Buhari’s Incompetence: I Saw It- By Joseph Edgar

Investment Banker and writer Joseph Edgar has written a very strong piece on the Buhari led administration’s performance so far. Read below:

Look I saw this one legged approach to governance long before the elections. I tried to say it but my tiny voice was drowned by the baying mob of change seekers who refused to see beyond the emotional lynch mob who saw all the evil in the world in Jonathan.
We all failed to look at his past performance as a hamstrung military dictator whose main achievements where the war against indiscipline and the long prison terms that were handed over to hapless politicians. I knew it will come to this, I knew that the only song he could sing was that of the anti corruption lame song.

Even with that, I knew he would still be stunted. I knew he would not achieve much in a democratic state where he would just not be able to throw people into jail without recourse to the judicial system. He has cried out in frustration that the judiciary was aiding and abetting the corrupt officials. What did he expect, that he would just catch people and throw them into the gulag just like that? See the way Sambo Dasuki is embarrassing him in the courts and his personal vendetta against that one is so glaring that it’s almost childish.

Look our problems today is much more than corruption. The way things are, I do not even care about any corruption again, I have even began to miss Jonathan’s corruption. We need to reflate this economy, this Buhari’s regime as presently configured does not have the capacity to understand that and is technically bereft to offer immediate solutions.

Did you all read that foreign opinion which circulated last week. Did you see how they insinuated that these gerontocrats archaic policies was driving away investors. No good news is coming out of our land. Foreign businesses especially South African businesses are being targeted. Just recently the huge Supermarket which employs thousands of Nigerians have been shut down claiming that they are selling expired products. This is a copy cat move by the Lagos government following the ‘body Language’ they have read from the Federal Government. The implications of this on Foreign Investment and the signal to the economy is lost on these useless marauders.

Today instead of a systematic policy of integration and a coordinated assault on the economy from both the fiscal and monetary angles what we get is a military type regime of fines. My brother at the last count, MTN, Guinness are suffering and I am sure a lot more is coming. This is bully economic tactics. How this will resolve long term infrastructural issues and worsening economic indices beats me.

Today anytime our lanky President speaks, it’s about corruption, looters secretly returning the funds and how the judiciary is not helping him jail people. His advisers are left with nothing to proclaim but his body language as his achievements. Which body language can you read from a man who is almost permanently in the air. Fourteen foreign trips in six months, billions spent on the Presidential fleet, nothing fundamental coming out of those trips. The sweet smell of change is gradually turning into a foul smell of fart coming out of Buhari’s backside.

We are hungry, we are loosing our jobs and crime is back with a vengeance, the rule of law is witnessing an unusual assault, small business is suffering the financial sector is in a comatose, ideas are drying up and the largest economy in Africa is on its knees in submission to a reformed dictator with no idea of modern economic trends surrounded by a band of advisers who remind me of drunken sailors in children fiction.

Kai, the Banks are beginning to show systemic distress. The CBN has come out to aggressively denounce it. They claim that no bank is in distress. That is the biggest lie from the pit of HELL. We know which banks are dying, we know which banks are no longer liquid and this thoughtless TSA policy is the main death knell to these Banks. The banks should have been given enough time to unlock their positions before this military type order which has led them to unraveling positions in almost a distress type sale to meet up the deadline and those who did not do that on time where slammed with monster fines. I can see that Baba is replacing long term jail sentences with world record fines. Laughter is my companion this Sunday morning as I write. Since the judiciary won’t allow convictions, then let’s slam Fines. Everything and everybody will be fined.

I saw this incompetence, I saw it very early and I shouted but like the lone voice in the wilderness I was not hearkened upon. Oh yea children of Nigeria, blood and sorrow will continue to be your plight until we stand up in one voice and shout the hallelujah by taking our own cross in our hands for we have no government.

The December deadline for the elimination of Boko Haram will certainly be another joke. I hear over 150 soldiers have been massacred recently. There has been no official confirmation so I will not comment, but whatever is the case, I still see the Boko Haram onslaught going far into our nearest future. The Biafrans are crying although misguided but the steam its gathering is being fueled by the frustrations of joblessness, fuel scarcity, harsh economic climate and rudderless leadership hence the seeming legitimacy of a very stupid and callous crusade.

Was Buhari prepared for this, I think not or why would it take him over six months to promulgate a cabinet of the usual suspects. If you were going to settle for Amaechi and Fashola why take that long. You see the mistake Buhari made was that unlike his predecessors Gowon and Obasanjo he never schooled himself after his overthrow. To the best of my knowledge he went back to Daura to his Cows neglecting to keep himself abreast with the happenings in global political economics. Obasanjo became a world statesman, engaging in various platforms of intellectual sagacity, delivering papers with global dimension and being respected for that. So when he came back, he understood the issues, the need for lesser government, the need to remove the subsidy on petrol, the need to create jobs, push for infrastructure and opening up the telecoms sector with little government involvement. What we saw was the foundations of the rebirth of the middle class and the continous push to the economic eldorado which crystallized in the Jonathan era.

Today what we are hearing is the over centralization of government. A policy of the 70s, a national carrier an idea that reminds you of cavemen tactics and a President who doubles as the Minister of Petroleum. We are back in the olden days of big government with its attendant inefficiencies, painfully slow policy formulation with little or no policy execution. The limiting of ground breaking ideas for fear of being clamped down or being totally ignored.

I saw it. I swear I saw it and I remain complacent fighting to keep a job that is being daily berated with thankless policies which continue to constrict the economy. Buhari, I thank you for the more people that Boko Haram has killed, for the businesses that have died and for the ones that cannot pay salaries, thank you sir. We will soon meet at the polls.

I saw this. I swear, I saw it.

Joseph Edgar is an  investment banker, award winning writer/author,  and non conformist.

He writes mostly from a satirical point of view and also comments on socio-economic issues.

He blogs at josephedgarng.bogspot.com