APC DO NOT NEED TO BEG NIGERIANS FOR VOTE

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Tajudeen Sadiq

When a child does excellently in school, the parents will not feel reluctant to buy what that child asks of them. But when it is otherwise, even the child will not be able to confront the parents. Why should All Progressive Congress, APC, take any opportunity given to them in an occasion to tell Nigerians to vote for Buhari in 2019? Had it been they are sure of what they have done for the past three years of their administration, they do not need to use all their veins to tell Nigerians they are trying. By what they have done, and what they are doing, Nigerians will say they are. It is because Nigerians thought they will do better that they came out massively to vote out Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in 2015.

For instance, after spending more than almost three decades in prison, Nelson Mandela became the first black South African’s president. He did not ask for second term; South Africans asked him, but he did not. It was an opportunity for him to go once again because he did well the first term. Which even mean he did not need to contest then for him to become the president for another term. That means you do not need to beg, if people really feel your impact in place, or if you are good for the job once more. Truly, he was old, but the masses felt he could still do the job. Buhari is also old, and if he had done like Nelson Mandela in the first post-Apartheid system in South Africa, he does not need his beneficiaries to campaign for him, Nigerians will campaign for him even before INEC (Independent Electoral Commission) lift the ban for campaign.

Unfortunately, while the beneficiaries of his party try to make a justification in every occasion they go, they have failed to answer what they are being asked. If what I did is good, I will be free to do anything anywhere. But if what I did is bad I will just be making excuses thinking I am saying the truth, and that is what APC is doing now.

I did not dispute that the country was not balanced when he came to power. But, I want his lovers and Nigerians to know Nigeria was not balanced when General Muritala Muhammed became the Head of State in 1975, though, illegitimately. In less than two hundred days, Nigerians felt his impact, as the country progressed. No argument, the government was a military government, and this is a civilian government. If I may ask, why is it that majority of Nigerians were happy when he was in power? Even some questioned if he was the messiah Nigeria was waiting for then. What is the essence if the people enjoyed a military government for six months, but the people have been suffering under a civilian government for almost three and half years? If possible, would a lot of Nigerians today draw back the hands of the clock and still have that same man, Muritala Muhammed of 1975, who was a military government than to have the current civilian president, who is Muhammadu Buhari of today?

Nigerians had expected much from Buhari because he had promised Nigerians a lot before he became the president. A lot of Nigerians thought he was the messiah in 2015, during his campaign. APC and Buhari promised to empower graduates which I have seen some of them benefiting from it. But, ask APC, were they able to empower every graduate. And if yes, are graduates the only one in need of empowerment in Nigeria? Nigerians were promised the reduction of fuel price after six months. Also, the former Lagos State governor, and Minister of Power, Work and Housing; Babatunde Raji Fashola promised Nigerians adequate power supply but till date, the power has only enjoyed minimally partial improvement in some parts of the country. Nigerians gave much to APC and Buhari in 2015, but what they gave back cannot even be quantified as little.

Now, since APC do not have another strategy for deception, all APC could tell youth is to vote Buhari, if they want president from their geographical zone in 2023. What is APC telling youths? Do they mean youths should not vote the person who can build and restructure the country, if the person is not from their geographical area; but rather vote a brother or father who may not be good for the job and whom Nigerians will not feel his impact in the country? Can they answer and explain this very well?

Truly, APC has come to help two thousand petty traders with twenty million Naira; each petty trader with #10,000. But, first, why could they not help them since their first year in office, why when election is at the corner? Also, what can the sum of #10,000 buy with the alarming cost of living and standard of living? Perhaps, it is because they know majority of these petty traders find it very difficult to get someone who will borrow them such amount. So, even APC knows that a lot of Nigerians are swimming in abject poverty and that is why they brought those monies out to confuse people before 2019 general election. Or they came to convince, to make Nigerians forget the challenges they have been facing for the past three years that APC has been in power?

Corruption is of different types, sure, but I do not know what APC calls its own form of corruption. APC systematically refuses to accept that its members are not corrupt. When a party says it is not corrupt, it is expected of every member of it to be blameless also. But this same body who says it is not corrupt has produced two different ministers, who both, do not have NYSC certificates, one even forged hers, and still escaped untouched. APC and Buhari say they are fighting corruption but I have not known till date what corruption really means. Could Buhari and APC explain thoroughly what ‘corruption’ means to Nigerians?

No! I am not justifying or saying a party is better than the other, but what I am saying is, if they have done well, they do not need to tell Nigerians that they have done a lot. Nigerians themselves will justify it, since they are no one blind. But under this administration, even a lot of civil servants have faced the ague of bad politics and governance. When the country was in recession, their salaries did not change, there was increment in the price of goods and services, and even the salaries were not paid on time, especially in some APC-governed states. I do not think a party that was not able to do something tangible in four years, could do something if still given the opportunity in four years. So, now, it is left to you and I, as Nigerians, to vote for individual not party; because party makes a manifesto while the individual implements it. If a party has a good manifesto and the candidate of the party is selfish, the manifesto becomes useless.

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