The Nigerian masses in what looks like a revolution faithfully embraced the APC in search of succor and hope. Their resolve to clinch to a party that outlined purportedly the ills of the incumbent would have no other fate than to occupy the Aso Rock villa; lo, Nigerians kept to their promise and expected no less from the victor.
In fulfillments of promises made to the electorates, the APC government bragged of doing their business differently having got a vivid understanding of what the issues are, and got a clear road map to achieving it. This will of course gladdens any discerning mind.
Two and a half years into the leap, it has been a show of inverse relationship albeit on the negative, or at best directly proportional to the PDP ways. An inverse relationship seeks to reflect the opposite image of the other, whether in the positive or otherwise. When the APC came on board, they promises to be unequivocally positive, to prove this, mechanisms, structures and policies put in place by PDP were condemned and hurriedly scrapped out or repealed just to send a signal that they have come differently. In furtherance to the show of its uniqueness, the APC took ample time to constitute its executive, delayed in laying off the PDP liabilities holding sway in various parastatals and came up with what they termed the best into the Federal Executive Council; regrettably as at today, they are yet to fill in the vacant positions occasioned by the eventual sack of the chief executives and board members of the parastatals. To the chagrin of many, albeit in conformity to its flaunted ideals (doing it differently), the CBN Governor was retained; I am sure Nigerians were marveled with this contradiction. How do they explain the sparing of a chief accounting officer of institution that superintend over massive released of funds without probity. The arms deal is quite instructive!
While it never done on them that their “initial gragra” would take them nowhere, individuals as party faithful were in the know that all these are destined to crash. Put on the scale of fairness, there is no justification for delaying the constitution of a cabinet for months only to come up with a list of individuals whose names were already touted in the minds of Nigerians (Nija factor) and even all over the media (social and others). More annoying is the denial of the names of only to find out that is the same.
The APC had condemned the following: the Sure P Intervention, the weekly executive council meeting, the perpetual adoption of care taker at the LGA level, Joint allocation, foreign medical mission by officials, toll gates on our roads, secret employments, incessant workers strikes, high exchange rate, cattle rustling, kidnappings, hikes in pump price/incessant fuel scarcity, exchange rates brouhaha etc. Today, what change has the APC government brought different from what it use to be? What can they tell Nigerians that their government has changed for the better outside their penchant to allude to their incapability as a consequences of the past PDP government woeful performance? The problems of the two political parties are about the same, they lack capacity to assess performance from the outcome and impact point of view; many a times you hear or read from the pages where they refer to their input, processes and output as something to be celebrated. For the benefit of all, these parameters are not the same; your outcome is a direct result or consequences of your input, processes and output pending on how these parameters thrive, so is the expected outcome.
We are witnessing a reversal of thought by the APC government, what hitherto used to be seen as evil has now triumph (he rejected stones are now the cornerstones). Wednesdays of the week has remained the sacred day for the FEC, join account has remained a legitimate marriage, the word “cabals” has come to stay in our daily vacabs and fuel scarcity has now become an annual rituals if not a regular one. Toll gates are in the offing and what hitherto was termed bogus list (ministerial) shall be our new year’s gift. The lists are endless. To tell APC government has delivered is liking it to celebrating PDP sixteen years of misrule! It is no news to hear the APC brag of handling security problem adequately: without sentiment, just few days ago, a well read newspaper in Nigeria quoted deaths resulting from Boko Haram heinous activities as over a thousand in about 2years or thereabout of the APC administration: how else can one assess success outside numbers? The closest to describing the successes recorded is to attribute it to their ability to project the “haves group”. Still on security, one would find it even more insulting and a clear show of insensitivity to insecurity; almost on a daily basis, deaths resulting from clashes between communities or families, farmers’ vs herdsmen, cattle rustlers’ vs herdsmen are no longer news. To them as long as these do not interest the international community, then it is not a security palaver. To score the APC government high on security is to do the least; The Fulanis and the Numan militia experienced are still fresh and explanation being awaited. Yet they thought that the masses are gullible to the extent that they don’t know what they want.
To move Nigeria forward, this is evidently going to be a daunting task, most especially that we are faced with Identity crisis; on one swoop we claimed secularism and on another breath, we want to be seen as a Muslim/Christian country. May be all these are happening in fulfilment of a divine pathway; for we all know that in the Christian and Islamic faiths, Rapture and emergence of Dab’bat al-Ard is imminently about to happen as a prelude to the “Great Event”.
As we meditate on this into the New Year, blessed are those who sees the need to change the status-quo for the better.
Dr Abdullahi Baba Abdul is a consistent chieftain of the APC in Kogi State and can be reached on;
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
