The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, 2nd Republic lawmaker, Mr. Junaid Mohammed among others have criticised President Muhammadu Buhari’s June 12 Democracy Day speech in which he outlined some of the achievements of his administration
The president had, in the broadcast, reeled out some achievements of his five-year-old administration including growing the GDP from 1.91 per cent in 2018 to 2.27 per cent in 2019, deployment of 5, 000 agro-rangers and employment of 30, 289 para-military agencies, integrating rural communities to the formal economy by extending access to credit and inputs to rural farmers and building feeder roads, increasing revenue of non-oil exports like cocoa and sesame seed by $79.4 million and $153 million respectively.
He also talked about the government’s feat in establishing additional six federal science and technical colleges and “currently executing a pro-active teacher training plan with all states of the federation”, the delivery of 1, 200 housing units, provision of 570 plots with infrastructure through a public private sector partnership and the issuance of 868 mortgages totalling N7.7 billion, granting N16.2 billion to 19, 210 people under the Home Renovation Loans scheme.
He also talked about the recovery of all the local government areas which were taken over by the Boko Haram Insurgents in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa and the return the “indigenes of these areas who were hitherto forced to seek a living in areas far from their ancestral homes.”
Buhari did not forget to mention among other achievements the Marketmoni and Tradermoni programmes which according to him “have provided affordable loans to small and micro scale enterprises to grow their businesses” as well as the feeding of over 9,963,729 children under the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme.
However, in its reaction, the PDP described the Democracy Day address as “a huge and unpardonable slap on the face of our nation’s democratic process.”
Spokesman for the party, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan said in a statement that the president’s silence on the values of democracy as well as the myriads of violations under his watch vindicated the PDP’s stance and that of majority of Nigerians that “the Buhari administration has no regard for democracy and is not prepared to uphold its tenets in our country.”
“On the day Mr. President himself set aside to celebrate democracy, he had no democratic scorecard to present; thereby directly confirming that he had taken no step to uphold democratic practice in the last five years.
“Our party invites Nigerians to note that Mr. President’s speech had no space for Chief MKO Abiola. This only goes to show that the Buhari Presidency and the All Progressives Congress, APC, have no regard for Chief Abiola and the essence of June 12, but only used their nomenclature to gain selfish political capital.
“It is scandalous that on a day like this, President Buhari had no assurances on electoral reforms and credible election; which is the hallmark of democracy.
“President Buhari’s failure to express any commitments to electoral reform in his 38-minute pre-recorded address shows that his administration has no plans to guarantee credible elections in our country.
“Also, Mr. President had no words of assurance towards respect for our constitution, particularly the principles of separation of powers, federal character, equality, equity, fairness, transparency and respect for the sensibilities of our federal structure.
“Furthermore, President Buhari had no words of commitment on how to tackle the constitutional and human rights violations under his watch, including reported intimidation and brutalization of citizens, disobedience to court orders, arbitrary arrests, illegal detentions, extra-judicial killings as well as hounding of opposition and dissenting voices.
“Rather, Mr. President and his handlers sought to divert attention from their failures and violations associated with this administration by taking the nation on a merry-go-round of recycled false performance claims that are not backed by any empirical or verifiable data.
“By this speech, President Buhari failed to appreciate that the progress of any nation is hinged on credible elections, equity, justice and adherence to rule of law.
“Moreover, Nigerians have been at shock that while bandits were busy killing our compatriots in Katsina, Kaduna, Zamfara, Borno, Kogi and various parts of our nation, even on the eve of his broadcast, President Buhari was claiming that his government had secured the nation.
“It is even more distressing that Mr. President opted to use the COVID-19 pandemic to make excuses for the attack by the bandits even as he had no soothing words or decisive assurances for the victims beyond a cold passing comment lacking in expected human empathy,” said Ologbondiyan.
For its part, Afenifere said the speech was more of a campaign outing because it failed to address the issues confronting the country.
Spokesman for the organisation, Mr. Yinka Odumakin said: “The speech of the President on June 12 is more of a campaign outing. Where he should be giving reports of achievements, it was about declarations of intentions and promises of action.
“If you have failed to address corruption, security and economy in five years, what magic do you want to perform in one year? One year because the last two years would be about the politics of next elections. We do not see any concrete steps on the ground for future success. All we see leads to failure.”
He also said with the various claims made by Buhari in his speech, one would be tempted to believe that the President was not talking about Nigeria.
He said it was wrong for the President to claim that COVID-19 restrictions caused the recent killings when it was in public domain that the governor of his state signed a peace agreement with bandits long before the pandemic.
“Saying that COVID-19 restrictions caused bandits’ attacks was an attempt to change the narrative. We all know that the governor of Katsina State signed an MoU with bandits before COVID-19.
“The President should have used his speech to talk about starting political reforms that will make Nigeria more productive.
“He is still talking about opening bids for marginal oil fields when oil may soon become a commodity they will be giving out free.
“Clearly, his speech was a long one on the road we should not travel but short on the road we should travel,” he added.
For Mohammed, the president’s speech fell short of expectation.
“As far as I am concerned, where a president has been elected and has not been able to fulfill his promises and then, he is rehashing his campaign promises expecting that people will believe him, I think it is an insult to the intelligence of the people of the country. If he (Buhari) said he has delivered on his promises, has he delivered on what he promised on security? As far as I am concerned, he has not.
“Also, he has not been able to deliver as far the economy is concerned. I don’t believe that the country is in a stable situation. I have a saying as a Muslim and this comes directly from Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). He said: ‘If you are shameless, do what you like, say what you want.’
“To me, for a person in such a position to make a statement which was written for him which is not true, is trying to completely diminish the country, diminish the government and diminish whatever it is that we call democracy. “Democracy is not a licence to tell lies to your own people. If you can open your mouth and give a false account to the people, to me, you have contempt for the people you are governing. If a leader has contempt for the people he is governing, then, we are in very serious trouble.
“No matter how prosperous a nation is and no matter how stable it pretends to be, if it does not have political stability, there is no way it can be prosperous or secured. In addition to failing to deliver on the economy, the fact is the APC is the principal source of political instability because it is completely divided against itself. There is nothing like internal democracy and it has become more of a cabal,” he said.
Also commenting on the president’s speech, a senior lawyer, Mr. Mike Ozekhome described said the performance claims as “laughable” and “fundamentally flawed.”
“Well, maybe we are living in different countries. If it’s the same Nigeria, I think his scorecard is fundamentally flawed. The figures and facts don’t add up. On the fight against corruption, the Transparency International in January, 2020, rated Nigeria as number 146 least corrupt nation in the world, out of 180 surveyed, under the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index,” he said.
