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| President Muhammadu Buhari |
The list of
Buhari's second batch of technocrats has finally been made public and Nigerians like myself are left feeling sorry for being a Nigerian under the leadership of president Mohammadu Buhari.
The very moment the news broke and Nigerians finally get to know who made the cut into Buhari's kitchen cabinet,
mixed feelings ensued from both side of the divide with many feeling at a loss, as they wonder how Buhari will solve Nigeria's many problems, if he can't get a basic thing like assembling a credible team of so called technocrats, right.
But what exactly has Buhari ever gotten right in his two spell as a military and a democratically elected president? It's all there in history books and in the public domain that both of Buhari's times as president in 1983 and 2015, have a lot in common. If facts do lie, then Buhari can be exonerated. However, since his own very base are having issues with his handling of critical issues in the country, one need not look farther to realize that the president has lost it from the very moment he saw himself as the most righteous Nigerian to ever live.
Buhari had to keep Nigerians waiting for months leaving the country on autopilot as he searches for technocrats who must not be smarter than himself. He wouldn't want a Jonathan type scenario to repeat itself if his self acclaimed integrity must remain intact.
The former president was accused by the then opposition party APC, of being outsmarted by his cabinet of intellectuals who took him for a spin, and loot the nation dry. Jonathan is however, believed to be the first Nigerian president in history to appoint a highly qualified, educated and renowned hands into his cabinet.
The ex-president who had been in politics for years and served at different capacities even as a governor of Bayelsa State, was highly determined to make Nigeria work, and had to employ the services of some of the best available hands in and outside the country. It must be noted that Jonathan himself, makes the list of highly educated presidents to ever rule Nigeria. This then begs the question of what it actually takes to outsmart one of Nigeria's most educated and intelligent president.
But Buhari sees things a bit differently. He neither believes in Nigerian youths whom he called 'lazy', nor does he believes in intellectuals out of fear of being 'outsmarted' like his predecessor. This mentality by the president obviously played a major role in is 2015 ministerial appointments. And by that, I actually mean the assembling of dullards who cannot outsmart a president whose WAEC certificate remains a contentious issue.
The president did got the technocrats he spent over five months searching for, but the results alter four years were unsurprising. Buhari and his team performed much like the popular saying which says 'one cannot give what he does not have no matter how he tries.'
When the minister of power is renamed by Nigerians as minster of darkness, an economy still in crisis despite an economic team, insecurity on a whole new level despite service chiefs and almost weekly security meetings, add unemployment and job losses to the mix among other things, and you without a doubt, will rate the president's first term in office as a colossal failure in every possible way. The fact that the president had to put a blame somewhere else saying he never actually knew most of the Ministers he worked with in the past four years, sums things up.
Now that the president’s 'next level' cabinet has been revealed, one cannot help but weep that the next four years of the current administration will be another circus. Are we looking at another four years of pains and wailing, or will there be a turn of events that'll save the nation from its downward trajectory? Your guess is as good as mine.
This article is an opinion piece by Kassai Adams, an author at National Pivot. Details on opinionated articles are available on our Disclaimer page.
