By Iboro Otongaran, (APC campaign Spokesperson, Akwa Ibom State)
The new outburst by the presidential aspirant of the All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari, if anything, has cemented the well founded concern that the former military strongman is too unstable to be president of Nigeria. Muhammadu Buhari let go his emotion, which was a doomsday wish for the nation, as is his nature, during a rally of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kaduna last week.
Muhammadu Buhari; completely oblivious of concern for consequences or of his place in history. “If PDP is given another four years to rule this country, Nigeria will go down the drain in 2015,” Buhari cried fiendishly to the approval (read ovation) of fellow party men, including Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola. “This is because Nigerians are tired of incompetent leadership…”
Trust Buhari, to him everybody else is not just incompetent, all are corrupt in the judgement of the supper efficient, supper competent and incorruptible warmonger. Thus, the leadership of the nation has been incompetent since 1999 and the Judiciary has been just as corrupt.
He said he found out after losing three presidential elections and all the court cases arising there from that court judgement is for only those who can pay for it.
No conclusion can be more roundly damning and so comprehensively dismissive of a whole branch of government. And no utterance can be more unpresidential. It is vintage Buhari. This is not sour grapes from a serial loser and an old general. It is a hint of a score Buhari hopes to settle with the Judiciary if he becomes president. What justifies my conclusion?
History!
When Buhari became a military head of state on December 31, 1983, he told the world in his maiden press conference that he had a score to settle with the Nigerian media. Buhari’s grudge with the media played out in a most unconscionable legislation called Decree 4, which made the truth in a publication an offence punishable with two years imprisonment, so long as the truth was adjudged to be embarrassing to his government.
The first victims of Buhari’s Decree 4 were two young Nigerian journalists, Nduka Irabor and Tunde Thompson, of The Guardian, who served two years in jail for factually publishing yet-to-be-announced diplomatic postings. That was a sampler of the Buhari vindictiveness. The combative general is not just vindictive, he also loves to throw mud around, calling everyone else corrupt and incompetent. Did Buhari rate as a touchstone for competence and uprightness when he had opportunity to work as head of state, and at another time as executive chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund?
A peep into the records: The most valuable assessment of Buhari’s leadership skills and talent at economic management comes from The World Bank. In Adjustment in Africa: Lessons from country case studies ((1994, pp 242-243), The Bank states: “The Buhari military government came to power in January 1984 and augmented the austere measures of 1982. It sought to control public expenditures by imposing a wage freeze on public sector employees, enforcing the redundancy of a large number of civil servants, and requiring user fees in the education and health sectors.
These measures made a dent in Nigeria’s budget deficit, which declined from 13 per cent of GDP in 1983 to about 3 per cent in 1984. Yet, the Buhari regime continued to fund inefficient parastatals, while cutting funds for maintaining infrastructure and equipment. “The decline in public expenditures had its severest impact on the construction and service sectors, but employment and production also declined sharply in most other sectors of the economy.
Capacity utilization declined and plant closures were widespread as the access of the import-dependent industrial sector to imported inputs was sharply curtailed. Imports declined by 22.7 percent in 1984; non oil exports declined by 44.2 percent.
“Accompanying the declines in imports and exports was a significant rise in domestic prices and an increase in inflation to 40 per cent. Domestic savings and investment also declined; investment fell to 12 percent of GDP, down from 24 percent in 1981. Private investment suffered a most drastic decline, accounting for only 25 percent of total investment in 1985, compared with 50 per cent in the 1970s.
External debt service requirements on private debt and rescheduled arrears reached 34 percent of exports of goods and non-factor services in 1985—tripling debt service requirements from the 1982 level. “By 1985 the distortions in the economy were pervasive and serious. The exchange rate was grossly overvalued, and despite the oil revenue boom, the budget deficit again rose to an average of 7 percent between 1980 and 1985. Moreover, despite efforts to control the budget deficit, public sector funding again burgeoned, and the number and size of public enterprises increased sharply.”
Buhari’s bull-in-a-china-shop policies spawned historic shortages and massive lay-offs. His leadership record at the Petroleum Trust Fund was not better. At the Fund he promoted nepotism to high art, and showed that his heart is Arewa, even though his passport indicates he is a Nigerian. He used the resources of the Fund for intervention projects mostly in the North to the virtual exclusion of the South.
Buhari thus presided over the most sectional allocation of our national patrimony, with his in-law in charge as Chief Operating Officer. That is Buhari’s track record in leadership and economic management.I invite the judgement of readers here. Is the General’s record exemplary?
Incendiary speechesAs for his incendiary speeches and death wish for Nigeria, the diary is equally grim. On 21 July 2014, following impeachment proceedings against the governor of Nasarawa State, Buhari predicted apocalypse for the nation, warning of “dangerous clouds beginning to gather and vultures circling” to come down and feast on the carcass of Nigeria if Al-Makura were removed from office. Buhari’s favourite imagery for his nation which he wants to lead is always of death, anarchy and destruction.
In a comment in 2011, Muhammadu Buhari warned, “God willing, by 2015, something will happen. They either conduct a free and fair election or they go a very disgraceful way. If what happened in 2011 should again happen in 2015, by the grace of God, the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood.’’ In the ongoing struggle against terrorism in the country, Buhari clearly sided with Boko Haram in a 2 June 2013 comment in Kaduna:“You see, in the case of Niger Delta militants, the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua sent an airplane to bring them, he sat down with them and discussed with them, they were cajoled and they were given money and amnesty. They were trained in some skills and were given employment, but the ones in the North are being killed and their houses demolished.”
After General Muhammadu Buhari lost his appeal on the 2011 presidential election dispute at the Supreme Court on 28 December 2011, he entered a characteristic doomsday prediction for the nation: “The country now is in an emergency situation. Law and order can break down at any time.” It was a self-fulfilling prophecy; the nation was convulsed in an orgy of blood-letting soon after. Buhari once called on muslims to vote for only muslims in the country. On a VOA programme, Buhari rejected the national identity card project, arguing that it was not in the interest of the North. Buhari has nothing to recommend him to the Presidency. He is neither patriotic nor competent.
(Written by Mr Otongaran when still in control of his mind.)
