He's much more interested in himself than good governance. Yesufu

The silver of hope occasioned by the election of President Muhammadu Buhari three years ago, according to BBOG co-convener, Aisha Yesufu, is gradually being eroded as the APC-led administration continues its steady progression in error (her words). In an exclusive chat
with Saturday Vanguard, the courageous woman said incumbent administration must understand that the people are no longer gullible as they were years ago. Aisha Yesufu She said: “The citizens are watching and are becoming increasingly aware of what is going on in their country. And we are seeing now that the Buhari administration is more interested in itself than it is in giving out good governance. It has been quite disappointing that all the mistakes made by the previous administration are being made by this administration and more are being made as we speak and I think Nigerians are not fools. We are much wiser than we were a few years ago. People are more enlightened, more emboldened and they know what their rights are in a democracy. They are coming into the realization that it is no longer military era and that they do matter and that they have a role in the way their country is being governed.” Given the horror of Chibok tragedy, Yesufu said with Buhari’s election, Nigerians nursed the possibilities of fresh experiences, lamenting however that hell has been allowed to hide in some parts of the country where insurgents still kidnap with little or no resistance. “The reason Chibok girls were abducted was because of failure of governance and we see that again on February 19, 2018 when Dapchi girls were also abducted. Dapchi girls were never supposed to have been abducted because as a nation, we ought to have learned from the Chibok girls’ tragedy and ensure that something like that never happened again. But it happened in this administration and till now, we have a girl, Leah Sharibu still in captivity because the government failed. “Five girls are said to have been killed, largely because government failed. And what is more annoyingly worrisome is that till now, the parents of Leah have not been contacted by the government of President Buhari. Nobody has deemed it fit and respectful to meet them and say to them, this is what we are doing to ensure that your daughter is brought back. It is quite amazing that they did negotiate and left a girl behind with the terrorists. “Again, the parents of the five girls that are said to have been killed; the government of Buhari did not deem it respectful to meet with them to inform them of their daughters’ death. They got to know about it like every other person on the pages of newspapers and in the media. You would have expected that the government would have met and talk with them,” she added. So, would this play a part in the President’s quest for a re-election? “We are not a partisan organization and it is not about who occupies the Office of the President. What matters to us are good governance and the return of Nigerians that are still in the captivity of the terrorists,” she noted. “We must have transparency in everything that we do. In the last administration, money was voted for the purchase of weapons procurement but they were not bought and we realized the money was being shared amongst people. There was opaqueness and no transparency and that is what we are seeing right now. If we continue to allow this process of withdrawal without regards to the constitution, the process will be abused,” she stressed, even as she faulted the “technical defeat” of the Boko Haram terrorists claim by the military not long ago. “We heard Boko Haram had been technically defeated but the same terrorists that were said to have been defeated were able to come to a school , abduct girls and drove hundreds of kilometres without coming across any security agent on the way. BBOG is saying that there need to be an audit of the security framework to know what is going on. Enough of this opaqueness because this is what breeds about corruption; we need an independent audit of the whole war against terrorism,” she added. It is still a fairly long walk to the polls, but there is a growing conviction amongst Nigerians of voting age that the 2019 elections would be characterised by politics of ideas, not of promises. Across the land, sobs of the most painful grief are welling up in the people’s spirit; however, the Buhari administration must as a matter of national importance, restore hope by stemming the spate of horrendous killings in various part of the country.






Vanguardngr.