Many lies against Buhari

In a bid to garner public support ahead of the 2019 general elections, some opposition elements have descended to the level of peddling lies against President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. While it appears that the reason for denigrating the office of the President is to win the support of voters during elections, yet it is outright irresponsibility for the opposition to heap the blame of some happenings in Nigeria on President Buhari.

A typical example is the narrative that Fulani herdsmen have been wreaking havoc on some Benue/Plateau communities on the simplistic reason that their kinsman is now the president of the country. Contrary to this view, we now know that those who sponsored militias in the past and peddled notorious lies on the attacks by suspected Fulani herdsmen are now using insecurity as a political campaign mantra.

Nigerians will not also forget in a hurry that some armed robbers were provided with vehicular logistics which led to the loss of several lives in one single day, and some politicians are hiding under the cloak of insecurity to campaign. Similarly unscrupulous politicians that are infamous for preaching and practicing hatred and bigotry over the last five years are now saying that the country has never been so divided.

The litany of lies and deceit by some opposition elements will not be complete if we recall that the same cabal had in the past blocked moves for greater autonomy of the federating units like states and local governments. Restructuring become their sing-song.

A case in point is that of a former Senate president who was on the saddle for eight years and had all the opportunities to start the process of restructuring but abdicated the responsibility. Today he is making a political capital with the issue of restructuring.

As President Buhari intensifies efforts to eradicate corruption in the country, some unpatriotic Nigerians who looted the country’s resources and shortchanged the country in the remittance of national revenues are claiming to have turned a new leaf overnight.

Before our very eyes, those who collapsed banks and other financial institutions thereby hurting the lives of millions of Nigerians are now telling Nigerians that they have a magic wand to turn things around.

Therefore the re-election of President Buhari in next year’s election will help to consolidate on the gains already made over the last three and half years in the fight against corruption.

The Buhari administration should be credited for laying the necessary foundation for the country to bounce back to its pride of place in the comity of nations. Its achievements in the various sectors like agriculture, economy, security, infrastructure and anticorruption will definitely appeal to the sensibilities of Nigerians in choosing leaders in the forthcoming elections. The singular act of eliminating and reducing corruption in our public life has has gone a long way to redirect our focus to development-oriented issues.

The bottom line of this discourse is that government is all about providing development and good governance to the citizenry, and this is essentially the focus of the Buhari administration. On the face value, the direct benefit of the fight against corruption is that more resources are made available for the delivery of democracy dividends to Nigerians.

The federal government recently rolled out its Social Investment Programme (SIP) which is targeted at empowering Nigerians in various fields of endeavour, and at the last count over 500,000 Nigerians have directly benefitted from the programme. The programme is being implemented through the N-Power, Anchor Borrowers Programme, Tradermoni, Home Grown school feeding programme Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), Conditional Cash Transfer and Farmer Money.

All these programmes are already impacting positively on Nigerians, especially the poor, and yielding expected results. It must be noted that before President Buhari came to office, there was a disconnect between the government and the people, rich and poor and the only discernible effect of different government policies was the rising number of sports utility vehicles ‘jeeps’ on our highways. Chukwudi Enekwechi, Abuja.