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| L-R; Vice-President of Nigeria,Yemi Osinbajo and President Muhammadu Buhari |
By Bayo Oluwasanmi
The Vice-President of Nigeria,Yemi Osinbajo, a professor of
law and a pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) combined
irrational argument with evangelical exhortation in the classic preacher
fashion that true change would come in the year of our Lord Twenty Thousand and
Eighteen.
Two Sundays ago, Premium Times reports that Osinbajo during
an interview with journalists after a church program in Abeokuta, Ogun State
capital, said “There are lots of people who will say where is the change they
promised?” “People will condemn and shout,” says Osinbajo, “but we are focused,
calm and extremely confident that God is on our side and this country will not
be the same,” the preacher VP assured a doubting and restless nation. Still
preaching to the body of citizens with expired hope, he said “In another couple
of years, in 2018 we will see the difference.”
By now, Nigerians are familiar with the fire wall of blame
game erected by both President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice-President Osinbajo
around their failure to deliver their signature campaign slogan of
“change.” Osinbajo's statement sounds
unrealistic with a biting satire of optimism. Muhammadu Buhari administration
is “focused and determined to ensure this country is put on the right track,”
says Osinbajo. As if on the pulpit, the preacher-pastor VP is fired up: “All of
us have a part to play in the change. Nigerians must be patriotic in our
dealings and daily activities. We should be committed to the nation,” says
Osinbajo.
By the way, whose change is it? For who and by who? Who owns the change? Who
promised change? Who needs change? The campaign of “change begins with me”
concocted by the Buhari-Osinbajo administration is a manipulative reverse
psychology of blaming the victims (Nigerians) for being victims of the regime's
deception, incompetence, inaction, and mismanagement of the economy that has
brought more misery than relief to Nigerians in the past 16 months.
The political strategy of blaming the previous administration
and shifting responsibility of change to the Nigerian people by this
administration is a wild and dangerous invention. It would only fern resentment,
anger, and hatred from poor Nigerians against the government whose campaign
cornerstone was “change.” No doubt, the progress report card of the
administration in the past 16 months has destroyed to a large extent its
credibility. It has eroded our trust and loyalty.
The Buhari-Osinbajo preference is to appear like they're
solving the problems for which we duly elected them to tackle, rather than
actually tackling them. We're inundated with the same repulsive regurgitating
mantra of why the “change” they promised isn't forth coming – soon. Listen to
the second part of the VP's sermon: “One of the reasons why we are in a
recession is the fact that we lost about 60 per cent of our revenue due to the
vandalisation of the pipelines on the Niger/Delta and we lost almost 40 per
cent of the gas.” “These are challenging times,” Osinbajo reminds his Nigerian
congregation. “It is very obvious and we know the reasons. It is high level of
corruption and we have dealt with that. We are controlling government expenditure.
Once you can control corruption, we are out of it.”
We're tired of the sickening repetitive excuse of dwindling
revenues from oil as one of the reasons for the incompetence of the
administration. Buhari-Osinbajo knew way back that revenue from oil had fallen
before they came into office. It's no new news. We have dealt with corruption?
How? How can you control corruption when corruption is dictating the terms of
engagement in the war against corruption? What results have you gotten? Is
there anything to celebrate in the war of corruption when a thief only refunds
chicken change of a million or two from billions of heist taken from our
treasury? Is there any reason to roll out the drums when the looters
particularly the most prominent and the ones with the most pile of stolen Naira
like Bukola Abiku Mesujamba Saraki, Sambo, and other baron looters still out
there untouched, unmoved, unaffected, and free from prosecution and conviction.
Mr. VP, what's the status of war on corruption now with these
thieves? What happened to their cases? How long would it take to prosecute and
convict them? What happened to the proposed corruption courts? What's the purpose of fighting corruption
without corresponding punitive punishment that could deter other elected thieves from
stealing?
We know change is incremental. It comes in bits and bites. It
won't be a wholesale one-time event.
Fact is, we've not even seen any small change taking place, except from the
screaming headlines of arrests of
looters by the EFCC on pages of newspapers and the paltry refunds from
the thieves. It's all deja vu again – it's change without change. The
unfulfilled promise of change by this administration is an ominous climb-down
from its pre-election claims and it's a destructive weapon typical of political
con artists.
We now know that the APC campaign slogan of change was an
empty promise and trade mark arrogance that made the change mantra both
despised and disturbing. If there was a time when the joke of Buhari-Osinbajo
administration lost all its humor, it's clearly now. Change? What change? It's
a change we can't believe in: undiminished unemployment, the daily aggravated
starvation, the unmatched penury of families, the unattended health problems of
millions of sick and the infirm, the tone deaf attitude to constructive
criticisms and suggestions coupled with the administration's ineptitude of not
acting faster, promptly, properly, proactively, and decisively. But the most
relentless drag on the administration that promised change is even more
ominous. It's the country's fatalistic sense of hopelessness and helplessness
arising from the stalled moribund economy which remains intractable.
The change vis-a-vis the war on corruption seems to have a
prosecutorial gene. Its failure to get conviction speedily and successfully
against the public faces of corruption whose membership includes high power and
high visible politicians. The Buhari-Osinbajo led federal government has
neither aggressively prosecute corruption nor compellingly worried by the snail
speed with which it fights corruption. Indeed, the unannounced truce reached on
corruption between the government and the thieves makes President Buhari looks
like he's fronting for the crooks and the thieves even if he's not.
Buhari-Osinbajo administration is guilty of transgression of
undelivered change that it promised Nigerians. As we confront the
disappointment of heart wrenching political malpractice, a troubling sense of
malaise and despair casts a pall shadow on the lives of our people. Nigerians
are boiling with anger for the failure of the government to respond adequately
and aggressively enough to the massive wave of sufferings because of rising
unemployment and resistant poverty. The failure to respond directly by
targeting the needs of our people makes mockery of a government that boasts of
change.
The sermon on change by Osinbajo is a quick-witted farce that
doubles as the most disengaging and comic filled buck passing of a campaign
promise. Nigerians, brace up and fasten your seat belts – it's going to be a
long walk, long wait, for change in 2018, a year before the demise of the
Buhari-Osinbajo government.
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