Kachikwu as a scapegoat of Tinubus' frustration

 

The mantra of ‘change’ mouthed by APC dur­ing the campaigns was so appealing at the time to Nigerians, such that when they ushered Muhammadu Bu­hari into office by voting out Jonathan, hope became the most abundant commodity in Nigeria. APC promised that they were going to recreate for Nigerians a heaven on earth, they were be­lieved and trusted, especially as that change was being steered by a man that was reputed to be a man of truth. For a country that places little premium on compe­tence and proven track record, not much thought was extended on Buhari’s ability to understand, not to talk of confronting the complex demands of modern times. Even those who had que­ried his intellectual capacity to face up to modern-day challeng­es were shouted down. Nigerians wanted their man; they got him.

Ten months into President Muhammadu Buhari’s APC ad­ministration, it has become ob­vious, even to the APC bosses themselves that talk is cheap, and that as the saying goes here in Nigeria, ‘khaki no be leather’.

One does not have to be in the opposition to accept that noth­ing is working in today’s Nige­ria or that the government is at sea over where next to turn. In the beginning, every bend on the road was blamed on the outgone administration of Presi­dent Jonathan as well as on the 16-year reign of the PDP, which in any case, was made up of most of today’s top-hats in the APC. The over-lapping messages of the campaign period had continued to work for the APC into the early months of the administra­tion, but it could not last forever. Propaganda, though effective on the short run, has a very quick expiry date. The APC’s campaign excuses and the blaming game days have also elapsed

For instance, there was no way the Buhari administration could continue to blame Goodluck Jonathan for his inability to pick ministers for six months; nor could PDP be blamed for having anything to do with the fact that when PMB eventually did pick his minsters, they were mostly lack-lustre and lacking in pedi­gree, accounting for the fact that the cabinet does not have a single person whose voice commands authority in the field of eco­nomic management. Many have wondered if the problem with the embarrassingly low quality of Buhari’s team is the lack of ca­pacity, ab initio, of the president to distinguish copper from gold.

Yet, there are many other in­formed observers who believe, like an article of faith, that the problem with the inertia of the current cabinet members who have definitely not performed might not be in their lack of ca­pacity, but rather, in the absence of a definite roadmap, as it is widely alleged that no minister can as much as sharpen a pencil without the president’s say-so. Which should not be a surprise, after all, over 90 per cent of them were picked not on their individ­ual merit but rather because they were cronies of either Buhari or Ahmed Tinubu, the ‘owner’ of the other half of the party that brought the votes.

Hence, in spite of the acknowl­edged capacity of the likes of Ba­batunde Fashola, Ibe Kachikwu and a few others who had shown capacity in the past, their low performance at their current posts has been manifestly dis­mal. In spite of what might be the wish of the regime’s Squealer, in the person of Lai Mohammed, to convince about the El Dorado that the Buhari administration promises, Nigerians have be­come like the proverbial blind man. You might be able to con­vince them that there is no oil in the food; you cannot convince them that there is no salt.

In the same token, nobody needs to sermonize to Nigeri­ans about the performance of Fashola at the Power Ministry or of Kachikwu at the Petroleum ministry and at the NNPC. More importantly, it should not be for­gotten that President Buhari had appropriated the senior min­isterial position in Petroleum, pushing Kachikwu, the acknowl­edged expert, to the subordinate level. So, the harrowing predica­ment of Nigerians with power which had peaked at more than 5000 meagwatts as Jonathan was leaving, and as the Buhari ad­ministration acknowledged that it had contributed zilch to the situation, has now gone down to as low as below 2000 mark, says everything about the per­formance of the current admin­istration. Not to talk about the fuel supply situation which has crippled the economy, by keep­ing Nigerians at a standstill, and against which the government, unfortunately, has no solution, both on the short and long term basis.

The fact remains that while most Nigerians cannot be both­ered about the lack of the for­eign exchange to send their chil­dren abroad or to import exotic goods or even to attend hospitals abroad, they cannot do without their fuel because life in Nige­ria runs on fuel. That is why the Buhari administration will be defined in weeks and months ahead by its ability to solve the current fuel scarcity crisis, for which it seems to have no clues.

That helplessness must have led to the frustration of the NNPC group MD, Ibe Kachik­wu, who last week, lamented to media people that the problem might linger to another two months – or definitely more. In parody of his boss who has con­tinued to maintain to Nigerians that he had promised change and not magic and that he has no magic wand against Nige­ria’s problems, Kachikwu also echoed the “I am no magician” statement last week. If he were a magician, he would have known how to solve Nigeria’s lingering fuel problems with his magic wand.

The growing frustration of the APC and their leaders has been obvious in the last few weeks, manifesting outwardly in the wranglings in the party ranks. The latest was the last week­end’s lash-out of Senator Ahmed Tinubu against Ibe Kachikwu for publicly acknowledging the administration’s inability to devise an early and workable solution to fuel scarcity. There are those, including this writer, who believes that Tinubu is be­ing unduly high-handed against Kachikwu, as he would have di­rected his frustration and anger towards the president, who is the substantive petroleum minster. For, if the president had a solu­tion, he would have passed it over to Kachikwu.

While we are at this, it is note­worthy to observe that what is happening should serve as the object lesson to the government which prefers cronyism over and above competence. The situa­tion at the Education Ministry where a journalist was made the senior minister over and above a professor of education, is a case in point. The first embarrass­ing fall-out was the fact that the president had to reverse the sack of governing councils and vice chancellors of federal universi­ties last week, because he belat­edly found out that he had bro­ken the law by hearkening to the counsel of his ignorant but over-zealous and clearly non-quali­fied education minister, who he had picked because he had been his long-time aide, right from his days at the PTF, during the Aba­cha regime. One wonders how many more times the president will reverse himself in the near future.

Finally, the Tinubus of this country should learn to, in their frustration over obtuse poli­cies, know where to place their blames. One of the character­istics of efficient people is that they call a spade a spade, and do not engage in play of words. Kachikwu is a thoroughbred professional and does not need Tinubu or the jumble that is APC administration to prove himself.

So, when next Tinubu needs people to vent his spleen on, let him pick on the president on whose table the buck stops. Fail­ing in that, he can pick on the likes of the finance minister or the power minister who have thrown Nigerians into confusion and darkness.

 

-AUTHORITY