Foreign reserves rise, but standard of living falls

The fitness of the future president of Nigeria has nothing to do with trekking, covering 800 metres because that cannot solve any problem for the common man in the 21st century. It is not going to put food on the table of the common man. And it is also not going to get back to school, several millions of our children—who are daily hawking to stay alive. The president of Rwanda isn’t trekking for hours, yet he is truly changing his country and the lives of his people.

The fitness of a contemporary president has nothing to do with political attention-grabbing and publicity stunt of 800 metres trek because that’s not what presidents of first world countries do. Buhari does not need to trek for 10 hours to prove to the whole world that he is physically, emotionally and intellectually fit to lead the nation of Nigeria out of the woods.

Over the years, I have come to learn to believe the opposite of what politicians say. When they greet me, good morning, I do know its evening time. The stock in trade of professional politicians is falsehood and mendacity. When they said PMB is fit to govern for another four years, it means that the man is not fit at all to paddle the canoe of Nigeria for another four years. The question is; can he govern for the next four years without visiting (as usual) our true Federal Capital Territory, London?

Any president who is not fully in charge of the affairs of Nigeria is not truly fit to lead our people. Any president, who does not put national interests above sectional interests, is not fit to lead us as a people. Any president who does not respect our people, addressing them monthly and each time there is a national crisis is not fit to lead us as a people. Any president, who does not respect courts of competent jurisdiction, is not fit to lead us beyond where we are. And any president who is not accountable to those who put him in power is not fit to lead us beyond here.

A few years back, Mr. President did pride himself on that under his watch—that foreign reserves have grown to 47.5billion naira in 3 years! He went ahead to blow his own horn that his economic policies have moved Nigeria forward. Forward? Also, he stated that the nation’s economy has remained in a growth arc and trail—despite experiencing the worst recession in a quarter of a century, but what he deliberately botched to tell the whole world is the unpleasant standard of living of Nigerians under his watch. I thought it was bad when GEJ was in power, now, I do know better.

It is only in our clime that foreign reserves would grow while the common man groans as Israelites did whimper under the weight of slavery in Egypt. Also, it is only here that Nigeria moves forward while Nigerians drown in the ocean of economic hardship. In recent times, the rate at which people are begging for money and food is mind-blowing. The only place where the economy is strong is on paper. Remember, it was also strong only on paper when GEJ was in power. Till now, the fad has remained the same and it is so sad.

One of the former lawmakers of the APC said that in three years that the APC has borrowed N11 trillion! Also, in 2016 alone, it was announced that the administration of Mr. President recovered N3.4 trillion looted fund. Between 2016 and 2018, we are yet to be told how much they have raked in. What remains a mystery till now is how an administration can be recovering so much money and still be borrowing as if there is no tomorrow.

Till now, our refineries are still gasping for a mouthful of air, PMB promised to quickly fix all of them before he was empowered to lead us as a people, though. We are still importing PMS as we were doing during the dark days of GEJ. The current administration said that it was wrong for the administration of GEJ to be paying subsidy but since they relocated to the FCT from their varied villages, they have been paying subsidy too, using a different nomenclature. They promised to bring ‘light,’ but it is clear as water that what they too have got to offer is ‘darkness.’

The current administration promised to fix our electric power-supply in a few months, but till now, we are still overpoweringly romancing darkness, power-outage. The man in charge of power even said that any serious government should be able to fix our electric power-supply in six months, so labelling the administration of PMB an unserious one—is not out of order. I have only called it what Babatunde Raji Fashola called it! And those who are disturbing our national space, wanting to govern Nigeria in 2019 are yet to tell us how they are going to solve all our national problems differently.

Lastly, the younger ones want the older ones out of power, not because they want to selflessly serve the common man, but because they too want to use power to serve themselves as we have been having since the birth of Nigeria. As far as I am concerned, the African man does not know the true purpose of power.