[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is a note for those Nigerians who voted for Muhammadu Buhari in the last presidential elections.
Though, I am aware that many of them regret it now that Buhari has manifested his true self. While I am not absolving you of blame, but in many ways, I believe that you hoped for a better president than Buhari has become. It is just a shame that General Buhari has betrayed the immense trust you reposed on him. You didn’t know that by voting for him, you fell for a trick concocted by the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Here are six reasons Buhari voters feel they have been conned.
1. 97% vs 5%: The first thing that Buhari did as president was to divide the country along the lines of “areas that voted 97% and areas that votes 5% to bring this government to power”. By so doing, he effectively told the Igbos, Urhobos, Itshekiris, and Ijaws who voted for him as a minority voice in the South East and South South that they wasted their votes.
Buhari also demonstrated that he only recognises his supporters who are Northern, Hausa/Fulani, and who are Muslim. To him, nobody else exists. He only tolerates you. Instead of showing gratitude to his supporters from other ethnic groups, he rather went on to make a slew of appointments without naming even one person from the South East, just because, according to him, “the constitution permits him too”.
Buhari made a fool of his supporters in the South East, especially. He only appointed Igbos as ministers and he is mandated by the constitution to that. So, had it been left to Buhari, he wouldn’t appoint Igbos as ministers because “the constitution permits him too”.
2. Backtracking on Presidential Fleet: Then, there is the issue of retaining ten aircraft in the presidential fleet. Buhari sensationally claimed during the presidential campaigns that he would sell of the presidential fleet because he believes it is “government waste”. His riotous supporters whipped this issue into a frenzy casting former President Goodluck Jonathan has being extravagant.
To take mockery to a whole new level of crazy, the APC propaganda machine sold a dummy to Nigerians soon after Buhari’s inauguration that he has ordered the sale of the presidential fleet. Only for the Presidency to deny the story. Then, again, Buhari’s propaganda machine began a new story that Mrs. Aisha Buhari and her children would not be making use of the Presidential fleet… But, they do. There are photos of the First Lady alighting from Nigeria’s ‘Airforce One’.
Well, the reality is that Buhari lied to his everybody when he said he would sell of the Presidential fleet. He has no such plans. What’s more? Buhari has spent three times as much maintaining the presidential fleet in 6 months than Jonathan spent in one year. He is a hypocrite who recently outlined a feeding budget of N6 million a day for his family in Aso Rock. Let’s move forward.
3. The Fuel Subsidy Saga: After convincing his supporters that fuel subsidy is a fraud. “Who is subsidizing who?” the General asked with a disdainful look on his face in a news interview. He went on record saying that there is no such thing as subsidy and that it is all a fraud. But as president, Buhari has paid out much more subsidy money that Jonathan paid to oil marketers. Subsidy payments ballooned under Buhari when oil prices are crashed.
That is not all. Buhari’s campaign propaganda machine put out word that Buhari would reduce fuel pump price to N40 a litre. Today, Nigerians are suffering acute fuel shortage. And to make things worse he did a cosmetic price reduction of 50 KOBO but the reality is Nigerians have been buying petrol at N120 to N134 a litre and it doesn’t look like fuel scarcity is going away anytime soon. Neither is the official pump price going to be available for all Nigerians. How could anyone have imagined Buhari would have been this fraudulent?
4. Boko Haram and The Shedding of Innocent Blood: Many people who voted for Buhari believed that as a Muslim fundamentalist and former military general, Buhari would bring terrorism to an end in Nigeria quickly and easily.
Like many other expectations of Buhari supporters, this, too, was not to be.
Buhari, first, went on a globe trotting adventure claiming to obtain co-operation from our neighbours. He then announced he has set up a multi-national force involving Chad, Cameroon, and Niger to fight Boko Haram. But, the truth is that President Goodluck Jonathan had already set up a multi-national force fighting Boko Haram before he left office. Buhari just went on a photography tour.
To make matters worse, Chad, a key allie, pulled out of the multi-national force when Buhari came to power. Not only that, but Boko Haram went on a killing rampage, bombing Maiduguri, the capital of Borno which before Buhari came to power had been regarded as a fortress in the war-torn North East. In one night, Boko Haram set up three bombs in the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja.
The terrorist group killed more people under Buhari that it did under Jonathan, statistically, and ended up being named the most deadly terrorist group in the world.
Then, Buhari went on television and told the world that he is pleading with the terrorists to accept an amnesty deal. Can you believe that?
5. Economy: Buhari promised 3 million NEW jobs a year. But, what have we had under his leadership? Over 1 million people lost their jobs while Buhari has been fiddling in Aso Rock in between flying around the world and declaring all Nigerians, but himself, thieves. Businesses were destroyed, our stock market crashed, Nigeria got delisted from the JP Morgan stock index, Nigeria’s currency went crashing, the economy tanked as foreign investors fled from the country.
To make matters worse, Buhari closed off Nigeria’s economy from international trade by banning transfer of dollars out of the country. Just this week, Nigerians can no longer use their ATM cards abroad.
And in one year, JUST ONE YEAR, by 2016, ending if Buhari has his way, he would add 40 billion dollar debt compared to the 60 billion dollar debt we have amassed since 1960.
This is a man who promised 500,000 instant jobs if he got elected.
6. Respect For The Rule of Law: Buhari went to Chatham House in the UK and declared himself a “reformed democrat” who was going to respect the rule of law and the constitution of Nigeria. Just last week, the same Buhari went on television and revealed that he doesn’t have an iota of respect for our laws and that he would disobey the courts and trample on the human rights of citizens if he disagreed with the courts’ decisions.
Buhari has shown he is still the brutal despotic dictator he was in the 1984. Left to him, he would suspend the constitution and just be a supreme maximum ruler oppressing and suppressing anyone who sneezes the way he doesn’t like.
In as much as I saw through Buhari’s lies during the campaigns, I couldn’t have imagined that things would go so bad, and so fast.
I almost forgot… Buhari woke up one day and denied all his campaign promises… What a fraud!
Cheer up, Buhari voters. Cheer up. You are not the first people to fall victim to 419. You won’t be the last. You are not the first ‘ashewo’ paid with counterfeit dollars. Anybody can ‘fall mugu’. It just happened to be your turn in 2015.
But to think that Buhari thinks he can still deceive you by declaring that he has won the war against Boko Haram… The dude has got balls, mehn.
You see, when a man successfully deceives a girl and screws her… He starts thinking he has the best game in the world. He starts feeling like a superstar. He thinks that she would keep falling for him all the time, no matter how ridiculous his tricks. That is how Buhari is treating his supporters. Don’t worry, people. God is watching him.
Shame to Buhari for deceiving 15 million Nigerians. Shame on those who take advantage of the gullible. Shame on Buhari, he is not a good man. Shame on the over 80-year-man who deceived tech savvy youth of his country.
Ena Ofugara studied law in the University of Benin for some years before leaving Nigeria for the United States where he is studying while working. He has a passion for Nigeria. He has a clear bias for his people of the Niger Delta and he believes the Nigerian system – justice, social, economic – is rigged against his people. So he became a social and political commentator to highlight this injustice. Connect with him on Facebook.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
