INTERNATIONAL
AFFAIRS EXPERT, FEMI ARIBISALA
Between 1983
and 1985, Peter Onu of Nigeria was Acting Secretary-General of the OAU. At the
1985 Summit in Addis Ababa, statesmen like Julius Nyerere, President of
Tanzania, lobbied for his election as substantive Secretary-General. However,
there was a major stumbling block to Peter Onu’s candidature: his Head of
State, Muhammadu Buhari, was campaigning against him.
Buhari
claimed: “This generation of Nigerians and indeed future generations have no
other country than Nigeria.” But when the crunch came, his allegiance to
Nigeria disappeared. In the election of the OAU Secretary-General in 1985,
Buhari voted against Nigeria and for Niger instead. He secured the election of
Ide Oumarou, a Fulani man from Niger; as opposed to an Igbo man from Nigeria.
By so doing, Buhari became the first and only Head of State in the history of
modern international relations to vote against his country in favour of his
tribe.
Years later,
General Buhari marched all the way from Daura to Ibadan to demand of Oyo State
Governor, Lam Adeshina: “Why are your people killing my people?” Again, he was
not referring to Nigerians as his people. Instead, he was an advocate for the
rights of murderous Fulani herdsmen who killed Yoruba farmers that objected to
their cattle grazing on their land and damaging their crops. This same Buhari
who voted against Nigeria in 1985, and said in 2003: “Muslims should only vote
those who will promote Islam,” is now shopping for votes nationwide. He should
be rejected outright.
Ignorance
running riot
If APC had
wanted to be taken seriously, it would have come up with a better presidential
material than Buhari. There is something anomalous about a party whose mantra
is change, recycling a 73 year old man as its candidate for the president of
modern Nigeria. Buhari has little or no understanding of public policy. That is
why APC will always come up with some excuse or the other not to have him
participate in a debate with Jonathan. Buhari fought corruption by imposing
ridiculous 300-year sentences on offenders. He fought exam malpractices by
imposing 24-year prison sentences on school children. He dealt with
indiscipline by flogging people to queue at bus-stops. He dealt with food
shortages by sending soldiers to break into private warehouses and shops. He
fought trade imbalances by taking Nigeria back to the stone age of trade by barter
(counter-trade). He sought to extradite a Nigerian from Britain by drugging and
crating him.
There is so
much about Buhari ending the Boko Haram insurgency as he did the Maitatsine
insurgency in the 1980s. But the General needs to be advised that Boko Haram is
not Maitatsine. Maitatsine was in two towns: Boko Haram is in three states with
spillover effects into others. Maitatsine fought with bows and arrows: Boko
Haram fights with sophisticated weapons. Maitatsine was a local insurgency,
Boko Haram is an international phenomenon.
Anti-corruption
hypocrisy
Buhari does
not know what corruption means and how to fight it. He became Nigeria’s Head of
State through the corruption of a coup d’état and he then tried to fight
corruption with corruption. Imposing retroactive decrees and killing Nigerians
under them is corruption. Putting an Igbo vice-president in Kirikiri, while
placing the Fulani president under palatial house arrest, is corruption.
Detaining people like Michael Ajasin in jail, even after they were discharged
and acquitted by kangaroo courts, is corruption. Jailing journalists for
telling the truth is corruption. Putting pressure on a judge in order to jail
Fela Anikulapo-Kuti is corruption. Shepherding 53 suitcases of contraband
unchecked through Customs during a currency change exercise is corruption.
Swearing an affidavit that your school-leaving certificate is with the military
when it is not, is corruption.
Transforming
Nigeria
Buhari’s
shameful past is dwarfed by the achievements of Goodluck Jonathan. Under
Jonathan, Nigeria has emerged as by far the largest economy in Africa with a
GDP of $503 billion; nearly double the previous estimates. South Africa now
comes a distant second with $350 billion. With the unbundling of PHCN after 52
years of gridlock, and with now the realizable target of 20,000 megawatts of
electricity by 2020, Nigeria’s GDP will soon double that of South Africa. CNN
Money projects that the fastest growing economy in the world in 2015 will be
China (7.3% growth rate); followed by Qatar (7.1%); and then followed by
Nigeria (7%). This belies all the misinformation about the Nigerian economy
dished out by the APC and attests to the astute management of the economy by
the Jonathan administration. The seemingly ambitious Vision 20 2020, proclaimed
under the Abacha regime to make Nigeria one of the 20 largest economies in the
world by 2020 is now well in sight. Today, Nigeria is already the 23rd largest
economy in the world. Kudos to Jonathan, we have overtaken such European countries
as Austria and Belgium.
Life
expectancy
In 2010,
when Jonathan became acting president, life expectancy in Nigeria was 47 years.
Today, it is 54 years; an improvement of seven years. Adroit application of
SURE-P funds has reduced the maternal mortality ratio in Nigeria by 26%. Under
Jonathan, Nigeria has become Guinea Worm-free; a disease previously affecting
800,000 Nigerians yearly. In the last six months, there has been no new case of
polio in Nigeria. If this goes on for another two and a half years, Nigeria
will be declared polio-free.
Bill Gates,
the richest man in the world, hailed Nigeria’s fight against polio as one of
the great world achievements of 2014. He said: “The infrastructure Nigeria has
built to fight polio actually made it easier for them to swiftly contain Ebola.
The fact that Nigeria is now Ebola-free is a great example of how doing the
work to fight things like fighting polio also leaves countries better prepared
to deal with outbreaks of other diseases.”
Investors’
haven
In the last
three years, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
has ranked Nigeria as the number one country for foreign investments in Africa.
We also receive more home-remittances than any other African country; a vote of
confidence in our economy by Nigerians living abroad. They remitted $23 billion
in 2013, a figure far more than the $18 billion received by Egypt; the country
with the second highest home remittance in Africa. It is a testament to
Goodluck Jonathan’s adroit management of the Nigerian economy that the richest
African is now a Nigerian. In 2010, when Jonathan came to power, Aliko Dangote
was the 463rd richest man in the world, with a total fortune of $2.1 billion.
Today, he is the 23rd richest man in the world, with a total fortune of $25
billion. Dangote’s billions are “made in Nigeria.” Indeed, under Jonathan,
Nigeria now has the fourth highest rate of returns on investments in the world,
according to UNCTAD.
Crisis of
unemployment
The big
challenge has to do with jobs. Every year, another 1.8 million people are offloaded
into the job market. However, while the APC says Buhari will create 720,000
jobs a year if elected, Jonathan created 1.6 million jobs in 2013. He has
established such innovative programmes as Nagropreneurs and YOUWIN that support
young farmers and entrepreneurs with grants, training and mentorship. He has
also instituted internship schemes to enhance the capacity of university
graduates to secure gainful employment.
The
unemployment problem is compounded by the more than doubling of the education
budget under Jonathan. Every Nigerian child now has the opportunity to go to
school. Indeed, there has been a 10 million increase in school enrolment in
Nigeria under this government. There has also been a 75% increase in O’ Level
credit pass in Maths and English. Jonathan established 125 Almajiri schools in
13 northern states. He also established 14 new federal universities. There is
now a federal university in every state. Indeed, the kidnapping of the Chibok
schoolgirls derives from the disenchantment of the Boko Haram that many
Northern girls are now going to school.
Dealing with
corruption
According to
Transparency International, Nigeria has not become more corrupt under Goodluck
Jonathan. Out of 178 countries ranked in 2010, Nigeria was the 134th most corrupt
country. In 2014, Nigeria was ranked 136th. Unlike Buhari, Jonathan understands
that corruption has to be attacked institutionally, from the roots. Therefore,
he proposed the abrogation of the petroleum subsidy; one of the biggest avenues
for corruption in government. However, Nigerians refused. Jonathan has
sanitized the corruption in fertilizer distribution. The Minister of
Agriculture, Akinwumi Adesina, lamented that between 1980 and 2010, Nigeria
lost 776 billion naira to corrupt fertilizer racketeering.
Fertiliser
racketeering
That
effectively came to an end under Jonathan. Through the innovative e-wallet
system, farmers are given cell-phones through which they now have direct and
easy access to government-provided fertilizer, chemicals and seedlings.
Jonathan has also sanitised the banking system by removing dinosaur managing
directors, recovering indigent loans and using AMCON to mop up bad loans. By
instituting e-payment systems, he sanitized the civil service by removing
50,000 ghost-workers in one fell swoop. He has equally got rid of ghost voters
from the electoral register; over 1 million ghost voters were removed from the
Zamfara INEC register alone. Under Jonathan, we have had free and fair
elections one after the other; in Edo, Anambra, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun.
Agriculture
has been transformed under this administration. Thanks to Jonathan, agriculture
now accounts for 22% of Nigeria’s GDP, more than oil and gas which only account
for 15.9%. Under Jonathan, Nigeria has recorded a more than 50% reduction in
food imports. Prior to his presidency, we had a food import bill of 1.4
trillion naira. But now, it is less than N700 billion. With the innovation of
dry season rice-farming, Nigeria has reached 60% self-sufficiency in rice
production. According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United
Nations (FAO), Nigeria is now the largest producer of cassava in the world. The
Jonathan government built six strategically-located perishable cargo airports
in Ilorin, Jalingo, Jos, Lagos, Makurdi andYola; in close proximity to
Nigeria’s food baskets.
It is
remarkable that Northern farmers were able to donate five million tubers of yam
in order to raise 5 billion naira for Buhari’s presidential election campaign.
If Jonathan’s transformation agenda in agriculture was not working as planned,
they would not have been able to do this (to be continued)...
(http://www.vanguardngr.com)
