19/02/2017
Bello Abba Ahmed wrote:
The point is not whether President Buhari is sick or
well, or whether he is in London or Nigeria. The point
should be does he have the capacity to produce any
good change in Nigeria even if he is physically fit and
well? In order to find a pragmatic answer for myself, i carefully implore the science of history. History they
say makes us learn from the past in order to be able
to understand the present so as to be able to predict
the future. I dug up the history of President Buhari's
first administration as military head of state from 31st
Dec 1983 to 27th August 1985 (20months). The only achievement i could find in the archive was his 'War
Against Indiscipline'. Nothing else substantial. I was a
primary school kid then, but i could still recollect the
TV images of civil servants cowered into 'frog
jumping' by military men for lateness to work. The
whole news then was dominated by arrests, jailing, clampdowns on businessmen or their stores etc.
Banning this, banning that became the order of the
day. This led many businesses to close down while
many Nigerians and expatriates fled the country. It
was a sort of draconian law in full swing. For the 20
months the first Buhari administration lasted, these were the main focus and activities of the government,
such that no equal attention was given to other core
development issues.
For me its one thing to chase corrupt officials and their
loots and its entirely a different thing to instill
discipline amongst the citizenry. Its also imperative for the present administration to realise that the
welfare of the people should be its main priority.
Under no circumstance should a responsible
government compromise the provision of basic
amenities simply beciause its occupied with the
litigation of pilferers of public funds. It also doesn't make sense to deliberately or is it carelessly overheat
the economy with stringent economic policies that
only further deepens and widens the suffering of the
people for two years in a four-year tenure with the
pretext that the government is building for the future.
The question is what future? Nigerians don't want future they prefer history. Of course if the insurgency
factor is withheld, many Nigerians will rather be taken
back to the economic platform this government met
them were food was affordable, life was much better.
So sick or not, the only case with our dear president is
that history is just repeating itself. Just chasing, jailing, banning, is all we will see nothing more. A replication
of 1984 in 2017, thirty three years apart, different
context but same content.