Anyone like yours truly who has voted for Muhammadu Buhari cannot but feel uncomfortable with the profound sense of disillusionment hanging in the air. A year after his historic victory at the polls it really ought not to have turned out like this.
Different people have their reasons for choosing a particular candidate. In my own case there was a feeling that we needed our own de Gaulle moment that critical junction when a knight in shinning armour will ride into town and clean up the act. This was the opportunity they had with the midwifery of the fifth republic in France in 1958.
General Charles de Gaulle, retired war hero was virtually the last man standing to save the country’s democracy. After years of musical chairs, the political class had done a seminal job of thoroughly discrediting itself. Across class and regional divides people had flocked to the Gaullist banner as the only way left to ‘rally the republic’. For this reason, there was a large gap between those who voted for de Gaulle as the only person who could save the republic and those who voted for his party. Two weeks later during the legislative elections the Gaullist vote actually fell. People across barriers had voted for the man and not the party. In this way a year ago our own 1958 had come and there was a man to match the moment. The expectations were great. This is not unnatural. For by the time it had exhausted it’s possibilities, the Jonathan ‘government’ had ran the entire gamut; from tragedy to farce.
Today’s creeping sense of disappointed expectations can be pinned down to several factors. In the first place, the special purpose vehicle which won the election has turned out to be just that – an electoral alliance cobbled together to win an election rather than a political party rooted in or directed by a philosophical disposition or ideology. In this way it was unlike the Second Republic era People’s Redemptive Party (PRP) or the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN).
Nevertheless, it was reasonable to expect that a party led by General Muhammadu Buhari will be vaguely social democratic/ progressive using fiscal rectitude and macroeconomic stability as the pathway to achieve social justice. In between President Goodluck Jonathan very sensibly conceding defeat and the swearing in of Buhari there was roughly a seventy days corridor of transition. This appears to be where it all started to get awry.
In a parliamentary system the winning party forms a government straight away. However under the presidential system there is a corridor for an orderly transition presumably for the new government to ” get it’s act together”. Well, the transition was far from being well cheographed.
Of course the retreating Jonathan forces since they had a lot to hide were not cooperative. Nevertheless it was clearly an indication of a fault line that it took the APC an eternity to constitute a transition team. Normally the Vice President elect should have headed a transition team as soon as the outgoing president conceded. We still do not know why this was not done. From then on much of the transition corridor was wasted. For example and critically the defeat of Chris Ngige in Anambra State should have set alarm bells ringing.
With the party’s zoning arrangement in tatters there was no response. This was the opportunity for the scheming Bukola Saraki to bamboozle his way through seventy two days later. In 72 days the party could not capture the national assembly. This lack of interest in the composition of the assembly also indicates the absence of a legislative agenda which the leadership of the assembly will have to pilot through. Amazing! I suppose without a legislative priority to be rammed through in a hundred days special session Roosevelt style, what’s the hurry? There were other peculiarities which have come to hunt the government. Like Bill Clinton and Lula da Silva in Brazil the transition should have been used to carry out a comprehensive review of the costs and structure of the machinery of government. In our own case the Oronsanye report was there to be cheery picked. A direct attack on the non personnel costs could have been done. This would have helped to redirect capital from recurrent expenditure to capital votes and set a template for the budget.
In order words it would have kick started the budget process. Hand in glove a proper economic summit should have taking place during the transition period outlining a clear economy programme based on kick starting the economy and having as its centrepiece a stimulus programme. Again this was not done.
Had the implementation of a stimulus programme gone on at the same time as the commencement of the admirable and much needed war against corruption, the nay sayers and the despicable fifth column also known as the ” wailing wailers” would not have had a leg to stand on. They would not have had the opportunity to say ” they are only fighting corruption”; not when a massive affordable housing scheme targeted at the lowest echelons on a rent-to- buy basis and employing hundreds of thousands on building sites across the country is also going on.
Too much tardiness in constituting a ministerial team leading to a cobbled up budget is also a basis for today’s disillusionment. Let us be absolutely clear – Buhari is still the only person with the moral authority to lead a nation in crisis. He must however position himself above party, in order to like de Gaulle Rally the Republic. The government must also now be identified with a clear pro- people agenda; a government that uses the anchor of anti- corruption, macro economic stability as the pathway to social justice and “life more abundant”. Sai Baba!
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Wale Fatade
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Well written but pray, how does a President position himself above party in a presidential system without running foul of the law?
Well said.l hope they will try and gain ground that have been lost.The recent programmes released by the Government look spectacular on paper but it needs serious coordination and l pray it works for the sake of the country.