BUHARI’S APC IS BLEEDING NIGERIA TO DEATH
By Dr. Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo
Special to USAfricaonline.com
I have on different occasions drawn attention to the predatory nature of the Nigerian political class and its penchant to rationalize the absurd. Nigeria is indeed a country of absurdities; founded on absurdity and ruled with vice grip by men and women given to the profane and bestiality. Nigeria is a country of uncertainty; a country anchored on deceit and fraud despite the pontifications of those in power. Nigeria is a country notorious for perfecting the dubious act of social deception. For the uninitiated, social; deception is a process by which wrong becomes right; and right becomes wrong. It is a curious paradigm shift of opinions, standards and morals that is achieved subtly, softly and in the course of time becomes entrenched in society as acceptable norms. Those who engineer social deception are very deliberate and structured in their approach. If you want to know what I am talking about, then take a look at what APC has done and is doing to Nigeria.
With each passing day, APC confirms to me that it is a vehicle of social perdition; a well-structured machinery of lies and deception; a gathering of ravenous wolves poised to bring Nigeria to ruination and damnation. For those who care to know, APC is fraud incorporated and a more hideous mutant of the much maligned PDP. From its approach to governance through the maze and haze of social engineering, national integration and unity, APC has fumbled and wobbled at each turn. Regrettably, the party has mobilized the western-Nigeria dominated press to sustain its lies and deceit of Nigerians. Why the Nigerian press has elected to play this ignoble role worries me. As a purveyor of society’s moral conscience, the responsibility of the press is not and cannot be the same as that of the government. As a matter of fact, their duties are in most cases diametrically opposed. History imposes on the press the task of digging into the inner shenanigans of government and holding the government accountable. This is not the case in Nigeria.
The reason for this press apathy is not far-fetched. In Nigeria, majority of the print and electronic media are owned by godfathers who actually installed their stooges or poltergeists in power and their media houses are used as platforms to rationalize the absurdities of governance. If this is not so, one wonders why the Nigerian press has not thought it expedient to dwell on the recent dubious approval by the Nigerian Governors Forum for the Federal Government to withdraw a whopping $1billion from the excess crude account to fight Boko Haram insurgents.
Recall that fighting and defeating Boko Haram was one of the main campaign promises of the APC. The party had promised that within three months of coming to power, Boko Haram would have become history. By the end of 2015, the Buhari government told Nigerians that Boko Haram has been technically defeated- whatever that means. And yet in 2017, two years after telling Nigerians that Boko Haram has been degraded and technically defeated, the government is about spending a staggering $1billion of tax payers’ money to fight a “technically defeated and downgraded” insurgent group. By the current exchange rate of the naira, $1billion would amount to N360billion. This is crazy to say the least. I know that since Buhari came to power, so much money has been sunk into fighting the insurgents. What happened to the money so far spent on this cause in the past two years? We have been told that all the territories hitherto held by the group have been retaken by the Nigerian armed forces; that the insurgents have been flushed out of Sambisa forest and that Shakau’s Koran has been seized. If after telling us all these, the government has turned round to withdraw this huge amount for the same purpose, then it means that all we have been told by the APC about this are barefaced lies and mean propaganda.
What is even more galling is the manner the Governors Forum approved the said money. And here I want to know if the Governors Forum has become Nigeria’s National Assembly. As far as I know it is only the National Assembly that has right to give such approval basically because the money in the excess crude account is our common patrimony and not that of the governors. It is therefore ridiculous for the governors to announce on television that they have given the approval as if they were approving the money from their own purse. I do not know what else constitutes impunity. The APC government is a government of impunity. It is that simple. The APC federal government has since it came to power focused attention on the money given to SamboDasuki to purchase arms but which he allegedly distributed to PDP members. But I want to say that what we are witnessing under the APC now will make the Dasuki matter a child’s play. This government is stinking and sleaze is writ large on its vest.
One cannot but marvel at the rate with which APC contradicts itself. At one point it says one thing; and at another it contradicts itself. My people have a saying that a thief continues to lie until he is clubbed to death when he cannot lie again. I am aware that though this government pontificates about war on corruption, its credentials are questionable. This is a government that has just announced a budget of N8.612 trillion and is about selling off our national assets to fund the budget. And here one is bound to ask if the N360billion is part of the N422 billion proposed for defense in that budget.
What does all this tell us? First it tells us that the APC is a bunch of liars; a motley crowd of dishonest men with an agenda to bleed Nigeria to death. At each point, the APC has attacked the PDP as a corrupt party as if it is different from the PDP. In one of my recent articles, I posited that the difference between APC and PDP is nothing but the difference between six and half-a-dozen. A thief can put on the hood of a monk but we all know that the hood does not make the monk. APC must know that Nigerians are watching. This is not the way to run a country. You do not superintend a country by hoodwinking the people. Since the inception of this administration, Nigerians have known nothing but hardship. Workers are being owed months of salaries and allowances. Not one of the 198 electoral promises by the APC has been fulfilled. And yet we are daily fed with lies as if lies have become a delicacy. Yes, lies could be a delicacy to a bunch of men lacking in conscience and wisdom; but certainly not to bewildered people desperately in need of salvation.
Much as Nigerians want an end to Boko Haram and its atrocities, we would resist any attempt by the government to hide under the guise of fighting insurgency to dupe us. We have become tired of living by the sea side and washing our hands with spittle. This strategy of the APC in blaming the PDP for the woes of this country cannot work anymore. It is nothing but elitist strategy of blackmailing one another to give the impression that a messiah has come. Nigerians know who the predators are and would call them to account at the appropriate time- whether such predators are in the APC or PDP or any other party. Enough is enough!
