CAN PDP CHANGE THE CHANGE? – LESSONS FOR NIGERIA

Two years into the Buhari presidency, presidential and cabinet officials, including the president himself, are still gives excuses and blaming the previous government and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for their woes and inability to deliver on the many promises they made to Nigerians many of which they have themselves forgotten.

Rather than take responsibility for leadership and get down to the business of fixing Nigeria, President Buhari, his aides and their party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) have continued to blame the PDP, former President Jonathan, internal sabotage and any other thing they can place their hands on. Now they are blaming falling oil prices, as though they do not understand the dynamic nature of the global oil economy. Oil prices, like for other commodities, will always rise and fall.

When the Buhari government was inaugurated in May 29, 2015, power supply was at an all-time high. Gasoline was available everywhere and sold for about N93/litre. Road construction projects were ongoing in every part of the country. Things were truly looking very good.

At that time, rather than commend the Jonathan government, Buhari’s men set out to coin the term ‘body language’. They attributed the improved power supply, the availability of gasoline, promptness in airline scheduling and many others to President Buhari’s body language. It did not matter that Buhari had not done anything tangible in any sector of the Nigerian economy. For them, there was a new sheriff in town! He didn’t need to do anything.Nigeria would work by him just being there. 

Nigerians are tired of General Buhari and his many excuses and they are expressing themselves loudly and clearly. The renewed clamour against General Buhari’s inefficiency and failure has become a rigorous bipartisan campaign. Even former diehard supporters of President Buhari have joined the mass of millions of Nigerians who are telling President Buhari to his
face that his government has failed Nigerians.

Frontline members of the 2015 pro-Buhari movement are now coming out in droves to say to Mr. President “we are disappointed and disillusioned with your government”. Many of them have expressed regret in voting for President Buhari and have even asked for forgiveness from those who they lured into the Buhari nest.

The reason for the failure of the Buhari presidency is not far fetch and the government should stop misleading Nigerians. President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on May 29, 2015.

Rather than settle down and hit the ground running, President Buhari began
an international tour visiting a record 22 countries within a space of 6 months! …at a time when he had neither an executive cabinet or an economic team! President Buhari was running a rudderless government with no stated
mission and vision plan.

When Nigerians made their worries known, President Buhari, in his usual taciturnity, replied that Ministers were noisemakers. And so he continued to gallivant around the world visiting countries where in most cases, the ministers of that host country received him at the airport. And so for 7 whole months, the Federal Republic of Nigeria and her citizens sat still in wait for President Buhari to appoint his team of ministers.

The frightening state of the Nigerian economy and the grim disillusion in the land today is a product of those 7 months of presidential gallivanting and executive carelessness on the part of President Buhari and those who advised him to mistreat and maltreat Nigeria and Nigerians in such a manner. Let us consider the case of Barack Obama so that we can understand why successful presidents make their countries successful.

As at December 13, 2008, about a month after he won the US Presidential
election of November 2008, President-elect Barack Obama cabinet list was
ready. It was an assemblage of his various policy teams.

President-elect Obama understood the dare straits that the American economy was in. He also knew that the United States needed to fine-tune its foreign and domestic policy to contain growing hostility to US interests across the world, strengthen international trade and bring prosperity to all Americans.

And so President-elect Obama set out to build his foreign policy team around Hillary Rodham Clinton (Wellesley, Yale Law), Jim Steinberg (Harvard, Yale Law) and Susan Rice (Stanford, Oxford DPhil). His domestic policy team was built around Jason Furman (Harvard, Harvard PhD), Austen Goolsbee (Yale, MIT PhD), Blair Levin (Yale, Yale Law), Peter Orszarg (Princeton, London School of Economic PhD) and of course White House Counsel Greg Craig (Harvard, Yale Law).

The Obama economic policy team, which had been formed, in the last week of November, was built around New York Federal Reserve President, Timothy Geithner, Christina Romer (MIT. PhD) and Larry Summers, President Emeritus and Charles W. Elliot Professor of Harvard University. Between 1999 and 2001, Summers had served as US Treasury secretary. He was to head the National Economic Council while Christina Romer was to serve as Chairperson, Council of Economic Advisers.

In late 2008, it was Romer along with fellow economic advisors Larry
Summers and Peter R. Orszag who presented then President-elect Barack
Obama with recommendations for a stimulus package. Romer calculated that a $1.8-trillion package was necessary to fill the output gap, but Summers
rejected the proposal and opted not to include it in the memo fearing that
a trillion-dollar package would not pass through Congress. The Obama administration ultimately passed an $800-billion Stimulus package.

In February 17, 2009, barely a month after he was inaugurated as the 44th
President of the United States of America, The Stimulus Act 2009 (a
stimulus package) was enacted into law to reinvigorate the US economy and
prevent or reverse a recession by boosting employment and spending.

A few things stood out about the Obama team. First, they were all
open-minded individuals who are persuadable by evidence. Secondly they were admired professionals. Thirdly, they were not excessively partisan and finally, they were people with practical creativity. Not so with President Buhari and the team he eventually put together after putting Nigerians through vain months of wait.

The Buhari administration inherited a Nigeria that was the largest economy
in Africa. It inherited a Nigeria that had been declared polio-free by the
World Health Organization. It inherited a country that on the verge of
agricultural sufficiency. Today all that is reversing. Nigeria has fallen back behind South Africa as Africa’s largest economy. Polio has returned to Nigeria. For more than one year, almost every progress we made in the agricultural sector has collapsed.

A country that had reached the point of rice sufficiency and was talking
of exporting rice is now talking of importing grass from Brazil to feed
cattle. A country that had begun to produce automobiles is now talking about
manufacturing pencils.

No government in the history of Nigeria has shot itself in the foot like
the Buhari presidency. Luckily for them, there is currently little or no
opposition to the wanton recklessness that the Buhari presidency has
brought into the governance and administration of Nigeria. Nigeria is
today being run like some feudal hegemony. The promise of change has suddenly turned to a Change of promises.

They promised Nigerians that the will fix all our refineries and lower the
cost of gasoline. Today they have increased the price of gasoline by
almost a hundred percent. They promised to fix the power sector and restore uninterrupted power supply but today power infrastructures are shutting down across the country.

They promised to build more roads for Nigerians but one year after, not
one new road have been completed by the APC government even the roads that were at at various stages of completion by the former PDP government.

APC accused the PDP of crippling Nigerians with an exchange rate of N170
to the dollar. Today, under APC’s rule, the Naira (N) trades to the dollar
($) at N400 to the dollar!

And so this brings us to the question. Where is the PDP, which once touted
itself as the largest political party in Nigeria? Why is the PDP allowing the APC to sojourn on a reckless free ride and get
away with it?

What has happened to constructive opposition?

It is time for the PDP to rise up to the occasion and give APC a run for
its money. It is suddenly dawning on Nigerians that APC came to power very
unprepared.

The President continues to earn for himself more unprintable names every
day. The legislature stands with wobbly feet even as APC members trade
blames and counter accusations at themselves.

Dissension, frustration and disappointment continue to grow across the
land. The judiciary is not happy with the insults it continues to receive
from the Executive. All is not well.

All is also not well with the PDP. Two of PDP’s top spokespeople, Olisah
Metuh and the maverick Femi Fani-Kayode are having running battles with
the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over allegations of
fraud even as there are many who see this as a political witch hunt of the
party’s top officials.

Nigerians are waiting to see who will the new drivers and arrowheads of
what was once the largest political party in the land. The story of a next
generation PDP is everywhere. The buzz of the upcoming PDP convention
scheduled for Port Harcourt has pushed forward names of smart young people who are gearing up to take charge of the administration of the emerging PDP.

Who knows, the loss the party suffered in 2015 might just be the tonic it
needs to find its foot again.

In its near role as an opposition party at the Federal level, the PDP must
learn to do things differently from the APC. They must not lie to Nigerians the way that the APC lied to Nigerians. They must be truthful to Nigerians when they begin to reel out campaign promises.

The emerging PDP must bring together the smartest and most creative people in the land and form a shadow cabinet that will take on the APC issue for issue. Capable leaders must be scouted for to take over positions of
leadership. The mistakes of the past must be used to correct the progress
march into the future. Nothing must be taken for granted.

Nigerians deserve better.

George Kerley

georgekerley@yahoo.com