By Uzochukwu Okafor
I have been thinking seriously on
why President Jonathan is constantly being derided and abused by a few but
vociferous individuals. The most recent being that emanating from President
Obasanjo’s latest book.
But what now propelled me into contributing to this
debate is the article written by Mr. Nnimmo Bassey, who I have very high regard
for since our student days at the University of Nigeria, Enugu campus.
In that article captioned “A
Clueless president,” he stated how an African friend he had not seen in years
asked him about “his clueless President.” This demonstrates the need for us to
remain decorous even in instances of very sharp disagreements.
Quite often, Nigerians complain of
disrespectful treatments at the airports by immigration and custom officials.
There is a saying in Igbo land to the effect that when you describe your
cooking pot as useless, people will treat it as rubbish. We Nigerians have
often not been mindful of the damage we do to our country and ourselves when we
denigrate our institutions and our leaders in a careless and reckless manner.
It is even more so when such recklessness comes from a former president who
should be more thoughtful and circumspect in his utterances and writings.
As we approach the 2015 presidential
elections, the denigration of the office of the president is being escalated.
The launch of the book, My Watch, by former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo
(OBJ) was seen in this light by many commentators. The opposition party, the
APC is also determined to do maximum damage to President Jonathan and the
office of the President.
The utterances from its leadership need a lot of
moderation and scrubbing. They have also at various times described Mr.
President as clueless and one who runs an auto pilot government.
The radical
changes promised by President Jonathan during his campaign were captured in the
Transformation Agenda document. Programmes identified in this document will be
used to evaluate the government of president Jonathan to see if his government
can be described as clueless and running on auto pilot. An important barometer
of a viable democracy is the sanctity of the voter’s wish.
When late President Yar’Adua took
office, he acknowledged that his election was largely flawed and vowed to clean
up the electoral process. President Jonathan who succeeded him have not
disappointed in this regard. It is to his credit that subsequent elections have
been largely declared as free and fair by international observers.
Another
important index and benefit of democracy is the freedom of expression, freedom
of association and statutorily guaranteed access to information. Under
President Jonathan, freedom of speech has remained unencumbered in spite of
some unwarranted abuses his government has suffered. President Jonathan remains
to date the most demonised, abused and derided President Nigeria has ever had.
But it is to his credit that he has never used the security apparatus at his
disposal to persecute any one. One can also acknowledge that he signed the
Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill into law, a bill that the previous
governments avoided for years.
Under President Jonathan, the power
sector has witnessed the privatisation of the generation and distribution
companies. If international and local assessments of this process are anything
to go by, the bidding process has been mostly transparent. With this process
concluded, one can anticipate an irreversible process in achieving stable power
supply in no distant future, the same way the telecommunication sector
benefited from privatization.
The rehabilitation of the railway
system deserves special mention. This important means of transportation has
been unfortunately ignored by previous governments. The progress being made in
this sector in reopening the railway links to the major cities in Nigeria is
commendable. This is being complemented with the dredging of the lower River
Niger.
We also take particular note of the
ongoing construction of the new bridge over the River Benue and the
commencement of work on the Second Niger Bridge. The aviation sector is another
area that has witnessed significant transformation. The modernisations of the
existing airports and construction of new airport terminals have improved the
standing of Nigerian airports within the international aviation community.
It is therefore not surprising that
Nigeria has attained and retained the FAA Category One status. The launching of
the National industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP), and the National Enterprise
Development Programme has led to the resuscitation of Nigeria automobile
industry.
Nigeria has moved from a net
importer of cement to a net exporter of cement by increasing installed capacity
from 16.5 million metric tons per annum in 2011 to 39.5 million metric tons per
annum in 2014. The transformation agenda of Mr. President, if implemented
faithfully, will no doubt significantly improve Nigeria economy. But we must be
mindful of the fact that its impact and success rests on tackling the monster
of corruption.
One, therefore, cannot fairly
evaluate this administration without assessing its approach to addressing the
issue of corruption. Although Nigeria has improved slightly with respect to the
perception index of Transparency International, perception of corruption in
Nigeria is still high.
While there is often a mismatch between perception and
reality, one cannot ignore perception. The truth, is that Mr. President needs
to demonstrate that his government abhors corruption. While I agree with Mr.
President that dealing with corruption is not about parading people on the
television but devising creative and systematic means of addressing it, there
is still need to combine the long term measure of Mr. President with some short
term prescriptions.
One short term measure could be
initiating an executive bill to set up Tribunals dedicated to trying cases of
corruption. These tribunals should be presided over by credible retired judges.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has often complained about
their frustration with the process at the existing courts.
The conviction of Governor Ibori at
the UK Court vis a vis the merry go round experienced in the same case in
Nigeria is a case in point. Having stated the issues above, it will be germane
to acknowledge what this administration has already done to tackle corruption
at its roots. These include the restructuring of the pension payment system, the
restructuring of the integrated salary payment system, and the deregulation in
the oil and gas sector to check corrupt practices in the downstream sector.
The disappearance of perennial
queues at our filling stations is one testimony to the success of the creative
approach to stemming endemic corruption in the oil sector. Signing of the
Anti-Money Laundering Act into law, introduction of an electronic-wallet
scheme, that has reduced significantly decades of corruption in the fertiliser
and seed sectors are also very creative.
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