The
general elections would remain a watershed in the annals of the nation.
The taking-over of leadership mantle by the President-elect, Muhammadu
Buhari, of the All Progressives Congress from President Goodluck
Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party brings to an end, an
uninterrupted rule by the PDP since the current civilian dispensation
began in 1999. The presidential election was also memorable in that for
the first time in the country’s history, an incumbent president was
defeated at the polls.
What this simply means is that
Nigerians have demonstrated that they can legitimately bring down any
ruling president or administration through a legitimate electoral
process in which accountability to the people is placed on the agenda.
What this civic message is saying is that the power of the electorate
could be the decisive turning point in bringing about positive change
while consolidating our hard earned democracy. Despite all odds, the
emergence of a virile political opposition, the APC, has made it
possible to challenge and defeat the PDP after 16 years of virtually
one-party rule at the federal level such that the party got so arrogant
about and boasted that it would rule for the next 60 years!
No
doubt, Nigeria’s problems are multi-faceted and complex but
intractable, ranging from corruption to insecurity, poor economy,
unemployment, power failure and impunity. To begin with, Buhari should
rescue our abducted Chibok schoolgirls from the den of the terrorist
sect, Boko Haram, abducted over a year ago without any clue
whatsoever.(That is if they are not rescued by May 29 by the outgoing
government.) While other nations often deploy their best military and
strategic arsenals to safeguard their citizens, our military seems to be
incapable of rescuing the innocent girls. Buhari should ensure that
these girls’ rescue becomes a top priority of his administration.
The
incoming government should ensure that the military and other security
agencies are properly equipped with modern hardware and intelligence
gathering equipment while the entire armed forces should be overhauled
for better performance. For instance, it is widely believed that a major
factor why Boko Haram remains undefeated and very difficult to curtail
so far is because there are alleged moles within the nation’s security
apparatus including the military. These ‘moles’ should be identified and
fished out at all cost if the fight against the sect is to be ever won.
As a former general in the Nigerian army, the President-elect should be
passionate about restructuring the armed forces, police and other
security agencies that have sadly been accused of being partisan and
ineffective over the years. We should realise that without adequate
security in place, the desired changed may still be a mirage because a
poorly secure territory remains unattractive to business and
development.
With a populated economy of approximately 170
million people and reputed as Africa’s largest with $510bn Gross
Domestic Product, Nigeria is said to be the third largest recipient of
foreign direct investment in Africa with an expected five per cent
growth in 2015. Sadly, the nation is structurally deficient with
precarious reliance on monolithic oil revenues for its survival while
official corruption has been tagged as the greatest setback to the
country’s development agenda going by the International Monetary Fund’s
expose that over $400bn had allegedly been looted from the country in
the last 40 years. This new government should urgently embark on an
national economic rejuvenation.
The President-elect’s promise to
fill his cabinet with technocrats with the right pegs in the right
holes is in order to meet the expectations of Nigerians with a caveat
that whoever is to serve in his government should publicly declare their
assets before taking the job and while leaving office. This is part of
moves to curb endemic corruption, which I feel is laudable. Above all,
the people Buhari chooses for his cabinet will certainly determine
whether he will succeed or not. Therefore, he has to be very careful not
to pick the wrong persons, who are very good at lobbying any government
in power, to have their share of the national cake.
The stance
by the President-elect not to appoint defecting politicians into his
cabinet when he takes over is also heart-warming and decisive. It is an
indication that he is opposed to the ugly gale of defections, which the
country is presently witnessing.
Defection after losing an
election is not an option in entrenching high democratic tenets. Great
nations are built by politicians with diverse and sound political
ideologies whose thrust is to collectively ensure that the country grows
economically, politically, socially and technologically. Rather than
jump from one party to another, one would have expected the defectors to
come together after the elections as a viable opposition, reflect on
the party’s performance and then re-strategise for the next elections
rather than struggle to join the ruling party. Buhari should look beyond
the All Progressives Congress while picking his cabinet members and get
people who are passionate about Nigeria and could assist him in
bringing the country to the Promised Land. He should constitute a
special think-tank that would fish out hardworking, resourceful,
focused, patriotic, principled, reliable and credible men and women who
can make a big difference in governance.
An effective policy
should be devised to reduce the cost of governance at all levels. A
country like Nigeria, whose national budgets basically allot over 70 per
cent of public expenditure to the Federal Government alone should
rather cut the cost of governance by shunning unnecessary expenses on
unproductive expenditure such as the service-wide vote, recurring votes
on “welfare”, kitchen ware and entertainment at state houses. This
fiscal discipline can be achieved through a reduction in the number of
the presidential fleet, unviable public agencies, bloated civil service
and increasing local and external debt portfolios. Beyond these, there
is the need to revisit moribund state-owned railways, refineries, steel
and power companies.
It is embarrassing that an oil-producing
nation like ours continues to experience perennial fuel scarcity as
power outage has become a normal feature of our daily living. If the
incoming administration is really sincere in transforming the economy,
it should embark on a well-orchestrated privatisation of all state-owned
commercial interests. All over the world, it is a known fact that
governments are not reputed to be good business managers. At best,
strategic concerns – that cannot be left to private hands – could be
controlled by the government while other social and municipal services
can be administered through public-private partnership.
Finally,
Buhari should not renege on his promises to Nigerians, as encapsulated
in the document, “My Covenant With Nigerians.” These commitments by the
President-elect include the implementation of the audit recommendations
by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, working
with the National Assembly towards the immediate enactment of a Whistle
Blower Act and making the Financial Intelligence Unit an autonomous and
operational agency, encouraging proactive disclosure of information by
government institutions under the Freedom of Information Act, ensuring
access to justice and respect for fundamental human rights, prison
reforms, delivery of a Marshall Plan on insurgency, terrorism, ethnic
and religious violence, kidnapping and rural banditry.
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