Politics

Presidential race 2019: Buhari faces increasing battle from within

Published

7 years ago

January 23, 2018

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President Muhammadu Buhari is certainly going through a tough time at the moment in the preparations to the 2019 presidential election. His endorsement for second term by governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has continued to provoke impetuous counter reactions of rejections of the second term project.

Earlier, the Arewa Youth had expressed their rejection of President Buhari for second term.

They had argued that such intention shows the insensitiveness of the president and APC leaders to the plight of Nigerians under the APC government.

Subsequently, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Right Honourable Ghali Umar Na’Abba, who is also a member of the APC Board of Trustees (BoT), has stated that Buhari has failed to add value to democracy in Nigeria and should be shown the way out of office in 2019.

Na’Abba had contended: “President Buhari hasn’t got the capacity physically and intellectually to govern Nigeria; this is my honest opinion.”

The former Speaker had stated: “I had the opportunity of sitting with the President and telling him that this is what is wrong but he told me that things were wrong before but with his election, everything is right now. That was what he told me and I was very disappointed.”

Na’Abba had further declared: “I decided to move back to the APC from the PDP to support him because from his utterances, I believed he wanted to add value to democracy and this is three years into his administration and he doesn’t work with the party, he regards party members as evil, he doesn’t work with anybody, he doesn’t consult with anybody in the party.

“I am a member of the Board of Trustees of the party, even though we don’t have it officially. We had a meeting of such a board or whatever you call it in February 2016.

“That meeting was only called again in November 2017 when he decided that he wanted to get re-elected and he needs us. He promised to reconstitute boards.

“He had earlier refused to do that because he believed politicians were responsible for all the evil in this country and he also promised to increase the number of ministers.”

“In a nutshell, the President has not added value to democracy by an inch.”

However, the presidency, in a statement on Monday, by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, told Na’abba to study the achievements of President Buhari in the past three years to guide him to change his negative opinions.

The listed achievements of President Buhari which only exist in the psyche of those in the corridors of power, being rolled out by the SSA include the following:

1. “Nigeria exited its worst recession in decades. After five quarters of negative growth, the economy bounced back into positive territory.

2. “Agriculture was one of the stars of 2017, posting consistent growth levels even throughout the recession.

3. “Inflation fell for 10 consecutive months during 2017 (February to November).

4. “The Naira stabilised against the dollar, after the Central Bank introduced a new Forex window for Investors and Exporters. The stability has attracted billions of dollars in portfolio investments since April 2017.

5. “On the back of a stable Naira and increased investment inflows, Nigeria’s stock market emerged one of the best-performing in the world, delivering returns in excess of 40 per cent.

6. “Nigeria saw bumper food harvests, especially in rice, whose local production continues to rise significantly (states like Ebonyi, Kebbi, Kano leading the pack, with Ogun joining at the end of 2017). The price of a 50kg bag of rice – a staple in the country – has fallen by about 50 per cent as local production has gone up.

7. “The Federal Government launched a N701 billion Intervention Fund (‘Payment Assurance Programme’) aimed at supporting power generation companies to meet their payment obligations to gas and equipment suppliers, banks and other partners. The impact is being felt, the amount of power being distributed is now currently steady at around

4,000MW and generation now put at 7,000 MW, higher than ever recorded.

8. “The Federal Government began paying pensions to police officers who were granted Presidential pardon in 2000 after serving in the former Biafran Police during the Nigerian Civil War. These officers, and their next of kin, have waited for their pensions for 17 years since the Presidential pardon.

9. “Nigeria rose 24 places on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings, and earned a place on the List of Top 10 Reformers in the world.

10.“Nigeria’s foreign exchange reserves grew $40 billion, reaching the highest level since 2014. Nigeria also added, this year, an additional $250 millio to its Sovereign Wealth Fund. Also, Nigeria’s trade balance crossed over into surplus territory, from a deficit in 2016.

11. “Nigeria has successfully issued two Eurobonds (US$4.5bn), a Sukuk Bond (100 billion Naira), a Diaspora Bond (US$300m), and the first Sovereign Climate Bond in Africa, raising billions of dollars for infrastructure spending.

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12. FG has launched a Tax Amnesty scheme expected to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenues when it closes in March 2018.

13. Successfully commenced implementation of a Whistle blowing Programme that had so far seen recoveries of tens of millions of dollars.

14. Launched a Social Investment Programme across dozens of states through which 5.2 million primary school children in 28,249 schools in 19 states are being fed daily. 200,000 unemployed graduates had enlisted into the N-power Job Scheme, and a quarter of a million loans already distributed to artisans, traders, and farmers.

15. “The number of Nigerians facing food insecurity in the northeast dropped by half, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

16. “The Nigeria Customs Service recorded its highest-ever revenue collection, crossing the One Trillion Naira (N1,000,000,000) mark. (The target for 2017 was 770 billion Naira (N770,573,730,490); 2016 Collection was just under 900 billion (N898,673,857,431.07).

17.“The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), under the new management appointed by President Buhari in 2016, remitted N7.8 billion to the coffers of the federal government. The total amount remitted by JAMB between 2010 and 2016 was N51 million.

18.“2017 was also the Year of Nigeria’s Agriculture Revolution, embodied by the successes of the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative (PFI) and the Anchor Borrowers Programme. More than a dozen moribund fertiliser blending plants were revived under the PFI this year.

19. “Even a beetle-eyed critic cannot pretend not to notice the tremendous progress in the area of security. Boko Haram terrorists have been so militarily crippled that they no longer have the capability to take and occupy any Nigerian territory as was the case under the former PDP administration.

20. Buhari has demonstrated extraordinary courage by going after former military chiefs for their involvement in corruption. “If the President could go after fellow soldiers, what more evidence do we need to prove that the President is bold and sincere in fighting corruption?’’

Meanwhile, the statement by former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Tuesday declaring that Buhari has failed and should forget re-election in 2019, reinforces the internal battles from the external environment.