By Sunny Ikhioya

THE  country belongs to all of us; whether things turn bad or good we are all in it together and, of course everyone will want things to be better except Sheakau, the  Boko Haram leaders and his agents of death. So when we direct our attention to the loop holes in government, it is directed at stimulating actions and appropriate remedy application rather than the pull down syndrome that partisan Nigerian will attribute to it. When election is over, governance begins in earnest and everyone’s attention must be focussed towards moving the nation forward, it is directed at the present and not the past.

If errors were committed in the past, it is the duty of the present government to address them without disrupting the polity. When you stay fixated for too long with the past, you easily miss the way forward. That is why the present regime must focus more on putting structures and institutions in place rather than individuals. We must not build our country around individuals because when they are gone and another leader who knows not Joseph is installed, things will revert back to their decadent state.

That is what the APC government with Muhammadu Buhari as the president owe this nation. We will like to ask ourselves what the present  government will be like without Buhari? The government is been tailored and run in line with Buhari’s whims rather than the established patterns. We will like to ask again, which person will dare to run a democratic elected government for four months without a ministerial cabinet in place except Buhari?

Unfortunately, most state governors have taken a cue for their own selfish reasons. No individual can fight corruption on his own without the support of the constitutionally established institutions and these institutions cannot perform to their potentials or meet their goals, if their actions are dictated by the sentiments of the leader or the ruling party.

Whatever is bad is bad and the bad and criminal conducts are expressly stated in our constitution, the relevant law enforcement agencies have other working documents still in tune with the constitution, all that is left is the required freedom for these organs to perform their task. With this, they will perform silently, sentiments and be goal focussed.

The general populace will see the objectivity in their actions and give them support. Nuhu Ribadu got the support of the people but not the deserved independence and that accounts  for the perceived ‘selectiveness’ in the prosecution of criminal politicians. The President’s body language is against corruption and the whole nation has been alerted to this fact and people are already getting used to the fact that it is not business as usual.

On that score the nation is making progress but such progress could be scuttled if left to the whims of man and politicians, that is what we have witnessed so far. When such situation plays out, the people lose confidence, hence for the constitutionally approved agencies to perform creditably,we must give them the required freedom and independence, the type accorded to Professor Attahiru Jega in INEC.

Apart from the anti corruption drive, Buhari must move very quickly in the direction of other key sectors. The study and evaluation period has taken too long. We are not only experiencing this at the federal but the state levels; a lot of the states are yet to get going. Files to be processed are held up as a result of the absence of key ministers and commissioners that are constitutionally empowered to sign such documents.

Look at the confusion arising from the Saraki case because of the absence of an Attorney General, look at the embarrassment of Nigeria’s absence from a UN meeting that was to address key security issues relating to terrorism, all of these gaffes could have been avoided. Some have said that the delay is good for Nigeria and that Buhari is saving money for the nation but this is not a generally held view, like this piece below, now trending on the internet seem to suggest; “The State of The Economy Under Buhari In numbers:

1. Zenith bank sacked 1, 200 staff  2. Access bank sacked 800 staff 3. Skye Bank sacked 400 staff 4. Unity Bank sacked 320 staff 5. Construction industry sacked 60, 000 workers 6. La Casera weeded out 1, 300 workers 7. Nigeria Stock market has lost over N3 trillion in the last 3 months 8. Foreign investors have withdrawn over N400 billion from the stock market.9. Unemployment rises by over 60% in the last three months 10. JP Morgan delisted Nigeria with over N310 billion lost in 24 hours  11. GDP dropped from 6.1% projected in 2015 to 4.5% 12. Ethiopia and Kenya overtook Nigeria as Africa’s number one and two for FDI, within the last three months.

13. Naira is on a free fall. It exchanges N222, N350 and N256 against the Dollar, Pounds and Euro respectively.14. Companies are closing down, others are downsizing.15. Inflation rate has hit double-digits of 10.1% for the first time.16. Boko Haram has killed about 2000 Nigerians in the last 100 days under Buhari’s watch.17. About 60,000 construction workers have lost their jobs in the last four months, so says the National Union of Civil Engineering Construction, Furniture and Wood Workers. The union’s President, Comrade Amechi Asugwuni, blamed the development on the country’s economic downturn.

“The economy is slowing and promised infrastructure reforms are taking too long to implement. Over 60,000 of our members have lost their jobs as a result of infrastructural deficit.” Unemployment is clearly on the rise. Just look around you. Jobless people are everywhere and in virtually every home. An army of jobless youth is a time bomb that may consume this country if the government fails to act appropriately. Governance is not just about making noise and about fighting corruption.

A good government must create an enabling environment for industrial growth and maximum capacity utilisation. This will create jobs. A government must come out with policies and provide infrastructure to encourage commercial agriculture. This is another avenue for job creation.”

So, you be the judge.