In
an article in this column on Wednesday, June 18, 2014, entitled, “Spot
the difference between PDP and APC”, I stated inter alia that “I have
asked myself if there is truly a difference between the All Progressives
Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party. As far as I can see, the
difference between the two is that between six and half-a-dozen.
Perhaps,
the difference lies in nomenclature. Yes, the wordings of their party
manifestoes may be different but in terms of governance, it will seem
they are copying from the same textbook.” Even though in that piece my
primary focus was the appraisal of the party’s congresses and national
convention of Friday, June 13, 2014 where forced “consensus” option led
to the emergence of Chief John Odigie-Oyegun as the national chairman of
the party; since that time a lot of water has passed under the
proverbial bridge. The APC has since moved from being the most vibrant
and vociferous opposition party to becoming the ruling party at the
federal and most of the states following the 2015 general elections.
It
has been some 90 days after the end of the polls and 30 days after the
inauguration which took place on May 29. What have Nigerians seen? It’s
been a huge disappointment to say the least. At the level of the
Presidency, President Muhammadu Buhari is still running the government
as a “sole administrator”. He has yet to appoint key aides as well as
his cabinet. Information trickling in says this may not be done until
late August or early September. Much of the blame was put on the late
submission of handover notes by the ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s
administration. In truth, the handover notes were submitted to the
President on the eve of inauguration. Be that as it may, the new
government has since received formal response from the Ahmed Joda
transition committee since June 12, 2015. It will not be fair on
Nigerians to have to wait eternally for the scrutiny of the 800-page
report of the committee before President Buhari will kick-start his
government.
As things stand, the “motion without movement” of
the present administration, as the PDP described it, is impacting
negatively on the polity and economy. While the Nigerian capital market
reacted positively to the election of President Buhari in April when it
gained 8.30 per cent, its single biggest daily gain this year, wiping
off the negative year-to-date (YTD) performance, after the INEC
declaration, the same market is now reacting negatively to the delay in
coming up with any economic roadmap.
According to Thisday
newspaper, June 29, 2015, experts warned that “the delay by President
Muhammadu Buhari in appointing persons to drive his government’s
economic blueprint and provide a policy direction for the government
about a month after he was sworn in is hurting Nigeria’s business
confidence. This is just as market capitalisation of the Nigerian Stock
Exchange has plunged by N353bn since Buhari’s inauguration, as investors
continue to react to the absence of a policy direction. In one month of
trading since Buhari assumed office, market capitalisation on the
Nigerian bourse depreciated by three per cent from N11.568 trillion to
N11.215 trillion last Friday while the NSE All-share Index has dipped
from 34,044.65 points at the beginning of the month to 32,853.49 points
on Friday.”
I quite agree with the submission of the PDP’s
National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, who in a press
statement released last Sunday, June 28 observed that, “We are deeply
worried that the President who promised to unveil his cabinet two weeks
after his inauguration has not been able to decide on key appointments
such as ministers, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, a
Chief of Staff and advisers in key sectors of the economy…The delay has
brought government business in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies
to a dangerous standstill with coordination of important policies vested
on ministers and the SGF now in tatters while the system drifts.”
I
read the rebuttal of the Presidency to Metuh’s barb against the
government where the Special Adviser to the President on Media and
Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, stated among other things that, “The Buhari
administration is naturally contemplative because there was absolutely
no rhyme or reason to the way the PDP ran the country, particularly in
the immediate past dispensation. That is why the Augean Stable is being
cleaned now, and it requires scrupulous and painstaking planning. Across
all sectors, our national life was devalued, and it takes
meticulousness and sure-footedness to repair all the breaches. This, the
Buhari administration will deliver.”
To the above assertion I
also disagree and my thoughts are in sync with the position of Metuh
when he observed that “In Greek mythology, Hercules, in his ingenuity,
took the task and efficiently cleared the Augean stable in a day for
which he demanded a reward of a tenth of fine cattle belonging to the
king. Nigerians would not want to believe that in the so-called clearing
of the Augean stable, although not delivering in one day, President
Buhari wants to play Hercules in his demand, this time, by wanting to
run the government alone without the statutory components of the
executive as enshrined in the constitution.”
What Adesina needs
to realise is that Nigerians have high expectations from the new
government and they have yet to be convinced that the new administration
is any different from the last one. In any event, most of the dramatis
personae in the APC today were key players in the PDP. The hood does not
make a monk just as changing of party platform does not in any way turn
a conservative politician to a progressive. What has really changed?
President Buhari promised to publicly declare his assets but has failed
to do that. Rather, like ex-President Jonathan, he only followed the
status quo by declaring it to the Code of Conduct Bureau.
Also,
since the inauguration of the National Assembly on June 9, 2015, the two
chambers – Senate and House of Representatives – have been embroiled in
leadership crises. These have culminated in last Thursday’s shameful
fisticuffs on the floor of the House of Representatives and a shouting
match the previous day at the APC caucus meeting at the Senate. Since
June 9, both chambers have embarked on two recesses. First a two-week
adjournment which they resumed from on June 23 only for them to embark
on another month-long recess from June 25 to July 21, 2015. To my own
mind, these lawmakers do not deserve to be paid for this period of
vacation in the midst of national emergency when they ordinarily ought
to hit the ground running. The APC, as it were, is holding the entire
country to ransom by allowing its internal issues to affect the entire
country. With all the leadership positions yet to be filled and
committees yet to be established, how can the lawmakers perform their
constitutional role of lawmaking, oversight, and confirmation of key
appointments of the executive arm?
It is most unfortunate that
the APC leadership was largely responsible for the crisis in the
National Assembly by trying to impose candidates on its members in the
parliament. Perhaps, if the party had not overreached itself by trying
to meddle in the elections of the National Assembly leadership, the
crisis would have been avoided. If the party must know the truth, it is
just an election winning platform. Many of the elected members actually
bankrolled their own electioneering and as such it will be difficult to
sanction the erring members without incurring disastrous consequences to
the party’s electoral fortunes in future elections.
- @jideojong
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