Kaduna state governor, Nasir El-Rufai, in a strongly worded letter titled, “Immediate and Medium Term Imperatives for President Muhammadu Buhari“ has called on the President to take charge of the nation’s affairs and deal with the political and economic challenges the country is facing.
Here are 10 things the governor said in the letter dated September 22, 2016.
1. “You have to run again in 2019 if your objectives of national restoration, economic progress and social justice are to be attained in the medium and long term.”
2. “You have inherited serious political, economic and governance problems…. and we (in APC) have made this situation worse by failing to be proactive.”
3. “You got elected in spite of our party leadership, and not due to its wholehearted support.”
4. “You have politically naive ‘advisers’…. (but) it is not too late to reverse the situation.”
El-Rufai mentions Babachir David Lawal (Secretary to the Government of the Federation) and Abba Kyari (President Buhari’s Chief of Staff) as the people who are supposed to carry out the role of political advisers, adding that they have failed.
He said Babachir is “inexperienced in public service but is lacking in humility, insensitive and rude to virtually most of the party leaders, ministers and governors”.
He added that Abba Kyari is “clueless” about the APC, being that he was not involved in theparty’s formulation and all the events that brought Buhari to power.
5. APC needs “surgical operation”.
6. Work with judiciary and national assembly to succeed.
7. Deal with the corruption and bureaucracy in the Federal civil service
8. You must communicate, clearly, to the people the bad choices that led Nigeria to where it is now. However, you cannot continue to rely on this “blame them” explanation.
9. “No one cares about, or will ‘help’ (Nigeria) unless we get our act together and organize our political economy and national affairs to be regionally, continentally and globally competitive.”
10. The governor gave 4 challenges that must be tackled to make Nigeria’s economy globally competitive.
They are: Oil Revenue Addiction; Rentier Economy, Perverse Incentives; Persistent Infrastructure Deficit; and Absence of a Clear National Strategy of Export Orientation and/or Import Substitution.
