Posted on: 04:30 Tue, 31 May 2016



President Muhammadu Buhari and
hisparty, the All Progressives
Congress (APC) came to power on
the mantra of change.

However, Buhari’s inability to meet
up with his campaign promises has
seen him repeat the same mistakes
his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan
made.

Below are five Jonathan’s mistakes
Buhari repeated in his one year in
office.

1. Promises and more promises

When former president, Goodluck
Jonathan won the 2011 presidential
election, he promised to grow the
economy, create jobs, and generate
enduring happiness for Nigerians
under his much publicised
transformation agenda.

Jonathan said he had the
confidence in the ability of
Nigerians to transformthis country,
adding that his administration will
provide a suitable environment, for
productive activities to flourish in
the country.

However lofty as those promises
were, the Jonathan administration
failed to execute half of its
promises.

At the end, Jonathan lost the 2015
presidential election to
Muhammadu Buhari because there
were too many promises he had
failed to keep.

Now, President Muhammadu
Buhari has begun to repeat the
same mistakes of the Jonathan
administration, making empty
promises without efforts to keep
them.

This has made Nigerians tag the All
Progressives Congress party (APC)
as All Promises Cancelled.

It is certain that Nigerians have
taken noteof the fact that the
current administration is a serial
promise breaker and this might
lead to the downfall of the Buhari
administration just as it did the
previous.

2. Coping with incompetent ministers

After President Muhammadu
Buhari was sworn in, it took the
president about six months to name
his ministers, when some Nigerians
complained, the APC urged
Nigerians to be patient saying the
president wanted to get his
selection of ministers right.
After the months spent shopping
for the ‘right‘ ministers, Nigerians
were shell shocked to find out that
none of those on the ministerial list
stood out.They were all chips of the
old block.

Months after the ministers resumed
duties in their respective portfolios,
Nigerians are yet to feel the impact
of their reign, till date, no minister
in Buhari’ cabinet has stood out, at
best the minister of state,
petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu and the
minister of power, works and
housing, Babatunde Fashola have
stood out for all the wrong reasons.

This is reminiscent of the Jonathan
era where the president was
accused of dealing with
incompetent ministerswho were
seen as clueless in the faceof
challenges the country was
experiencing.
Like a deja vu, it appears President
Buhari has also fallen into this trap
of surrounding himself with
incompetentmen which could spell
doom for his administration.

3. Gallivanting when the country
needs their president

During the previous
administration, the APC accused
Goodluck Jonathan displaying
insensitivity to the plight of
Nigerians for embarking on a
campaign a day after almost 50
students were killed and about 80
injured in a suicide bombing in
Potiskum, Yobe state.

The party accused the president of
dancing on the graves of the
students as well as of all the victims
of the Boko Haram insurgency.
Since his inauguration in May last,
2015 President Buhari has visited
22 countries.On another accession,
Nigerians reacted with outrage over
Goodluck Jonathan’s visit to Kano
to welcome former governor of the
state, Ibrahim Shekarau, to the PDP
a day after a carbomb killed
dozens of Nigerians and injured
several others in a suburb of
Abuja.Jonathan’s actions were
described asinsensitive,
irresponsible, terrible, andwicked.

However, it seems the Buhari
administration is beginning to
repeat the same mistakes of the
previous administration by
embarking on frivolous foreign
trips when there is so much work to
do in the country occasioned by the
continuous attacks by Boko Haram
insurgents, Fulani herdsmen and
blackouts whichdemand immediate
and focused attention.

Since his inauguration in May last
year, 2015 President Buhari has
visited 22 countries, some of them
even for several
When criticised for the trips, the
presidency justified the trips,
saying they were necessary to bring
the country back on the track of
development and growth.
But the average Nigerian sees the
president’s foreign trips as a
display of insensitivity to the plight
of those who are still waiting for
the elusive change.

4. Failing to protect Nigerians from
rampaging herdsmen

The Boko Haram insurgency was
one the death blows to the previous
administration because many
Nigerians lost faith in the ability of
the federal government to defend
its citizens from rampaging
terrorists.

Muhammadu Buhari promised to
tackle the Boko Haram insurgency
head-on and the administration
has succeeded in curbing the
ability of the insurgents to launch
spectacular attacks.

However, the administration’s
response to the attacks by
rampaging Fulani herdsmen across
communities in Nigeria has been
described as indifferent.Jonathan
was accused of lacking the will to
contain the Boko Haram insurgents
because he felt the insurgency was
a northern agenda to ruin his
administration, likewise, Buhari
has been accused by some
Nigerians of lacking the political
will to tackle the attacks by Fulani
herdsmen because they are his
kinsmen. If Buhari does not correct
this perception in time, he might
lose the confidence Nigerian have
in him to keep them save.

5. Failure to diversify the economy

President Muhammadu Buhari
promised that his administration
would include fresh policies and
measures to encourage the rapid
diversification of the Nigerian
economy away from its current
over-dependence on the oil and gas
sector.Nigeria’s over dependence
on oil has led to the abandonment
of other sectors of the economy.

But currently, the Nigerian
economy is under tremendous
stress as a result of the steep fall in
the price of crude oil which has
been the mainstay of the
economy.Just like Jonathan failed to
do, Buhariis yet to implement a
road map for the diversification of
the Nigerian economy away from
oil.

Even though Buhari said his
administration would enact new
policies to diversify Nigeria’s
economy from oil to other sectors
such as agriculture, mining and
manufacturing among others, it
appears these promises may have
fallen into the endless catalogue of
Buhari’s unmet promises.

Source: Naij