2016: APC’s make-or-mar year

It’s the year of our Lord 2016. For surviving the tough and turbulent year 2015, I believe we all deserve to appreciate God and congratulate ourselves.  As we often say here, when there is life, there is hope. And truly, there’s no doubt that this is a year of high hopes, a year of great expectations, and a year I believe will either make or mar the ruling party at the federal level, the All Progressives Congress (APC).

This year, it would become clearer to Nigerians whether the APC will live up to expectations and deliver on promises made during electioneering campaigns or end up being a tragic disappointment and failure. This is the year we will know whether the APC is serious about the change it promised or the party and her officials have only succeeded in deceiving Nigerians just to get to power. And I say this for a number of reasons.

For instance, millions of Nigerians spent the Christmas and New Year period in serious hardship. Hunger is in the land. Frustration is increasing. Tempers are rising across the country. Discontent is growing everywhere. They have waited and are still being kept waiting for change.

Yet, the APC had raised hopes and expectations when its chieftains toured the length and breadth of the country during the last electioneering campaign promising Nigerians change. Nigerians, of course, supported the party to achieve what had never been achieved in our political history: successfully unseating a sitting government in an election. Now, they expect the APC to achieve what no government has ever achieved in our national history.

I believe that’s certainly not asking for too much. It’s a fair deal, right?

However, a fundamental problem I have against the APC’s Buhari administration, like I wrote in this column in the past, is that it hardly comes across as realising that every moment to change the country for the better and improve the lives of citizens counts or that Nigeria has lost much ground and there is a lot of catching up to do with other countries in the key areas of infrastructure, education, health, and food security among others.

Truth be told, at no other time has the expectations of Nigerians from any government at the federal level been higher than that of this administration. Nigerians, from Sokoto to Port Harcourt and from Lagos to Maiduguri, expect a better deal under the Buhari government. Unfortunately, it appears the APC never really imagined it would get into power at the federal level or prepared well enough for what it would do while in office after displacing the PDP.

For instance, does this government yet have any economic team in place charged with managing the economy?

“By May 29, 2016, the government would be one year in office. What would it list as its achievements? Some explanations as to how it might not be able to deliver on some promises may be understood with the grim reality of dwindling oil revenues. But excuses that are not excusable will not be tolerated.

“The party must remember that if it fails to live up to expectations after raising the hopes of the people, it would, in one way or the other, pay dearly for it even if it feels Nigerians won’t be ready to give the PDP another chance at the federal level so soon in 2019 when the next Presidential elections hold.” Those were words I wrote on this column on November 13, 2015 in an article titled “Can the Change Nigerians expect now begin?”

Despite the government’s seeming good intentions, Nigerians expected far more from them than they’ve seen so far. This is the truth. They are now getting sceptical. This also is a fact. But mainly because of President Muhammadu Buhari’s perceived integrity, incorruptibility and sincere desire to change the country for the better, they are giving the APC the benefit of doubt. Will the honeymoon last forever? I doubt.

I’m no pessimist, but I sincerely feel the APC government hasn’t done enough in the seven months it has been in power at the national level or it appears to be overwhelmed by the challenges confronting the country or just feels it has all the time in the world to make a difference.

But again, no patriotic Nigerian wants the APC government of Buhari to fail. It’s costly. We just can’t afford it as a country. This would certainly be injurious to our national interest, our national progress. And that’s why the party and government must get their acts together as quickly as possible this year. We’ve cried and lamented enough. It’s time to make meaningful progress as a country, and there’s no time to waste.

Now, while no one would doubt the government’s intentions in fighting corruption to a standstill with the direction it has taken till date, and this is very highly commendable, yet, it’s certainly not all there is to governance or what Nigerians expect. Moreover, the fight against corruption must not even come across as being selective and restricted to former officials that served in the previous PDP government alone.

Yes, there have been series of revelations about how the PDP campaigns for the 2015 elections were funded through what is aptly now called Armsgate or what others call Dasukigate. Nigerians are happy at the revelations although terribly sad by the unrestrained manner in which our collective resources were allegedly looted, misused and diverted to private accounts.

However, how about that the APC? How did the party fund its own Presidential campaign? Shouldn’t Nigerians be told how much the party spent and how these funds were raised? Shouldn’t the APC come out clean on this and take the moral high ground if it has nothing to hide or fear? Or he who comes to equity is no longer required to come with clean hands?

Unfortunately, the APC leadership and President Buhari have left this issue unaddressed as if it doesn’t matter. Yet, it does. For our country. For our democracy. For our future.

Again, President Buhari had informed Nigerians shortly after he was elected that his ministers would be made to declare their assets before taking and leaving office which is in line with Section 140 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended). Now, months after the ministers have been sworn-in, the President has avoided saying anything about this even though it was part of his campaign promises towards running a transparent government as well as eradicating corruption in the country.

I want to remind him that Nigerians are still waiting for his ministers, not just for their declaration, but for clear explanations with documented and verifiable evidence of their source of money and income over the years.

President Buhari also once said, ‘if we don’t kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria.’ I totally agree with him. It’s a statement no one would argue about. And I also know that every one of us as Nigerians want the government to successfully prosecute those who have looted our commonwealth and jail them, no matter their personalities.

The main issue, however, is that the prosecution must be done in strict adherence to the rule of law. Not in contempt of it. And not in utter disregard of it like the President attempted to justify during his first Presidential media chat last week when he adduced reasons why the Federal government would not readily allow former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd) and leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mr. Nnamdi Kanu, to regain their freedom from detention. This is despite the fact that such position is in violation of the rule of law as the courts had already granted the men bail.

Now, if a President disregards the law, why should citizens obey it?

For me, I believe the government cannot in all honesty say it doesn’t have the security architecture and resources needed to monitor, track, or ensure that Dasuki for instance doesn’t abscond from the country while other high-profile suspects don’t also jump bail. And aren’t there sureties who stand for these suspects who could be arrested by the state if suspects try to evade justice?

When a democratically-elected government chooses to disrespect court pronouncements and the rule of law, it sends a dangerous signal. Dictatorship starts from there. Abuses of human rights, gagging the press, and state-sponsored killings are some of the evils that could follow. Such action is also against the tenets of constitutional democracy and negates the presumption of innocence of an accused person, no matter the offence committed, until proven guilty before a court of law.

With a Vice President who is a Professor of Law, one would have expected that the government would be in the vanguard of respecting court pronouncements no matter how unfavourable they are, before it then goes back to the court to try and get the unfavourable decision vacated or to appeal to a higher court. Disregarding court pronouncements or carrying on as if court decisions are not binding on government is just not it.

Now, while I completely share the sentiments of many Nigerians who strongly feel many public officials who abused their offices and looted in the past were granted bail and the cases later muddled up by their lawyers without any convictions and the Dasuki case must not be allowed to go the same way but used as a special example to show the seriousness of Buhari’s fight against corruption, the reality is that in a democratic set-up like ours, we haven’t yet put up another alternative to the rule of law, unless, of course, we want to resort to jungle justice.

Although the Presidency later came out to clarify the statements made by Buhari, the President’s disclosure during the media chat clearly showed his frame of mind on the matter. True, the President’s righteous indignation against corruption deserves great commendation even as Nigerians have been praying for such type of a leader for many years; however, they still want the fight against corruption to be done without disrespect to the rule of law.

Although the APC has till 2019 to finish its first term, I believe this is the year the true identity of the party would be unravelled. Nigerians will know whether the party is the messiah our country has been waiting for, or we are to keep waiting for another to come rescue us from the mess we are in.

“I want to give a firm assurance that all promises made by the party in respect of the 2015 elections to Nigerians will be kept. The New Year holds great dividends for Nigerians when the policies of the Buhari administration are enforced full blast in the financial year,” the National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, had said in his New Year Message to Nigerians.

Nigerians will certainly be holding Odigie-Oyegun and the party to their words trusting that this time, there won’t be denials like some of the party’s top officials and spokesmen had tried to do in the past. And they are looking forward to a positive turn around in their fortunes with the N6.08 trillion ‘Budget of Change’ for this year presented by the President to the National Assembly.

This year, Nigerians want to experience the change that was promised them in very tangible ways. They want to see it. They want to feel it. They want to touch it. They want to live it. Anything else from that, the party would be doing itself in.

Like Nehemiah charged his people to put their hands to the task and rebuild the broken walls of Jerusalem, I believe this New Year offers us another great opportunity to rebuild Nigeria.  Our country needs a total makeover for the better and Nigerians are counting on the APC to get this done. Now, whether the APC-controlled government of President Buhari will rise to the occasion and justify the confidence reposed in it is another matter entirely. But for me, the government’s performance this year will determine whether the APC will be made or marred.