It is just normal for a leader of as wide as Nigeria is, to have those whose main job is to criticize him, especially, from the opposition corners.
Indeed, at a point, ex President Goodluck Jonathan was acclaimed as the most criticized President in the history of political development in the country. In fairness, Jonathan achieved much in many sectors, but his best seemed not to be enough for Nigerians.
Of course, because of his apparent inexperience at the level he found himself, the more experienced ones around him confused him.
With such position, Muhammadu Buhari was seen as an alternative to him. Because of his antecedence, Buhari was seen as being matured and experienced enough to take charge of the affairs of the nation from the executive marauders.
Whether such calculation on the part of the citizenry was correct and whether Buhari has been able to measure up to the expectations of the majority of Nigerians, is both a big issue to engage the attention of the critics and for them to point the way forward, against the backdrop of the next year’s election.
Indeed, like I said, it is not surprising that now, President Muhammadu Buhari, who came after Jonathan has been receiving some doses of criticisms.
Whatever such criticisms amount to, what the country needs now as the 2019 beckons, during which time a new set of leaders should be enthroned via election, is to begin to ask who should be an alternative to Buhari. In fact, the question should begin to fly as to whether anybody would have done better than what Buhari has been able to offer since coming to power in 2015, given the socio economic and security milieu under which he mounted the leadership.
The question really is, would there have been anyone that would have completely wiped out Boko Haram from the surface of Nigeria?
Would there have been anyone that would have run the economy, resulting, by now, in prosperity and better than what we now have? Would there have been anyone that would have confronted corruption the way we have been witnessing since 2015? Would there have been anyone that would have stabilized the nation’s currency against Dollar and other international currencies? Would there have been anyone that would have stopped fuel scarcity and the crisis it generated towards the end of last year?
Would there have been anyone that would have stopped the rate of unemployment from rising, as reported by the National Bureau of Statistics? Would there have been anyone that would have successfully implemented Treasury Single Account (TSA) and many more? And above all, would there have been a Nigerian, either from within or without, that would have made majority of Nigerians more comfortable than they are today, in terms of welfare and social packages?
The honest advise is that since Buhari has been adjudged to have failed in all such areas, the critics should begin to offer some kind of alternative to him: the alternative that will address the country’s multi dimensional and complex challenges; the alternative that will, within a couple of months or years, make life generally comfortable, without complain anywhere.
As a matter of fact, as the nation approaches the campaign season leading to elections, critics are expected to be more productive and ‘projective’ in a way that electorate will be made aware of who is the best candidate other than Buhari they should be prepared to vote for in 2019.
The era of reeling in calling Buhari names, some of which are completely disrespectful and wreak of hatred, should be replaced with the era of presenting a better candidate for Nigerians to choose, in the next year’s election.
One expects that the critics or the analysts of the nation’s political games: those who claim to know how best to run the economy and other sectors, should begin to name names of leaders they strongly believe will deliver the country from all forms of socio-economic and lingering security entanglement.
I believe that it is not enough to sit on the armchair and churn out beautiful theories and condemn Present Buhari.
I dare say that sane Nigerians have had enough of such armchair exercise or the rolling out of theories from purely academic books.
Blame game is actually becoming too cheap and worn-out. [myad]
