Posted on: 08:38 Sat, 27 Feb 2016



Incumbent President Buhari has
barely been in office a year and
already the hawks have got their
knives out for him.

He can’t govern the country. He’s
always flying abroad on state visits.

The price of oil has plummeted, the
Naira is freefalling in value by the
minute and everything cost more
than it did last year.

And it’s all his fault….
The opposition is having a field day
mocking his mediocre
achievements citing he’s more
interested in chasing corrupt
politicians than actually running
the country.

It always easy to criticize. Running
a country like Nigeria, is not an
easy task; there three major tribes
and thousands of sub-tribes.

There’s the Muslim North and the
Christian South. There’s problems
with Islamic militants in the North
and eco-terrorists in the Delta
states and that’s not counting a
thousand and one more problems
too numerous to mention.

And the responsibility of keeping
everybody and everything happy
and working in perfect
synchronisation lies on the
shoulders of one man. And for this
man to be able to discharge his
duties as the President of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria,
effectively, he needs just one thing
– MONEY!

As we all know money makes the
world go round and the lack of it
means that nothing gets done- you
can’t pay workers, can’t
commission new projects or
overhaul existing ones, debts pile
up and the domino effect carries
on down to the poor man on the
street who suddenly can no longer
afford to buy a loaf of bread.

The Buhari administration,
unfortunately, inherited a country
on the brink of bankruptcy, its
coffers openly looted and emptied
by the preceding administration.
To make matters worse anticipated
income from oil sales has dropped
due to a glut on the world market.

So you’re the President with a large
country to run, a budget to
implement, wages to pay, people to
feed and defend, capital projects
that need to be built, structural
infrastructure that needs to be
overhauled and upgraded and you
have no money in your central
bank to do anything, what do you
do?
You can hardly go the way of
Zimbabwe getting your central
bank to print more and more
currency until it becomes as
worthless as toilet paper, leading to
hyper-inflation. You have to find
real raw cash that has value.
Crooked Nigerian politicians, in the
past, have stolen billions and
billions of Naira of public funds.

For those who think the Presidents
anti-corruption drive is a
throwback to when he was a
military dictator out on a witch
hunt should think again. Lai
Mohammed recently said that 55
Nigerians stole over N1.34 Trillion
Naira in 8 years of public funds-
now that’s a lot of MONEY!

Now some money is better than no
money so if his current ant-
corruption drive can claw some of
it back it’s a start – half of the
amount stolen can pay all current
civil servant salary arrears in the
country! So every effort should be
made to bring all corrupt
politicians to justice.

There are also others who want to
paint the President as a modern
day ‘Ajala-travelled-all-over-the-
world’ for his frequent trips abroad
which are deemed wasteful and
useless.

For those who are not aware of the
Presidents job description, one of
the things he’s required to do is
travel abroad frequently to bolster
the country’s image whilst at the
same time building new economic
and political ties with other
nations. So for all those who don’t
understand he’s not actually busy
accumulating Airmiles!
Change doesn’t happen overnight,
as most Nigerians would dearly
love to happen. It takes time and
considering the state of the nation
left by the preceding government it
will take years to get the country
back up again.

To get the country back on its feet
again will take an incorruptible
leader with an unblemished record
and the nerves and decisiveness of
a military commander: Buhari has
both.

Clearing up corruption is not easy
and can only be done by a
President who’s not corrupt
himself. Making tough decisions
that will not endear him to the
populace requires someone with a
strong disciplined mind. And that
strong disciplined mind is what is
also required to deal with wayward
politicians and hanger-ons.

To clear up the mess left by the
previous administration will take
years. Without any doubt there will
be a rise in inflation, poverty,
unemployment and other things.
It’s all, unfortunately, part of the
clearing up process.

For impatient Nigerians who are
looking for someone to blame for
their current woes look no further
than those who got us into this mess
in the first place, not the person
who just got the barely nine months
ago.

So leave the man alone and let him
carry on with the good job he’s
already doing, unless, of course,
you want to see the return of ex-
President Godluck(- the’ ineffectual
buffoon’ as the Economist recently
referred to him) and his out-of-
control looting mob who plunged
the country into this mess in the
first place.

Written By:- Tony Ogunlowo