President Buhari As A One Man Government

                                                                                    

                        President Muhammadu Buhari   

It is evident that President Muhammadu Buhari is poised to run a one man government considering the fact that he adamantly refused to appoint advisers and ministers to assist him to run the government. He has given uncountable flimsy excuses as to the reason why he has delayed in appointing ministers. First, he attributed his inability to appoint ministers to the rot and corruption in the land. According to Buhari, he needed enough time to enable him investigate and scrutinize Nigerians in order to get men and women of integrity. With this mindset, President Buhari perceives and considers himself as the only man of integrity in this country of 170 million people!

This is a fallacy because President Buhari is as corrupt as any other corrupt Nigeria being a coup plotter! Coup plotting is the greatest type of corrupt practice anybody can contemplate. Coup plotting can easily lead a country into a civil war like the January 15^th, 1966 coup led the country into a three year civil war that also caused the lives of more than 1.5 million Nigerians!

So, coup plotting is the greatest corrupt practice that is why it attracts the death penalty. No other corrupt practice attracts the death penalty like coup plotting. Has anybody be convicted and executed for financial corruption in Nigeria? None! But many coup plotters had been convicted and executed for coup plotting in Nigeria. This is in confirmation that coup plotting is the worst type of corrupt anyone can engaged in. With this scenario painted above, can President Buhari exonerate himself from corruption?

Besides that, when General Muhammadu Buhari was Minister of Petroleum between 1976-1979 under General Olusegun Obasanjo as Military Head of State, $2.8b got missing from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), yet Buhari, the self-styled man of integrity and honesty didn’t deem it fit to investigate how that colossal sums of money developed wings and flew from the coffers of the NNPC! It is worrisome that Buhari who couldn’t probe how $2.8b got missing from the NNPC under his watch is the same person who will not appoint ministers because he considers all Nigerians to be corrupt except himself. This is sanctimonious!

Second, President Buhari said he wants to purge the ministries before he appointment of ministers so that the civil servants will not contaminate them. If Buhari doesn’t want the civil servants to pollute the ministers when appointed, is it not better for the civil servants and ministries to be scrapped so that there will be no ministry where the civil servants will corrupt the ministers? If there is no need to appoint ministers now because of corruption, why do we have the President, Governors, National Assembly and the State Assemblies in place? If we don’t need ministers now because of corruption, we shouldn’t also have the President, Governors, National Assembly and the State Assemblies. Since there is corruption in Nigeria, there is no need for us to have a government; everybody should be a government to himself or there should be a vacuum. The delay in appointing ministers because of corruption is a clear plot to malign the offices of the ministers as the problem of this country, if not why will other government officials be in place except the ministers? Are ministers the only people that are corrupt in Nigeria? If ministers are the only corrupt people in Nigeria, I don’t think there will be problem of corruption because the ministers are only 36 people of the 170 million Nigerians. But does Buhari realize the calamity being unleashed on the country as a result of the absence of ministers? The country has been at a standstill since the inauguration of this government on May 29. And it will remain at a standstill till September, the month Buhari promised to appoint his ministers. If the permanent secretaries can run the ministries as being promoted by a few misguided Nigerians, such Nigerians should advise Buhari to send a bill to the National Assembly to abolish the offices of the ministers so that the permanent secretaries can take over the ministries!

Third, Buhari said 33 ministerial nominees failed integrity test. The questions discerning Nigerians are asking are: (a) who conducted the integrity test? (b) what was the content(s) of the integrity test? (c) why was the integrity test not made public? (d) who were the 33 ministerial nominees that failed the purported integrity test? These are imperative questions that need urgent answers so as to quiet the agitated minds of Nigerians. Four, let us agree that President Buhari is doing everything possible to avoid mistakes in choosing the ministers, how about his fifteen advisers the National Assembly has cleared for him? Why has he not assigned them to offices so they can assist him in running the country? Doesn’t Buhari have confidence in the advisers he has chosen too? Is Buhari the only man that has integrity in the entire Nigeria?  Can Buhari run the affairs of the country all alone?    

 President Buhari can’t run a one man government under the pretense that he wants to choose incorruptible men and women as ministers. There are many men and women of integrity in Nigeria from whom he can choose his ministers. It is not mandatory that Buhari should choose his ministers from the All Progressives Congress or his cronies who sponsored his political aspiration.