Buhari’s First Term Mired By Insecurity, Corruption, Poverty, Nepotism – Mike Ozekhome

President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in for a second term on May 29 after winning his re-election bid. The 2019 Presidential election which was keenly contested with main opposition man Atiku Abubakar has been described by many, including international observers as fraudulent and less credible.

The election results is also before a tribunal for hearing and the outcome of that can still influence the current political situation.

Speaking on Buhari’s first term of 4 years, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mike Ozekhome has described it as, “uneventful, below average, colourless, clueless, vindictive, selective, exclusionary, non nationalistic, non pan- Nigerian, haemorraging economically and highly sectional, cronystic and prebendaslistic.”

In terms of security, he rated his performance to be below par.

“Since whatever gain he would have made in the much trumpeted degradation of Boko Haram — which is merely theoretical as the sect is more deadly today than ever before — it has been replaced with a more potent escalation of Herdsmen insurgency and unrestrained banditry.

“Nigeria has been turned into a gruesome killing field by rampaging gun-weilding bandits of different genre.

“The economy is in tatters and at the lowest ebb. Hunger, squalor, ignorance, despondency, abject penury, corruption, hopelessness and haplessness have been enthroned as fundamental objectives and directive principles of State Policy.

“Never before since the forcible and unnegotiated amalgamation of Southern and Northern Nigeria by Lord on 1st January 1914, has Nigeria witnessed such nightmare of poor governance.The people have been reduced to the “living dead” or ” walking corpses”(courtesy,Ayo Kwei Armah,in his epic,”The Beautiful Ones are not yet born”).

“Rule of Law has been replaced with Rule of might and of the thumb. Fundamental rights of citizens are wantonly breached. Disobedience to valid court orders has become a norm.

“Corruption is on the ascendancy, rising geometrically where it used to be antithetical. Only a tiny cabalistic few have unrestrained access to the national treasury. Yet, when traumatised citizens complain, they are dismissed with a wave of the hand as “wailing wailers”.

“Budgets are padded, even disappear.There is hardly any form of accountability and transparency in governance as the government is run in a most opaque manner, like the nocturnal activities of witches and wizards in a coven,” he said.