Enahoro’s Unhealthy Cynicism

OneEugeneEnahoro’sarticlein Daily Trust Op-Ed, “Another Uninspiring Presidential Address,” Tuesday, January 2, is an example of uninformed diatribe common to Nigerian journalism today. It was neither balanced nor fair but a tissue of baseless allegations and wild blames on the President. The headline itself was intended to send a clear message that this was a deliberate propagation of falsehoods intended to mislead the readers.

From its beginning to the end, Enahoro’s write-up was unable to present a fair and balanced view of anything pertaining to the administration without advocating an ideology of hatred towards the President.

Democracy thrives better with constructive and well-meaning inputs from citizens. For this reason, government welcomes constructive, sincere and helpful criticisms designed to improve good governance, but it rejects silly nitpicking on issues of styles, eloquence and delivery.

The language used throughout was one that will upset many in government and its supporters as it was disrespectful of the person and office of the President of the country. To be useful, criticism should concentrate on issues not personal attacks.

In effect, this whole thing amounts to a columnist using his media privileges and spaces to spread malicious misinformation against the government of President Buhari by intentionally distorting facts to serve a sinister agenda.

We have read what the opposition parties have said on the address on New Year Day, but of all the criticisms that trailed that broadcast, Enahoro’s was the most uncouth and uncharitable.

To accuse the President of showing lack of empathy to Nigerians over the unfortunate fuel crisis flies against the second paragraph of the President’s broadcast.

What this tells us is that the malicious column was written before the speech with malice aforesaid. Alternatively, the writer may have been driven by sheer haughtiness and arrogance as not to allow the facts to stand in the way of an ill-conceived prior intention.

Let the reader judge President from what he said:

“I am saddened to acknowledge that for many this Christmas and New Year holidays have been anything but merry and happy. Instead of showing love, companionship and charity, some of our compatriots chose this period to inflict severe hardship on us all by creating unnecessary fuel scarcity across the country.

“The consequence was that not many could travel and the few who did had to pay exorbitant transport fares. This is unacceptable given that NNPC had taken measures to ensure availability at all depots. I am determined to get to the root of this collective blackmail of all Nigerians and ensure that whichever groups are behind this manipulated hardship will be prevented from doing so again.

“Such unpatriotism will not divert the Administration from the course we have set ourselves.” the

Do these programs show a lack of concern?

The Column turns round to call this finger-pointing, accusing the President of making it his stock-intrade. Pray, when did it become a “sin” to point at a problem, so that solutions can be found to it? If you don’t identify a problem, how can you solve it?

What Enahoro listed as criticism is actually considered by most people to be an advantage for the President, that he has the courage to look at the beneficiaries of a rotten old order, to say to them that you put us in this mess. How do we learn or correct past mistakes if we shy away from pointing at them, naming and shaming the actors? Enahoro must have an unstated reason for giving a free pass to smugglers, hoarders and greedy profiteers who put this country through this hardship. Don’t forget that this administration has given Nigeria two successive Christmas celebrations without the characteristic fuel shortage. But as the popular saying goes: corruption will fight back. But no matter what, we shall defeat corruption.

Enahoro claimed that the President achieved nothing. To show his strange mastery of grammar, he asserted that President Buhari should not have used the word “should “in the projection of the delivery or commencement of the railway lines and that he must say “will.” We are shocked beyond belief by such baseless and uninformed assertion by the columnist.

Is this to suggest that no extenuating factors, finance, weather, environment etc could have unexpected bearing on projects delivery? How can you “will” matters that you cannot control? Every project has a scheduled start and completion. But few projects in all countries on this earth finish exactly on time. For the President to therefore say this project will definitely finish on such and such a date would be unwise.

Let us focus on the primary criticism, which is the breathtaking claim that the President had achieved nothing all this while; that it he has so far not completed a single project. How dare someone say this?

To answer this cheap and absurd criticism, I will here tell Enahoro and persons like him that government is a continuum. Projects started should be completed by incoming governments in the national interest.

To begin with, the railway, roads and power project he equally cited; the Second Niger Bridge and other important national infrastructure projects were either abandoned or were left in moribund state, and that as soon as President Buhari was elected into office, he resumed the completion of the projects. President Buhari’s two budgets- 2017 and 2018 have a 30 percent component for capital projects. This is what marks it out from predecessor administrations which did not give 10 percent of budgets for such projects. Does Enahoro want this administration to leave these projects, start new ones so that the country can add to its stock of unfinished projects?

The policy of the Buhari administration to boost local production of rice has produced positive results. Nigeria spent a daily average of USD5 million importing rice every day. The import bill is down by 96 percent, on account of which the President proposed a ban on its importation beginning this year.

Apart from bringing down the cost of rice drastically through local production, the government has also successfully brought down the prices of fertilizer. From the cost of N11,000 to N15,000 per bag, fertilizers are being sold at the governmentregulated price of N5,500 in the country. Eleven moribund fertilizer projects across the country have been revived and are now working with thousands of new jobs created.

The federal government’s participation in the local rice production initiative has brought down the price of rice from twenty thousand naira to eight thousand to twelve thousand Naira per bag.

The policy of local rice production is so successful that the government will ban the importation of foreign rice altogether in the no distant future.

While we acknowledge that critics