Thread by @ShehunGwandu

@daily_trust EDITORIAL: Nigeria: A Nation In Search Of Its Leader.

On his short tour of Kuje Correctional Centre, following an attack on the facility by members of ISWAP, during which hundreds of inmates escaped, President @MBuhari could not hide his disappointment....

President @MBuhari could not hide his disappointment with the whole system of security intelligence in the country.
And his words were appropriately probing. “How did the defences at the prison fail to prevent the attack? How many inmates were in the facility?

"How many of them can you account for? How many personnel did you have on duty? How many of them were armed? Were there guards on the watchtower? What did they do? Does the CCTV work?”, the President @MBuhari queried, and demanded.

At the end of his speech Buhari said he will be expecting “a comprehensive report” on the incident. But Buhari’s brief outing that day illustrates almost all that is wrong with his administration in the past seven years.

Buhari was there at Kuje Prison as Nigeria’s President, but spoke unlike a president. All the questions the President raised were absolutely valid, but he raised them to no one in particular and received no response from anyone in particular.

And if previous experience of this government were any guide, and it is, no one will be held responsible for such a massive breach of security. The Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, has shown more interest in the political affairs of his home state than his job description

The Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, who, truth be told, has shown more interest in the political affairs of his home state than his job description at the ministry, will remain in post.

The Controller General of Nigerian Correctional Service, Haliru Nababa, at whose watch there has been more prison breaks than at any time in living memory, will also remain in post. The President will neither issue nor demand sanction of any kind on this.

The govt will simply lurch on to the next disaster waiting to happen. This is essentially Buhari’s model of political leadership. He gives power & authority to appointees, but demands almost nothing of them in return: not performance, and not responsibility for non-performance.

There will be no sanctions. No resignation or sack. This has therefore little place in Buhari’s system. It is his model of government, government without governing, this conferral of authority on persons without a corresponding demand for responsibility and accountability.

It is this model of government, this government without governing, this conferral of authority on persons without a corresponding demand for responsibility and accountability, that has brought President Buhari, and the country he leads, to where we are now in Nigeria today.

The economy is in a tailspin as illustrated by a biting fuel scarcity, a currency not worth the cost of printing it, and rising prices of all goods and services, even as incomes and jobs stagnate dwindle.

We understand that Nigeria’s economy is not immune from the global economic challenges being faced all over the world, but this government can do and needs to do more to assure citizens that things would get better.

As it is, Nigeria is on its knees, and Nigerians can testify, and have testified, that they have never had it worse in every respect. @daily_trust. The government is simply absent unless at flamboyant occasions.

@daily_trust feel compelled to point out to the President @MBuhari since his advisers will not tell him, that almost all his achievements in government across all sectors are now being completely eroded even before he leaves office.

Buhari’s signature anti-corruption agenda, which scored considerable early gains, is now effectively in the doldrums. Does anyone really remember that President Buhari was once an anti-corruption champion?

Life without fuel scarcity, wch Nigns witnessed for best part of this govt, has now been replaced wt a biting scarcity of petroleum products of the sort Nigns have scarcely known b4, even as subsidy bills & borrowings have ballooned thro the roof & beyond nat'l capacity to repay

Inflation, of food particularly, and overall, both of which the govt managed to bring under control following two recessions, is now on the rise again and has reached levels never witnessed before.

The government’s defeat of Boko Haram, technical or otherwise, is now no more than a victory recorded too early. Nigeria, it must be said, is now effectively back to where the President took it over in 2015, only much, much worse off.

Of all these woes, the security situation bears repeating. The attacks by bandits on the President’s own advance convoy in Katsina last week is directly symbolic of how bad things have turned. That bandits would dare attack the convoy of Nigeria's C-inC of the armed forces..

That bandits would dare attack the convoy of Nigeria’s C-in-C of the armed forces, and shortly after killing an otherwise brave police officer, is a loud enough statement, if any were needed, that no one is safe in Buhari’s Nigeria.

But the fact is that while in the past 5 years or so when the govt had waxed upbeat over its “successes” in the fight against Boko Haram in the North East, millions of Nigerians in the NW and parts of the NC states have lived under a security situation that in reality,...

The fact is that millions of Nigerians in the North West and parts of the North Central states have lived under a security situation that in reality, if not in recognition, has been just as deadly a form of terror as Boko Haram ever was.

The President and the government just didn’t pay enough attention to it. And on top of that, #BokoHaram now appears to have returned in full scale, with attacks on soldiers and security formations fast assuming a regularity that should compel the government to act quickly.

The President and the government just didn’t pay enough attention to it. And on top of that, Boko Haram now appears to have returned in full scale, with attacks on soldiers and security formations fast assuming a regularity that should compel the government to act quickly.

Where is the action? Where is the empathy? Where is the govt? Nigns have a right under the constitution, & indeed, by any understanding of democratic governance to expect all of these from their own govt. But again, if experience is any guide, they are unlikely to get any of it.

Nigerians have a right under the constitution, and indeed, by any understanding of democratic governance to expect all of these from their own government. But again, if experience is any guide, they are unlikely to get any of it. And that too must be said." Thank you @daily_trust

@threadreaderapp please unroll.