My Response To An Argument In A WhatsApp Group About Buhari and Jonathan -By Fr. John Oluoma

Demonizing a candidate you didn’t vote for, canonisisng a candidate you voted for are two extremes that will take us no where. There is no saint or demon Buhari, there’s no saint or demon Jonathan, those appellations exist in the head of their adorers or haters.

In my opinion, you measure a leader by his performance in the different sectors of a nation ( economy, security, health, education, sense of belonging etc). Give him credit where he’s done well, give him a knock where he’s poor.

Then for Nigeria, we are yet to objectively and honestly look at the real causes of our crawling progress and speeding retrogression. These causes go beyond a president, they are fundamental, they are structural and deeply constitutional. Until we deal with them, Nigeria may never experience organic growth.

Take economy for eg, there are things on FG exclusive list that slow or stifle growth through competitiveness. By law( if I’m right), the president must appoint a minister from each state, to meet this demand, more ministries had to be created not from the logic of economic neccesity or value, but from need to appoint someone from every state. That’s how we do many other things in Nigeria to accommodate tribal, ethnic and religious sentiments that add nothing to the economy. It is quite possible that the creation of ministers of state for this or that also came from this.

Compare this with US or UK. US is larger than Nigeria, has more states, how many people did Biden or his predecessors appoint? They don’t do that much bc they have a system that runs efficiently by merit and not political fiat. The Nigerian president not only appoints ministers, he appoints board members of parastatals and agencies, which means these parastatals and agencies have a lifespan of election cycle, giving no room for the efficiency that comes from stability.

So the chairman of a particular parastatal knows he has just few years to live, what do you think will be uppermost in his mind if not to get as much for himself as possible. No long term plan. Some of the Parastatals are even parasites, a good number of the agencies and commissions are vampires.

In Nigeria, we have ministry of information, presidential media aides, special assistants on media, in addition to state owned and controlled Radio and TV, odiegwu . We have Inspector General of police, we have police service commission, we have police affairs ministry and still police no well at all with all the multiple bodies. It’s absolute madness.

How issues like these evade our attention and the intellectual circles befuddles me. All these are the structural issues with Nigeria. The 1999 constitution is an octopus of ambiguities and contradictions. It solves little problems by creating big bad ass ones. It’s a ravenous wolf disguised with charming smile. It’s a vicious cycle spinner, a cosmetic surgeon pretending to be a real surgeon.

Do I need to talk about the incursion of religion into the constitution? A constitution that flirts with organized religion but pretends to be faithful to her secular state. A constitution that confuses freedom of religion with frolicking and adoption of religion.

Under this constitution and the structural imbroglios it rascally creates, Nigeria’s match to progress will most likely be by limps.
It saddens me that majority of Nigerians only gets a misty realization of these problems in election season.

Check out the list of candidates contesting for the National Assembly, a good number are governors whose appalling performances in their states happen to be the only visible thing about them. Nigerians, we got to do better. Let’s muster the courage to confront the crucial issues of our constitution and structures of governance.
I don dey tire to talk about am sef😢🙄