2019: Between Buhari and Atiku

The inauguration of the campaign documents of President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) flagbearer, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, has set the tone for the campaigns for next year’s election. Assistant Editor LEKE SALAUDEEN spoke to some Nigerians who shared their expectations.

THE Chairman of Arewa Professional Group, Malam Idris Mustapha, said President Muhammadu Buhari deserves second term, given his track record of performance.

Mustapha said the Buhari administration has been prudent with nation’s resources and that he has also embarked on projects across the country. Buhari started delivery of infrastructural facilities when the crude oil was as low as $28 per barrel.

Mustapha said: “This government has shown determination and the will to squeeze water from stone. At a point when they started taking this very critical infrastructure across the country – rail, roads and power-oil dropped to $28 per barrel. So, it shows that it is a government that is very prudent in the management of resources.”

In his view, the President has plans to deliver more dividends of democracy to Nigerians. He said the bane of Nigeria’s under-development has been the mismanagement of public funds.

But , the Director General of the Atiku Campaign Organisation Organisation, Chief Gbenga Daniel,  said President Buhari has failed to deliver his contract of job creation to Nigerians. He recalled that the President, during 2015 campaigns, had promised to provide about three million jobs but failed to do so.

Daniel said Buhari at that time said if he failed to fulfil the promise, then, Nigerians were at liberty to choose another leader. He challenged the President to honour his pledge and resign from office to enable Nigerians to elect a new president.

The former Ogun State Governor believes the PDP candidate is best man for the job. He said the country is not working and Atiku has the capacity to get things working again. He said: “Nigeria is not working again and I want to start by quoting what the current president said in one of his tweets, specifically, I think this was sometime in March 2015 just before the election, he promised Nigerian jobs and he said and I quote : ‘If I don’t fulfil my promises, you have the power to decide who leads you and how they lead you’.

“Part of what is key for us is provision of jobs and my submission is if the contact that Buhari had with the people is that he will create jobs, then he has failed to deliver that contract. Going forward, in Atiku Abubakar, we clearly have a better person; we clearly have someone who has better exposure to all the facets of this country. We have someone who is very much at home everywhere.”

An economist, Dr Usman Aliyu, has dismissed Daniel’s submission that the Buhari administration has failed to fulfil promise of job creation

Aliyu observed that since Buhari took office in 2015, the unemployment rate has slowly edged down with millions of jobs created.

He said in agriculture, for example, this administration has created over seven million jobs. He said: “When it assumed office in 2015, about five million farmers were engaged in rice production. Through the introduction of the Buhari’s administration Anchor Borrowers Programme, the number of farmers engaged in rice production today stands at 12.2 million.”

Aliyu said 69,736 have been created in the Power, Works and Housing sectors. The National Social Investment Programme of the administration has created 200,000 jobs, in addition to empowering 500,000 others under the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP).

Quoting the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the economist said: “The Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing has created 69,736 jobs (direct and indirect) across the country. The power sector projects created 1,740 jobs, the Works sector created 38,391 jobs while the Housing sector created 29,605 jobs.”

He explained that the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme, through which 6.4 million school children in 33,981 schools across 20 states are being fed with one meal a day has created a job for 61,352 cooks.

Lawyer and human right activist, Mr Monday Ubani, has advised Nigerians not to take promises made by politicians hook, line and sinker. He said this is a season when politicians would promise heaven and earth to win people’s vote, adding that people should put them to task on how they would implement all promises and how they would fund projects, if elected.

Ubani recalled that the All Progressives Congress (APC) made many promises in 2015, but denied some of the promises on getting to power. He added: “For instance, the APC promised restructuring of the country for true federalism to prevail. But when the APC got into office they denied making such promise. However, the ruling party made a face-saving effort by setting up a panel headed by Governor Nasir El-Rufai to look into the issue of restructuring. We don’t know what has happened to the report of that committee.”

Ubani also expressed disappointment with the APC government that promised change. It was on the basis of that promise that many Nigerians voted out the PDP government. He noted that though the Buhari administration had performed in certain areas, but it has not brought radical change expected from it.

The right activist said the APC that accused the PDP of impunity in 2015 is also guilty of that offence. He said the APC primaries conducted at the state level lacked internal democracy. He said: “You can see some governors behaving like emperor, imposing candidates on the party and threatening to undermine the party’s success if they don’t have their way. We had thought APC would lay a good precedence in party management.”

Ubani also faulted Atiku’s promise to “make Nigeria working again”. He challenged the former vice president to tell Nigerians at what point did Nigeria stop working. As a major player, in the Obasanjo regime, what role did he play in ruing Nigerian economy?  He said: “He should tell us as the person in charge of economy under Obasanjo how he managed the sale of government companies and enterprises before he can convince us that he has what it takes to make Nigeria work.

“I am surprised that Atiku didn’t mention anything about development of seaports in his campaign document. We have many ports that are idle in this country. Only Lagos ports are working. Those in Calabar, Warri and Port Harcourt are either abandoned or underutilised. Putting these ports into optimal use will reduce pressure on Lagos roads and improve the economic activities of the areas they are located.”

Ubani urged Nigerians not to vote for a presidential candidate that is not committed to restructuring. He said most of the socio-economic problems facing this country have to do with the present structure that is inimical to true federalism. He recalled that Nigeria got it right between 1960 and 1966 when true federalism was at play. The regions had control over resources under their jurisdiction; there was competition among the regions; unlike now that is everything is centralised.

A Kaduna-based lawyer, Mr Andrew Obaseki, lauded Buhari government for improving and intervening in some critical sectors such as power, housing, transportation and infrastructural development. He said rods rehabilitation is being pursued vigorously with work going on important roads such as Lagos- Ibadan; Bonny-Bodo; Ilorin-Jebba-Mokwa-Birin Gwari-Kaduna and Kano-Maiduguri roads.

Obaseki said: “Even though, it is not yet uhuru , there is no doubt that Buhari administration  has done well and deserves commendation. The anti-graft war reched its peak under the Buhari administration with N500,000 billion recovered from corrupt people. This is in addition to property worth billions of naira also recovered. The whistle blowing policy of the government has led to the recovery of billions of naira too.”

On security, he noted that Buhari within a very short period of coming to power decimated the dreaded Boko Haram, secured the release of 106 out of 276 Chibok school girls who were abducted by terrorists during the Goodluck Jonathan.

Public Affairs analyst, Malam Mohammed Aminu, scored Buhari low on security. To him, the state of security has not changed. He said Nigerians across the country are not safer today than they were during the Jonathan administration.

Aminu said: “Both the land and coastal borders are still poorly guarded, allowing for the high influx of arms.. Armed robberies, killing and kidnappings still happen in broad daylight, with the Abuja-Kaduna axis has been known for these.

“The Shiite crisis is still a fresh wound that has not healed since after the Zaria massacre carried out by the military. The herdsmen-farmer clashes though have reduced but still on in Benue, Taraba and Kaduna states where hundreds of lives had been lost.” A student activist, Mr Lanre Adesanya, said Nigeria has never had it so good. He argued that those who are opposed to re-election of Buhari are those who plundered the nation’s commonwealth under the previous administrations.

Adesanya said: “Buhari’s administration should be commended and not condemned. A ruin of 16 years under the PDP cannot be fixed in three and half years. So far it has been so good under Buhari.”

He said the administration has delivered on its key promises of anti-corruption fight, security and economy. He believed that the government has invested in people, ensured justice reform, improved diplomacy and international relations and enthroned new vision for the Niger Delta region. He said if re-elected Buhari would consolidate on the gains recorded in the first term and make Nigeria a great country. Nigeria is on course, we should not allow the looters to return to power in 2019, he pleaded.