were displaced in the northeast in 2018. In June, at least 84 people were killed in double suicide bomb attacks attributed to Boko Haram at a mosque in Mubi, Adamawa State.

Also, decades’ old communal conflict between nomadic herdsmen and farmers in the Middle Belt intensified in 2018 and exacerbated the security situation in the country, the report further revealed.

“At least, 1,600 people were killed and another 300,000 displaced as a result of the violence,” it stated, adding that civil society led campaigns against arbitrary arrests, detention, and torture exposed human rights abuses by security agencies, including the Department of State Security Services (DSS) and the Police Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).”

These, in addition to claims of divisive government policies, among others, do not in any way promote good governance.

Indeed, Nigeria has never been this divided, with appointments by government mostly given to people not just people from one part of the country, but allegedly to relations and friends of the president.

So, when President Buhari in Paragraph 31 of his June 12 speech declared that “In the face of these challenges, our government elected by the people in 2015 and re-elected in March has been mapping out policies, measures and laws to maintain our unity and at the same time lift the bulk of our people out of poverty and onto the road to prosperity,” not many Nigerians could figure how exactly.

The statement is purely in contrast with what is on ground. Poverty, as matter of fact, has become the other name for Nigerians, most of who have turned to begging. For instance, seven or eight out of 10 calls you may receive in a day would likely be from people begging for money. And it is not like you are better off since you also exist in the same dysfunctional system and possibly with more responsibilities.

READ ALSO: Boko Haram resurgence: Time to change strategy

Shocking as it is, some parents are actually trading their children for food these days. Most young, the not-so-young and even the elderly now resort to taking their own lives simply out of frustration. There is also high level of impunity and corrupt practices all over the place that it would appear government has collapsed. Good governance and accountability that have tended to always elude our society, have taken a further fall.

Much as the president would want the public to believe that throughout the last four years, he respected the independence of INEC, controversies surrounding the last general elections, which perhaps remains the bloodiest and recorded the highest number of deaths in the history of elections in the country, would also suggest otherwise.

Yes, the president may have actually ensured that INEC got all the resources it needed for independent and impartial management of elections but conduct of the 2019 general elections and few others that held earlier in some states, hardly confirms this.

The European Union (EU) Election Observation Mission, which released its final report on the 2019 elections, isn’t convinced, either, and therefore stresses urgent need to improve Nigeria’s electoral process so as to restore faith in the system.

The report, which contains 30 recommendations it says would help in this direction, suggests a more transparent results collation and transmission process for next elections, which apparently, were lacking in the 2019 elections.

In a television outing shortly after release of the report, for instance, Dr. Christopher Fomunyoh, senior associate and regional director for Central and West Africa at the National Democratic Institute (NDI), as well as Ms Elizabeth Lewis, Deputy Regional Director for Africa at the International Republican Institute (IRI) were of the view that  since the 2011 general elections improved on the 2007 elections just as 2015 did on the 2011 version, it was naturally expected that the 2019 elections would be better than 2015. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

Maintaining that the 2019 elections were marred by violence, the two international election observers would love to see electoral reforms happen immediately, which would afford INEC enough time to set the rule of the game and put forward legal frameworks that would be properly understood by stakeholders before venturing into the stage in subsequent elections.

President Buhari, it would be recalled, had withheld assent to the bill seeking amendment to the Electoral Act, until it was too late for the 2019 Elections.

Aside naming the Abuja National Stadium after the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola, acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 Presidential Election, another point that attracted public interest in the Democracy Day cum Inauguration Day speech is the issue of poverty, especially when the president declared possibility of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years.

How an administration accused of creating more poor people in four years than any other, and under whose watch the country was named world headquarter of people living in extreme poverty intends to do this, even when still running with those policies and leadership style that impoverished and alienated majority of the people from government, remains unclear.

What many actually expected to hear from the president on this was how and the number of people his government would lift out of poverty in the four years he has left to call the shots. This does not in way take away the fact that government is a continuum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments
Loading...