President Buhari is stranded, By Israel Ojoko
By now, President Muhammadu Buhari would have realised he doesn’t have a loyal friend among those in his cabinet.
He doesn’t have a ride or die pally, or maybe their loyalty has a time limit. No one to stand with him till the very end of time.
It should have been crystal clear to him now that all those he surrounds himself with are just there to benefit while the opportunity lasts. At this time, Buhari would need no prophet to tell him that one by one, they are leaving him, turning their backs, and now pursuing personal interests.
Buhari must be biting his fingers in the cuisine apartments inside the Aso Rock Villa, wishing he had true cabinet members who will ride with him till the night falls, not those who will abandon him at the tail end for selfish reasons.
Right from his deputy, the one he handed over power to while on a medical leave abroad, to his Attorney-General of the Federation, they are all leaving one after the other.
It reminds me of a football match, like the UEFA Champions League second leg semi-final between Real Madrid and Manchester City.
When the game was 1-0 in favour of City and 5-3 on aggregate at the 80th minute, home fans at the Santiago Bernabeu started leaving the stadium. A few minutes to the final whistle, Real Madrid turned things around and those fans were not allowed back to the stadium that night. They lost faith in their team in the dying minutes.
Buhari is in the final lap of an eight-year journey, and even his own cabinet members have given up on him, turning their backs and leaving the field of play.
They don’t believe that anything good can come out of his administration anymore, and that is why they are now campaigning against the backdrop of his failures. Yes, they know his weaknesses, his failures, his shortcomings, his mistakes, and his regrets, and that is what they are using to convince the public for votes.
When was the last National Economic Council meeting chaired by Vice president Yemi Osinbajo held? NEC has all 36 state governors, AGF, and the CBN governor among others as members and is scheduled to meet every month.
But from my findings, the last time the NEC meeting was held was in January 2022. For three months now, they have not sat to discuss the economy of the country, and nobody has advised the president economically.
The NEC is constitutionally empowered to advise the President on the nation’s economic matters. But in a case where the Vice president, CBN governor, AGF, and many governors are jostling for election and re-election, the growth of the economy has been put aside, and is bound to nosedive.
One year is a long time for a collapsed economy to rise again if the right persons are in the right positions, with full concentration on their job, but what do we have here?
The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria has left the catering of the economy for partisan politics.
As far as Godwin Emefiele is concerned right now, the country’s economic problem is not his problem. He is more busy holding political meetings, hosting many campaign groups, and doing anything else that will see him achieve his political goal.
Abubakar Malami is less concerned about the justice system of Nigeria at the moment. He has a more pressing business to take care of in Kebbi State where he is aiming to become the next governor. Be it Sunday Igboho, Nnamdi Kanu, or Abba Kyari, they are all left to their fate.
In his capacity as the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister for Justice, Malami has the power of prosecuting all manner of criminals, including terrorists, separatists, bandits, national and international wire fraudsters, kidnappers, treasury looters, drug runners, and money launderers, but in a situation where he can barely give an account of the exotic vehicles his foundation distributed to lure votes, who will prosecute the prosecutor?
I even saw a video where Malami, speaking in hausa language, was talking about the expensive cars he shared. I do not understand the language, but his body posture shows one who was boasting while speaking with a group of supporters who were cheering every word of their principal.
So far, the APC has raked over three billion naira from sales of presidential forms alone. One will wonder that these people have such money and yet they cannot put heads together to resolve the Academic Staff Union of Universities crisis.
Minister of the Niger-Delta Godswill Akpabio has also joined the bandwagon to declare his intention to run for the office of the President.
The office of the president has now been reduced to a thing that every Dick and Harry can occupy. Adams Oshiomhole, Ibikunle Amosun, Kayode Fayemi, Aminu Tambuwal, everybody, as long as you can afford a hundred million naira. Buying a presidential form is now a show-off where one is trying to outshine the other.
More than 80% of the questions Buhari is being asked today are about APC, his preferred presidential candidate, 2023 elections, and life after retirement.
Nobody is asking questions about the security of lives and properties, nobody is talking about the economy, and nobody cares about education or health or inflation of food prices. If you ain’t talking about the election, you ain’t talking nothing.
The man has been left out of his own government, how terrible. He was out of Twitter for 11 months, even after the lifting of a ban on the microblogging site, it still took him several months to address Nigerians through the platform, which he did last week.
The man doesn’t even know or have anything to tweet again, he is gradually being made redundant in office despite still having a whole year to go.
Buhari is stranded, he doesn’t even have an idea of what is going on in the country. The Federal Government does not even know why the Academic Staff Union of Universities has been on strike for the past two and half months. Nobody is briefing the president on anything, it is really an early and forceful retirement for him.
Buhari has now realised that all that is left for him is his ‘kaya’ which he brought with him to Aso Rock in 2015, his wife Aisha, and his children.
And very soon, within a flash of light, they will be heading to Daura or Kaduna, whichever is the best choice for him. Buhari will now begin a journey of a lonely life where all these ministers will not be answerable to him again, the military, EFCC, ICPC, and Police, will no more be at his beck and call.
Israel is a Nigerian journalist and can be reached via israelojoko14@gmail.com
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