With the democracy Day just past also being the first year anniversary of the Buhari administration, it has been a common theme for a scorecard of the first year to be given.
The KOWA party who have recently voiced their disappointment with the current state of affairs in the country have also come along with their own assessment of Buhari in the first year and from the looks of it, it’s a resounding F.
You can read their statement below.
Exactly a year ago, unarguably the most competitive election in Nigeria’s history took place; KOWA party was also a strong contender for the task-filled sit in the Aso Villa. The outcome of the elections saw Nigerians give their mandates to the candidacy of President Muhamadu Buhari under the umbrella of the All Progressive Congress. Nigerians decided to displace the Peoples’ Democratic Party which as a political party saw occupying the presidency position as a birth right, the decision by the huge populace to choose APC above other contending parties was followed by another heartwarming decision by the then President of the federation to peacefully relinquish power and the decision surely averted us of likely pandemonium.
Probably, Nigerians were too eager to see a change considering the terrible state of the country back then, hence, the enormous anxiousness superseded the needed inquiry into how a political party with over 60% of its stakeholders being former members of the party (PDP) that destroyed the nation in all ramification would be the way out of the national tension we found ourselves in. Be that as it may, the larger percentage of the population gave their mandate to President Buhari, the decision however sent our party into the opposition chamber, even when the party (KOWA) fielded the most credible candidate.
Today, we congratulate the President as he celebrates his first year anniversary as the director of the country’s affair. Though it has not been an easy journey for him, in the last one year, he has made decisions that were spot on and expectedly has made some that were excessively abysmal.
We wish to believe President Buhari is aware of the fact that, he is not just there to celebrate days on sit as the number one citizen, in fact, the best celebration as a president should be when the completely or partially executed projects speaks and not when a well-seasoned speech from the desk of the speech writer does the talking.
President Buhari and APC did not just assume the position on a free stroll, promises were made, they tried all their best to convince people and to us, the best action as an opposition is to judge their promises against what they have given the populace. This is to ascertain if the citizenry were deceived and coined for the interest of selected political personalities or not.
Overall, we believe that Nigeria is currently in an unfortunate situation that has been made worse more by inactions than by the actions of the incumbent government and we say this with an holistic understanding that the executive arm of government is not the only arm being run by the ruling party, APC. Our review cuts across the Presidency, Executive Ministries and Agencies, National Assemblies and the 25 states that are currently being governed by APC Governors. Despite the minute pockets of successes that were recorded in the last one year, we align with majority of Nigerians that the performance of the APC for the last one year has been utter disappointment when compared to the fundamental change that the APC Manifesto promised.
A REVIEW OF APC’s ONE YEAR IN GOVERNMENT
It should be made clear that all claims in this piece were not formulated at our own end, to further ascertain and to be sure we are not acting on propagandas, the ruling party’s official website was visited and the pre-election manifesto was downloaded and it was well studied before this publication was made.
As a party (KOWA), reading through APC’s manifesto, we were amazed (this is something to beat), but seeing the steps taken towards its implementation so far, we are saddened and we strongly hope our people have not been short changed.
In the manifesto, APC emphasized on key areas affecting the masses and proffered a partial solution to them, the solutions are more like a subsiding one and not a permanent cure. With the way things are and how the party has being going about denying promises upon promises, we decided to give a soft landing and selected five key unavoidable areas. Areas we will be laying emphasis on includes:
Constitution reforms
Security
Conflict resolution, National Unity, Social Harmony
Job creation
Economy
Industrialization
To do justice to the selected area of interests, the remaining part of this piece will be structured as follow:
Manifesto: This will contain the promises made prior to the election by President Buhari and APC at large.
So far: The so-far space will be majorly about what APC and President Buhari led administration has done to ensure the fulfillment of their promises.
Suggestion: The suggestion space will therefore contain advice and opinion from our database of knowledge which we found necessary at this time to assist a partially confused party in governance.
In no particular other, the selected area will be discussed below:
THE CONSTITUTION REFORM
Manifesto:
Initiate action to amend our Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to states and local governments in order to entrench true Federalism and the Federal spirit;
Strengthen INEC to reduce/ eliminate electoral malpractices;
Attract the best and brightest into our politics and public service by aggressive recruitment of private sector people, academics and professionals within Nigeria and in the Diaspora through internships, fellowships, executive appointments and special nomination to contest elective offices;
Prevent abuse of executive, legislative and public offices through greater accountability, transparency and strict enforcement of anti-corruption laws whilst strengthening the EFCC and ICPC;
Amend the Constitution to remove immunity from prosecution for elected officers in criminal cases;
Restructure government for a leaner, more efficient and adequately compensated public service;
Require full disclosure in all media outlets of all government contracts over N100m prior to award and during implementation at regular intervals;
Reform and Strengthen the Justice System for efficient administration and dispensation of justice along with the creation of special courts for accelerated hearing of corruption, drug trafficking, terrorism and similar cases of national importance;
Ensure full implementation of the Freedom of Information Act so that government held data sets can be requested and used by the media and the public at large, and then published on regular basis;
Seek to amend the Constitution to require local governments to publish their meeting minutes, service performance data and items of spending over N10M.
So far: From the manifesto, APC made 10 salient promises in line with the amendment of our generally perceived paleolithic constitution. A welcome idea and a good selling point during the electioneering days but what steps have they taken so far? It is glaring to all that, the leadership of the party have not been able to even control their members in the NASS not to talk of bringing them together to work towards fulfilling those promises.
That the party is in internal shambles became more glaring during the house leadership battle, the enormous selfish interest among the elected members on the platform of APC is abysmal, this is only peculiar to political party whose ideology has been polluted. After one year in the saddle, Nigerians can testify to the fact that there has been an observance in the breach of the president’s promise of constitutional reforms when he assumes duties as the president of Nigeria. The FOI Act, the PIB bill, the removal of immunity for executive officers among others have not seen the light of the legislation. The only attempt at law making especially at the National Assembly are unpopular bills like the Frivolous Social Media Bill, the CCB/T Ammendment Bill and more recently the Bill to enlarge the jurisdiction of the Sharia Court of Appeal that has just scaled through second reading at the House of Representatives. It is to be noted also that the National Assembly did passed not more than 3 bills until January 2016 before these frivolous bills started surfacing. Such legislative or attempt at constitutional reforms overlooks the real constitutional problems that have affected the fate of the nation. The central issues like the amendment of the Land use Act; to free up government’s hold on land, Local Government Autonomy and the devolution of powers to the states and local governments in the spirit of true fiscal federalism among others, have become a mirage.
For us at KOWA, it smacks of the proclivity of the APC wanting to maintain the status quo and bring about CHANGE with the same laws or even worse laws than the ones that led us to this state. This is because one year is enough time to have set those legislative stones in motion. But alas, that remains to be seen.
Suggestion: We are urging the party to as a matter of urgency put their house in other so as to ensure the fulfillment of their promises to the masses. The importance of an intellectually reviewed constitution will go a long way in catalysing our development. Considering what is playing out, APC is failing. If it is taking them more than a year in governance to strim down egos within their party, how long will it take the party to draw out plan to fulfill these promises.
NATIONAL SECURITY
Manifesto:
Urgently address capacity building of law enforcement agents in terms of quantity and quality as this is critical in safeguarding the sanctity of lives and property;
Establish a well-trained, adequately equipped and goals driven Serious Crime Squad to combat terrorism, kidnapping, armed robbery, militants, ethno-religious and communal clashes nationwide;
Begin widespread consultations to amend the Constitution to enable States and Local Governments to employ State and Community Police to address the peculiar needs of each community. This would mean setting boundaries for Federal, State and Community Police through new Criminal Justice legislation to replace the Criminal Code, the Penal Code and the Police Act.
Push for more support in the security and economic stability of the sub-region [ECOWAS] and AU as a whole and maintain a strong, close and frank relationship with West Africa, South Africa, UK, USA, Canada, and other African countries.
So far: The decision to move the military base to Bornu still remains the best from this administration since taking over the government. It has yielded good outcome, the gradual return of peace in the north eastern part of the country which was formally a stronghold of Boko Haram deserves a commendation and we won’t be economical with that. However, save for the efforts in the containing the Boko Haram insurgents since stepping in, Nigerians under the current administration have grapped more with the problem of insecurity. As if to whittle down the efforts of his predesesor when he came into power, the president said, “we cannot claim to have defeated the insugents with the Chibok girls and a host of other hostages still under the servitude of the insurgents”. On the strength of the president’s own standard, it only follows that success in the area of fighting the insugents is still minimal since the unfortunate Chibok girls are yet to be rescued. All that we have seen is the result to artificial nonsense and high pitch propaganda by the spokespersons of the government with phrases like “technically defeating” the insugents when thousands of refugees are still languishing in IDP camps both within and outside Nigeria.
Away from Boko Haram, the resurgence of the Fulani herdsmen militia has become another hard pill to swallow since this government came on board. From the massacres in Agatu, Benue state to those in Enugu state among several unreported cases, the farming community in the middle belts and the hinterland have seen violence visited upon them by a murderous militia group masquerading as herdsmen while the security apparatus sit by and watch clueless as to contain the problem. The consequnces has been so dire for the nation without a palpable atmosphere of fear amon residents of local communities that play host to the Fulani herdsmen and this again reflects Mr President’s approach to tackling this issue considering what we like to perceive as an intentional omission from his Democracy Day Speech few days ago
The Niger Delta crisis has since added to compound the situation. With several oil installations of multi national oil companies being disrupted, the Niger Delta Avengers as they call themselves, have literally declared a war against the nation. The Buhari administration, obviously seem to be without ideas on how to wrap its hands around the brewing national crisis it may become. On this score, we like to observe that the failure of the security agencies in the proper coordinating and sharing of intelligence has in no small measure served to exacerbate the problem. We have witnessed an upsurge the wave of crime, kidnapping and piracy in recent times all of which agglomerate to dismiss government’s claim of making Nigeria secure again for human lives and properties.
Suggestion: It should be made clear to President Buhari that total killing or eradication of Boko Haram terrorists without bringing a single sponsor to book will amount to wasted effort. These terrorists have people sponsoring their deadly acts, those are their backbone and we must make sure the backbone is broken. The promise of “consultations to amend the Constitution to enable States and Local Governments to employ State and Community Police to address the peculiar needs of each community” will also go a long way in ensuring that the average Nigerian who lives in a community is secured and feels secure.
CONFLICT RESOLUTION, NATIONAL UNITY, SOCIAL HARMONY
Manifesto:
Establish a Conflict Resolution Commission to help prevent, mitigate and resolve civil conflicts within the polity;
Bring permanent peace and solution to the Niger Delta and other conflict prone areas such as Plateau, Taraba, Bauchi, Borno and Abia in order to engender national unity and social harmony;
Initiate policies to ensure that Nigerians are free to live and work in any part of the country by removing state of origin, tribe, ethnic and religious affiliations and replace those with state of residence
So far:
The division within the polity took a sad dimension with the choice of officers to help President Buhari navigate the onerous task of nation building. Since the appointments of President Buhari appeared to favor persons perceived to be from the Northern part of the country as against the southern and eastern components, many pundits have labelled President Buhari as a chauvinistic and ethnocentric individual who does not seem to consider the good in others. Such unarguable fact of the lopsided nature Buhari’s appointments in defiance of the Federal Character principles have ended up steeping the mutual disaffection within the polity with drastic consequences for the national cohesion needed to rule a terribly secular state like Nigeria. The president’s carriage and disposition with his notorious and infamous “97% versus the 5%” statement of giving more emphasis to areas of the country that voted him in as against areas that polled fewer votes, has made him appear as a man who does not see the entire country as one single constituency. He has not only walked that talk, he has even consolidated on it with the recent appointments into the top brass of the government’s media apparatchik.
KOWA party aligns with those who see this as an ugly retrogression into the murky waters of discord that cannot trigger national unity especially when we now start to consider the percentage of women that have so far been appointed by Mr President. Considering the well composed promises, who could have predicted the free will and indirect support that manifests itself in the continued silence of the president that the deadly Herdsmen are getting. The renewed attack on the Boko Haram terrorists has been yielding outcome, any sensible person will appreciate that and we as a party is happy about the progress made. In the same vein, we are saddened with the return of the old days in the Niger Delta region. The reasons for their resurrection seems shady and we appeal to them (Niger Delta Avengers ) to open their arms for possible negotiations.
Suggestion: The incessant silent mood activated by the presidency on the continuous invasion of defenseless communities by the deadly Herdsmen is catastrophic and to some extent a go ahead from him. The appalling acts by this sect has not just destroyed farms, properties but has also sent people to unreplaceable but avoidable unreturnable journey. As the chief security officer of the country, steps to curb this should have been initiated and not the silence. Silence is a sign of cluelessness and we wish to believe the presidency isn’t. We urgently call on the presidency to set up a committee to inquiry about who the financiers of these herdsmen are and bring them into book for the hazard caused so far. As a matter of urgency, the National Assembly must start to consider the appropriate laws that can help to fill this gap.
JOB CREATION AND THE ECONOMY
Manifesto
Maintain sound macro-economic policy environment, run an efficient government and preserve the independence of the Central Bank;
Restore and strengthen financial confidence by putting in place a more robust monitoring, supervising and regulating of all financial institutions;
Make our economy one of the fastest growing emerging economies in the world with a real GDP growth averaging 10% annually;
Embark on vocational training, entrepreneurial and skills acquisition scheme for graduates along with the creation of Small Business Loan Guarantee Scheme to create at least 1 million new jobs every year, for the foreseeable future;
Integrate the informal economy into the mainstream and prioritize the full implementation of the National Identification Scheme to generate the relevant data;
Expand domestic demand and consider undertaking associated public works programmes;
Embark on export and production diversification including investment in infrastructure; promote manufacturing through agro based industries and expand sub-regional trade through ECOWAS and AU;
Make Information Technology, Manufacturing, Agriculture and Entertainment key drivers of our economy;
Balance the economy across regions by the creation of 6 new Regional Economic Development Agencies (REDAs) to act as champions of sub-regional competitiveness;
Put in place a N300bn regional growth fund (average of N50bn in each geo-political region) to be managed by the REDAs, encourage private sector enterprise and support to help places currently reliant on the public sector;
Amend the Constitution and the Land Use Act to create freehold/leasehold interests in land along with matching grants for states to create a nationwide electronic land title register on a state by state basis;
Create additional middle-class of at least 2 million new home owners in our first year in government and 1 million annually thereafter; by enacting a national mortgage system that will lend at single digit interest rates for purchase of owner occupier houses
So far:
If there is one area this government has achieved nothing both by inaction, incoherent and illogical actions, in its one year in power, it is on its economic policy and the latest negative GDP Growth Rate in the Last Quarter compared to the promise of 10% GDP growth rate is a reflection of that. It took no less than four months before we had a minister of finance to rein in on an economy that was woven in one piece from neck to hem like the cloak of Christ at the crucifixion. When that was finally done, a lot had already spiralled out of control. Under the watch of the current minister of Finance and in collaboration with the current CBN governor, Nigeria has continued to suffer one economic accident to the other. The concomitant effect of a weak currency, a conservative forex policy and absence of a comprehensive economic blueprint is the loss of jobs, the flight of capital, a double digit inflationary index and an economy that has since gone into retrogression with the latest statistics dished out from the office of the National Bureau of Statistics. It has taken one year for the government to come back to logically evaluate their forex policy and do away with its “command and control” style which many pundits in the early days of the government advised of it. It is our presumption that most Nigerians are aware of the economic gaffes by this administration that brought us here, but what remains to be said is that it speaks volumes of the unprepared disposition of the President’s team and much more importantly, the APC and that at the very least are obligated to bring back Nigeria to where they met it if they cannot do any better.
Suggestion: We have written a Press Release on the Economy that can be found here http://kowaparty.net/2016/05/20/press-release-on-the-state-of-the-economy/ and are currently working on an alternative policy document on the economy that the APC can choose to adopt
INDUSTRIALIZATION
Manifesto:
Formulate a robust industrialization policy and provide a conducive environment for a private sector led industrial base for the economy, promote entrepreneurship that would help usher in new industries, new jobs, new knowledge and utilization of information and communication technologies;
Create growth centers through the promotion of industrialization in all regions by encouraging the use of local resources.
Promote innovation by investing heavily in research, development, science and technology.
Support diversification of our economy from export of primary materials to value added goods through supporting the establishment of a solid industrial base.
Ensure that key agricultural products such as cocoa and rubber go through value addition as opposed to exporting raw materials for industries in other countries.
So far: Apparently, promises made towards industrializing the country were in the manifesto to increase pages and word count. The current status of this sector of the Nigerian Society also reflects the mentality and the kind of thinking that lies at the bottom of the ministries responsible for realizing this promise. That is just the only reason a right thinking government will see production of pencils as the next stage of industrialization in the 21st century. We also note how despite the allocation of prioritized forex to the manufacturing sector especially, negative growth up to -13.1% in the last quarter is now being established as a norm. The APC led administration seems totally outdated with the decision makers still think in a manner comparable to the 17th century.
Suggestion: The questions that need to be answered as far as industrialization is concerned are yet to be answered and these questions must be tackled. Questions such as truly diversifying our reliance for power away from gas, questions about considerations of public-private partnerships in the provision of basic infrastructure, questions about the bureaucracies that currently exist at the detriment of growth, innovation and even basic setting up of factories. If an Industrialization Plan for the next 20 years is not already available for the government like developed countries did when they were less developed with the amount of resources at their disposal, then they should, for the sake of Nigerians and in line with the electoral mandate they got, should start thinking in that line.
AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SECURITY
Manifesto:
Modernize the sector and change Nigeria from being a country of self-subsistence farmers to that of a medium/commercial scale farming nation/producer;
Create a nationwide food inspectorate division with a view to improving nutrition and eliminating food-borne hazards;
Inject extra N30bn to the Agricultural sector to create more agro-allied jobs by way of loans at nominal interest rates for capital investment on medium and commercial scale cash crops;
Guarantee a minimum price for selected crops and facilitate storage of agricultural products as and when necessary.
So far:
The only efforts visibly seen in efforts at revitalizing the agricultural value chain, is the constant overwhelming of the current minister of Agriculture to the effect that government is committed to diversifying the economy away from crude oil, but there has been no precise blueprint of that imagined future. One year of the Buhari presidency has seen an abandonment of the giant strides of the Akinwunmi Adesina led ministry under the last dispensation which resulted into positive results in terms of relative food security under the watch of the last government. Today, food prices have spiraled out of control with Tomato being the worst hit. It is trite that a nation that is well fed is a healthy nation and can do just about anything. But what we have seen in the last one year is worthy of anything but commendation. Farmers have no access to improved varieties of seedlings, fertilizer, good roads to transport local produce and absence of near market to commercialize their produce and the resultant effect is a hungry nation in need of food and frustrated farmers who continue to see farming as an unproductive enterprise.
Suggestion: After: At a time like this in the life of every nation, what counts are visionary leadership and not a government that trades blames with its predecessor. We issue an ultimatum to the presidency that it is either they devise means of taking the country out of the current economic quicksand, or they give way for those who have the requisite acumen and disposition of mind and body to deliver. The current President of the African Development Bank, Akinwunmi Adesina delivered so much so that it was evident in the unpopular administration of the last government and had roadmaps and plans going forward for the Agricultural Sector. The rhetoric of going back to the farm should not just be announced at every available opportunity but consultations by the Development Bank President which we believe he would be willing to grant to our gerontocrat minister is a place to begin.
After all said and done, we wish to further reiterate our support for this government, as we will ensure we assist them with suggestions that will aide their duties in making the lives of Nigerians an enviable one. The failure of this government won’t in any way be a good news to us as the advent effect will be felt by all and not just the population that voted them in.
Although a prepared party should ordinarily not be in this lacuna to fulfill it promises but since our situation is different, KOWA party sees nothing bad in helping out as the eventual productive output of our candid opinion will be felt by all the masses, a better Nigeria is our joy and not the other way round.
It is no mistake that we have not exactly focused on Mr President’s Anti-Corruption Campaign. It appears evident that Mr President is the leader and appears to be the only follower of that campaign in the APC as we do not understand why the two anti-corruption bills sent to the Senate and the House of Reps which APC controls a majority of has gathered no traction since the beginning of January and why the Judiciary of the country does not appear more autonomous as it was in the last administration judging from the 2016 Budget.
We would also like to remind the APC and their representatives in power which includes Mr President, that they have three more years left to prove their capacity to deliver on their promises which literally is two serious years considering that a lot of focus will be on the elections in what is looking to be their last year in office.
As we continue in the next political year, we urge Nigerians to keep their peace and their hopes of a better nation. We have an opportunity to make the best country in our history than never before. We urge the Niger Deltans who have nicknamed themselves avengers to “sheath their swords” and come over to the Negotiations table as war and violence is never the path to a consensus. Our thoughts are also with the Chibok Family especially the BBOG Campaign group as we continue to pray that our gallant soldiers will eventually deliver the rescue of our girls.
As it is versed in the second stanza of our National Anthem, We at KOWA PARTY hope and pray that May the God of Creation guide us right, help us attain great lofty heights as a nation and help us build a nation where peace and justice shall reign.
May God Bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria
Signed On Behalf of the National Executive Council, KOWA PARTY
Jude ‘Feranmi (JFK)
National Youth Leader