REVIEW: To hell with restructuring! Shettima’s arrogance and 6 reasons why APC is becoming a bag of mess

By Femi Qudus

A part of this title are the exact words of Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno state. He did not only say those, he also said “restructuring my foot”. Not done, Shettima also described anything restructuring as “madness”. The ‘governor’ spoke last Thursday in Abuja at the launch of a book authored by spokesman of All Progressives Congress (APC), Bolaji Abdullahi titled ‘On A Platter of Gold’ in which the author told his own version of how Goodluck Jonathan became president and later lost it.

The event which took place at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Center in Abuja, had the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, members of the National Assembly and other politicians in attendance. Shettima’s utterances therefore came as the first direct response by any governor from the northern divide of Nigeria since senators from the southern divide met in Cross Rivers state and adopted a common position in support of restructuring.

Recall also that governors from the southern half of the country, recently rose from a meeting in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state, insisting that for the country to make meaningful progress, it must be restructured. Therefore, to an extent, one could say Shettima was responding, not only to issues discussed in the book, but the position of southern governors and the southern caucus of the National Assembly. And to extrapolate further, Shettima, as Chairman of Northern Governors Forum, may have also spoken the mind of governors of the northern divide on restructuring.

With those utterances, Shettima exposed his aversion to critical reasoning. Not only did he refuse to think, he also dragged the north into this failure. By openly denigrating restructuring, and having such strong words for those asking for it, Shettima says that the skewed federation foisted on Nigeria by its creators, works better in his interest and interest of all who, despite their education, are too lazy to think outside the box.
Shettima, ought to develop the capacity to see beyond oil. His party, APC, is driving a diversification plan. But his mind is still locked in oil. And with Shettima, one sees the classic APC; always unwilling to confront the real issues but push the buck elsewhere. Good governance also means having an ear for the voice of the people and the people here demand restructuring.

But it is not surprising that Shettima thinks small. He is one of the reasons APC is failing. Here are 6 dramatic cases illustrating APC’s gradual descent into a huge bag of mess.

1, Restructuring

The first page of the APC manifesto contains the party’s proposals for a new Nigeria. One thing stood out in those proposals -restructuring. Many believed APC, and its leaders, were being sincere with the issue. But with power within their grip, they lied their way out of every promise to restructure Nigeria and set it on a workable platform. Today, APC leaders, especially from the north, deny restructuring with every pint of blood left in them. They make everyone think that restructuring would cause he demise of Nigeria. But they simply say, with their resistance, that a restructured Nigeria will expose the underbelly of the North and also the refusal of its leaders to think outside the box. For Shettima and his ilk in the north, Nigeria must not be restructured so long as the southern lady of means remains open to constant rape.

However, the forceful outcry from Nigerians forced APC to constitute a committee led by Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state, to think through the need for restructuring and make recommendations. That committee is in limbo because rape of the southern lady is of masturbatory interest to northern leaders. But what Shettima and his ilk do not realise is that a spring pressed down often comes up forcefully. Those who had called for the restructuring of Nigeria are no idiots. For APC, therefore, voting for restructuring will be a redeeming move. But not for Shettima whose ideas run contrary o every known leadership model. Unfortunately, as a two-term governor, he is one of the leaders of APC. Wonder why the party is lacking in focus?

Read also: JONATHAN TO GOV SHETTIMA: If I ran bad govt why is UN begging Buhari to maintain standard I set

2, Economy

If there is any reason Nigerians will likely vote APC out, it is the failure of the party to fix the economy. APC’s underbelly was exposed when it attended policy decisions with vendetta and hate. It did not matter to the party that its policies strangulated the economy. Rather than accept the reality and reshape its policies, the party ignored the fundamentals and kept on with experimentations . In forcing divestments from the Nigerian economy, with its exchange rate policy, and blaming same on the past administration, APC exposed its hollowness and lack of knowledge of the essentials of economic management. It will take this credential to the 2019 general electionsand still expecting same Nigerians that it had chastised with poverty and alienated from good life to queue behind it.

3, Corruption

Often, the APC government beats its chest to fighting corruption and working to eradicate it from Nigeria. Sadly, those engaged in the fight began addressing the task on a corrupt note. By abusing the judicial process and refusing to obey court orders, the government showed its hands as despotic. Besides, its focus on fighting corruption and hounding alleged corrupt elements of the past administration into detention while shielding its own, showed clearly that the party was unwilling to do the needful in the fight against corruption. The pat-on-the-back-treatment by President Muhammadu Buhari on erstwhile Secretary to the Government of the Federation, David Babachir Lawal, whose hands were found in the pie, in a disgraceful grass cutting scandal, demonstrated the government’s readiness to accommodate corrupt element so long as they are very close allies of the president. This is a negative credential which Buhari and APC are taking into the next general elections. Here, Buhari and APC failed the test of honesty and neutrality, showing in the process, that his anti-corruption war was targeted.

4, Nepotism

Perhaps, no government in the political evolution of Nigeria has been as nepotistic as the APC federal government led by a man sold to the electorate as one of integrity. By turning his eyes away from outcry of Nigerians over secret recruitment of close family members of the president and his aides into top rate federal government agencies and parastatals, Buhari and APC indicate that the integrity quotient of the president, was merely a hoax. Under the APC-led federal government, the Federal Character Commission and the constitutional provision for federal character representation in employments into the public service seem to have been rendered useless. Buhari does not pretend over his lack of capacity to manage and lead a complex society like Nigeria. In fact, he seems to enjoy it when people he considers five percenters complain of alienation from government.

5, Cabinet

APC and Buhari demonstrated its cluelessness in solving problems by constituting a cabinet that has been considered about the worst since 1999. The APC government has successfully tarred its immediate predecessor with the brush of corruption. But it has not been able to fault the composition of the cabinet of that administration. It rather created a successor cabinet that has been deemed a collective of misfits. It has an Audu Ogbeh who is addressing 2017 agricultural needs with a 1984 mindset. It has a Babatunde Fashola who believes that the only way to solve electricity crisis in the country is simply to increase tariffs. He is lost on what it means to fix housing deficit in Nigeria and also works to show that only roads in Lagos are worthy of federal government attention. The government has a sports Minister, a supposed lawyer, who argues that “the money was well spended” and that Argentina is “one of the best sporting associations in Nigeria”. And to imagine that Buhari took about six months to discover the likes of Lai Mohammed who has elevated lying to state policy makes one begin to imagine what Buhari was thinking while constituting his cabinet. No one member of the cabinet can be singled out for sterling performance.

6, Mainagate

The clandestine reinstatement of Abdulrasheed Maina, erstwhile Chairman of Presidential Task force on Pension Reform, into the Civil Service of the federation, is one which can bring down a government in a serious governmental environment. Sadly, this is Nigeria and it is driven by an APC that knows everything but decorum and respect for decency. Updates and revelations on how Maina found his way back into the civil service after being dismissed for abandonment of duty, are a reminder of the putrid nature of some saints found on Nigerian soil. A fugitive of the law was said to have presidential consent to be smuggled through a backdoor into the higher echelons of the civil service. Fingers are still pointing and even when the disclosures are direct, those responsible still pass the buck. Shamelessly, the same agencies that would conduct sting operations on the homes of judges, look elsewhere. Mainagate has tainted the APC government and eroded whatever remains of the president’s integrity.
It will be nice for Shettima to ruminate just over the above before he embarks on another display of his proclivity for cheap advertisement of woolen brains.

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