Buhari administration worse than military govt – says Ortom
Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, on Monday, again described the present regime led by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), as worse than a military government.
Ortom who spoke to journalists in Makurdi after his return from Abuja said that the nation had not been so divided as it is under the present regime, stressing that the worst military goverment is better than it.
He, however, said that the success of the Peoples Democratic Party convention last Saturday has rekindled the hope of Nigerians and assured them that the party is poised to take over power.
“We (PDP) are determined to take over leadership of this country, come 2023 because of the failure of APC led government. They are being deceitful and not being able to secure our land. They have rather succeeded in destroying our economy, our security, our social life and everything you can think of in this country.
“I have been privileged to read the history of Nigeria and that of those who have been destroying us including the military. Usually, we say that the worst democratic government is better than the military government.
“That is what we used to say, but for the purpose of APC-led government, I want to say that the worst military government we have had in Nigeria is better than this particular government led by APC.
“I have never seen anything like this; people who don’t want you to tell them the truth or advise them, try to twist things and tell the world that you are against them,” he said.
The governor, however, admonished Nigerians to join hands with the opposition PDP to be able to rescue the country.
“We urge Nigerians to team up with us (PDP) to dismantle this current APC government that has a record of the worst corruption in our nation. They have destroyed everything,” Ortom said.
Ortom alleged that the farm settlement been canvassed by the present regime was aimed at populating the nation with foreign Fulani, adding that Benue would continue to be opposed to the federal government’s gimmick at taking over Benue land.
“There is another trick again that the presidency is trying to bring. Before they came with a water bill aimed to annex our river, but I opposed it. Now they are talking of farm settlement so that they can bring Fulani from Niger, Sierra Leone, Mali Chad and Mauritania, terrorist Fulani to take over our land. I’m saying capital no, it will not work.
“I don’t have problem with our indigenous Fulani who have been cohabiting with us but for those terrorist Fulani, it will not work,” Ortom fumed.
[11/2, 03:44] Freeman: Flashz/Food For Thought
WHAT DOES PDP TAKE NIGERIANS FOR: A COLONY OF LOONIES? Femi Orebe
Amazing loads and loads of stolen public funds in various currencies are being recovered and returned to government coffers. Thanks to the whistle-blower initiative, more and more disclosures about the hidden loots are being made to the relevant agencies. And unlike what obtained in the past, the big guns of the society, hitherto untouchables, are regularly being hauled to the law courts on account of fraudulent activities Godwin Onyeacholem.
THE Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word loony as crazy, foolish and I think that is precisely what the PDP mandarins think of Nigerians seeing they have neither stopped their jollification nor the backslapping since the Supreme Court, not unexpectedly, ruled in favour of Senator Markafi group of the party. We saw this child-like display again this past week as they gathered to inaugurate the Special Non-Elective National Convention Committee. While its Chairman, Delta state governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, was civil and moderate, declaring that the party has NOW embraced good governance anchored on ACCOUNTABILITY (God be praised), not so the perennially loquacious Femi Fani Kayode who contumaciously declared PDP winner of an election not due until 2019 as if it is big grammar that wins election and change the change is a Deus ex machina.
Given the way they so recklessly raped the country, Nigerians know, without being told, that PDP thinks nothing of them, their welfare or their future. We could all go jump in the Atlantic Ocean. They know we have very short memory; a people they have so pauperized we are only waiting for handouts, at polling centres to vote them. And they can be quite generous at that point, offering us a princely N2-5000 for our vote. Not that they were ever voted in by Nigerians having, election after election, successfully deployed the selectorate, in a manner so callous, former President YarAdua had to personally disavow of the election that saw him to office. They are sure we have all forgotten what hole they dug this country into, so deep, recession was the outcome. But there have not been a letdown on the man whose unhappy responsibility it has been to dig the country out of that hole. They even once claimed that he was dead, simply because, like any other human being, the man, 74 year old President Muhammadu Buhari, fell sick. Having stockpiled tones and tones of money, they assume we could forget their 16-year stranglehold on the country, complete with all its dire consequences.
Granted that all manner of accusations had been leveled at the APC government which, truth be told, has not been stellar in its overall performance, and conceding, but not agreeing with the sometime, banal accusations, do they in their heart of hearts, really believe that even a Buhari outright failure would compare with their indescribable villainy of a decade and a half?
Let us recap PDPs archetypical critique of President Buharis government. Their cheer leaders, being mostly disrespectful, I would rather just take one example from the loudest PDP megaphone, a pastor to boot, to represent them all. That way, we will also save time and space. Writing on the first year anniversary of the Buhari government, the iconoclastic Femi Aribisala wrote: Now it is not just 100 wasted days, it is 365. It is one full year and there is no difference, except that things have gone terribly wrong. I repeat: Nigerians have never had it so bad. No light, no petrol, no economic policy, no government. Just vain platitudes. I must thank him for these crisp categorizations because they make any job of analyzing PDPs years of the locust very easy except that I would be adding those things he was probably too ashamed to include, given their extremely poor performance on the two, namely anti-corruption and road infrastructure.
Long, before Buhari becamse President, PDP has to ruined Nigeria that John Campbell, a former US Ambassador to Nigeria could not help writing as follows: Nigeria, onetime giant of Africa, rich in both human and natural resources, has in the past decades or so, descended into praetorian ism control of society by force or fraud, especially by a venal and corrupt people citing, as its components: endemic corruption, maladministration, election malpractices. That was after he had pungently observed that: In 1960, when the British abruptly brought Nigeria to independence, its social and economic development was comparable to that of Taiwan or Malaysia. Now following generations of bad governance and an economy distorted by oil, Nigeria is near the bottom of most human development indices with sixty-nine percent of the population living on less than$1 a day. So I only laugh at them when, in their jeremiads, they write as if a patriot of President Buharis standing, a full general or the Nigerian army and former Head of state, it was who brought Nigeria to its lowest ebb whereas, as that U.K Judge described one of these predators, Nigerians have been dealing all these while with rogues in state houses and in other high places.
All those things cited by Campbell must be hung squarely on the PDP. When Aribisala criticised Buhari on power, he merely feigned ignorance of the fact that it was PDP that turned electricity into a huge sinking hole. In a report this past week by SERAP, PDP under Presidents Obasanjo, YarAdua and Jonathan allegedly squandered over N11 trillion on the pretence of providing regular electricity for Nigerians. If in 15 years this debauched party generated less than 4000 megawatts, what magic did they expect Buhari to perform in two? The result was that with their multi-faceted corruption in that sector, they crippled both industrializations, thereby worsening the unemployment problem in Nigeria. Whereas, in their entire 15 years in power, we were importing petrol despite Nigeria being an oil producing country, simply owing to their corruption as exemplified by the trillion naira oil subsidy scam in which two of the sons of the former party chairmen were implicated. It is worthy of mention that Buharis first challenge in office arose over a backlog of unpaid debts running into several billions. On road infrastructure, I could not but pity my compatriots from both the South-east and South South who continue to remain loyal to the party even with hardly anything to show for it. The East-West Road remained a chimera throughout the Jonathan years, just as he did nothing about the Second Niger bridge. I was completely speechless, this past week, watching commuters on the Calabar-Odukpani Road on television. Need we be telling these people who should have fixed those roads, 4 or 5 years ago?
Also, the fact that the IMF has confirmed that Nigeria would, before year end, transit into positive growth, out of an economy the PDP stole into recession, is proof positive that the Buhari administration has a viable economic policy and roadmap as was also confirmed by the dramatic improvement of the naira in the forex market. For a certainty had President Jonathan re-elected, Nigeria would have since gone under. His government was already borrowing in billions to pay salaries even before the Presidential election which Diezani allegedly shelled out millions of dollars to rig. Between 1999 and 2011, PDP rigged elections so badly each election was worse than its predecessor. On corruption, rather than dwell on the likes of Dasukigate which turned the Boko Haram menace into an incubus over which President Buhari is now spending billions upon billions of naira, my approach will again be to just take one single example. And that will be President Jonathans Petroleum minister, who we read in the papers recently stole enough to have built six world class airports. And she obviously could not have been stealing for herself alone. It will make me giddy detailing the things she allegedly bought with stolen funds but concerning her, I would advise Nigerians to watch out for the about to be released drama from the U.K. If after all the above Nigerians, in their collective un-wisdom, still choose to elect a PDP President come 2019, I would simply conclude that, of a fact, Nigerians are worse than loonies.
God forbid.
Source: The Nation on Sunday, August 13, 2017, page 20.