The Memo
Nigerians troll Buhari’s campaign group over ‘invisible achievements’
Members of President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election campaign have sent letters to Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government requesting for them to source any achievements of the Nigeria’s president since 2015.
Their idea is to use the ‘achievements’ in Buhari’s re-election campaign.
But instead of eliciting support from Nigerians, it has elicited angst and mocking. Nigerians said Buhari’s Campaign Organisation was searching for ‘invisible achievements’
The Group sent a letter to the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, asking for articulation of Mr. President’s achievements in your Ministry for the last three years”.
PDP Youth Frontier on twitter said: “Searching for an invisible, Buhari Campaign Organization is desperately looking for Buhari’s achievements in all sectors”.
A Facebook user said the campaign group should not been searching for achievements since achievements are obvious and would not be hidden.
“If Muhammadu Buhari has achieved anything since 2015, it will not be hidden. It will be noticeable for everyone to see. Let them keep searching for what is not available”
Buhari has announced his intention to seek re-election in 2019, throwing his hat in the rings. Buhari’s aide on Media and Publicity Femi Adeshina even asked other contenders “to run away now Buhari has declared”.
But Buhari has many challengers outside the ruling party. Although Nigeria has registered more than 60 political parties, the battle is going to be among the ruling APC, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and a third force, which has collapsed into the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
Major power brokers in the country like former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, Goodluck Jonathan and former military chief, T.Y Danjuma had, at many occasions showed disapproval for Buhari’s second coming.
More scathing criticisms are coming from the youth who supported Buhari in 2015.
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Buhari is being criticized over his lack of wits on the economy and his alleged religious and ethnic bias. Obasanjo, in his letter, said Buhari, apart from being bereft of the necessary ideas that could move the country out its current doldrums, has been unduly “nepotic” in his appointments.
“But there are three other areas where President Buhari has come out more glaringly than most of us thought we knew about him,” continued Obasanjo. “One is nepotic deployment bordering on clannishness and inability to bring discipline to bear on errant members of his nepotic court. This has grave consequences on performance of his government to the detriment of the nation.
“It would appear that national interest was being sacrificed on the altar of nepotic interest. What does one make of a case like that of (Abdulrasheed) Maina: collusion, condonation, ineptitude, incompetence, dereliction of responsibility or kinship and friendship on the part of those who should have taken visible and deterrent disciplinary action? How many similar cases are buried, ignored or covered up, and not yet in the glare of the media and the public?
“The second is his poor understanding of the dynamics of internal politics. This has led to, wittingly or unwittingly, making the nation more divided, and inequality has widened and become more pronounced. It also has effect on general national security.
“The third is passing the buck. For instance, blaming the governor of the Central Bank for devaluation of the naira by 70% or so and blaming past governments for it, is to say the least, not accepting one’s own responsibility. Let nobody deceive us; economy feeds on politics and because our politics is depressing, our economy is even more depressing today. If things were good, President Buhari would not need to come in. He was voted to fix things that were bad and not engage in the blame game”, Obasanjo said in his missive.