Buhari, Governors Elected To Solve Problems And Not To Complain And Lament

Buhari

In 2008 the first black president of the United States, Mr Barack Obama was elected at the most difficult economic time in the recent history of that country.

 The stock market collapsed as Obama was taking over leadership of the country due to insider trading and all manners of corruption; the housing market had collapsed, banks were repossessing homes as home owners can no longer meet up with their mortgage financing; banks were collapsing and going out of business laying out thousands of workers; the auto industry was literally no more in existence as thousands of auto workers and others whose businesses were connected with the industry were put out of business. It was perhaps the worst time to be president of United States. Obama was not complaining over how President Bush had left the mess for him, because he knew from his study of past presidents that presidents are elected to solve problems and not to move to the White House to luxuriate. Anybody who is interested in luxuriating should make money in the private sector and retire in luxury at Bahamas and other holiday havens of the Caribbean.

Obama did not at every opportunity tell Americans that the mess was not his fault but that of Republicans and President Bush. Because Americans already know that, that was why they voted for change. That was why they voted for the first black president who promised to bring change in the White House and Wall Street.

Obama set out to reform the Wall Street, the housing market and bail out distressed banks and auto industries throwing in several billions of dollars of tax payers’ money in the process. Four years later Americans looked at their country's balance sheet and the millions of jobs saved and created by Obama's bail out policy and rewarded him with second term victory in 2012.

Sometimes even the United States President suffers momentary amnesia as to his responsibility as he did recently lamenting over the growing spread of ISIS and other terror groups around the world, for which one of the columnists I admire most in the world, the columnist of Mail Newspaper, United Kingdom, Piers Morgan, reminded him that his job as President is beyond lamentations. His job was not to lament over the spread of terrorism. He was elected to stop the terrorists. Period! Lamentations are for ordinary folks. And ordinary folks don’t stand for elections.

In Nigeria's case President Muhammadu Buhari was also elected at a very difficult time. The rate of unemployment is the highest ever. A country of 170million could not generate up to 5000 megawatt of electricity despite several billions of dollar spent on the power sector; the refineries are not working; and huge amount of scarce foreign exchange are spent on fuel import, while even greater amount are spent on fuel subsidy; universities are glorified secondary schools, while hospitals are 'mere consulting clinics'. There was corruption in all the sectors; foreign reserve depleted, while no one could truly give exact amount of crude oil lifted and sold; several billions of dollars allegedly missing in NNPC, CBN and elsewhere; several states could not pay salaries and on top of that insurgency is ragging in the North East of the country.

We know all these problems that was why Buhari was elected to solve them. If there is no corruption in the past 16years; if everybody willing to work has job; if electricity is supplied 24hours uninterrupted; if industries are producing to their full capacity; if there is pipe borne water in every home; if hospitals have all the equipment they need so much so that there is no health tourist from Nigeria anywhere in the world; if our foreign reserve is untouched; and if there is no Boko Haram, who in his right mind would vote out Nigeria’s first democratically elected minority president who hails from the part of the country where the oil that services the greed of Nigeria’s elites were domiciled by God?

Buhari's lamentations of 'empty treasury' is getting too much. If you met the treasury empty fill it up. That is your job. That is the responsibility of the president in a democracy. The same thing apply to the governors who are complaining about empty treasury, they should fill it up. They should pay workers their salary. They cannot at this late hour claim ignorance of the state of their states' economy. They knew what was on ground. They applied for the job and that job they must do. Being governor was not meant to be a tea party and passing bucks. The most nauseating was that coming from Osun State governor, Rauf Aregbesola who lamented that banks refused to grant him loan to pay workers because he had reached his borrowing limit of N24billion. When he is not lamenting about banks he laments over poor federal allocation from Abuja. It is in time of difficulty that true leadership emerges. That is the message to Buhari and governors who should be solving problems and not lamenting over them as if they have been overwhelmed and lacked knowledge of what to do. Governor of Abia State, Dr Ikpeazu and that of Kaduna State, Malam El-Rufai are showing flashes of better days ahead. Other governors should follow their lead and stop complaining.