Demola Olanrewaju,
an aide to Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP), says President Muhammadu Buhari has failed to fulfil the promises
made in the manifesto that brought him to power in 2015.
Olanrewaju spoke on Thursday during the monthly ‘Thursday
Talks’ by EiE.
The virtual conversation, a monthly programme focused on
engaging thought leaders, was moderated by Deborah Tolu-Kolawole, a journalist.
Buhari became Nigeria’s president in 2015, ending the
16-year rule of the PDP.
He was re-elected for a second term in office in 2019 and is
scheduled to hand over power to Bola Tinubu, the president-elect, on May 29.
Assessing the eight years of the Buhari administration,
Olanrewaju said: “APC was voted in 2015 on the promise of change, and APC got
and effected a change of promise”.
He added that “nobody attaches credibility to promises made
by politicians anymore because of the inability of this administration to keep
its promise”.
“We must cast our
mind back to the promises made by APC in 2015 en route to taking over from the
PDP. I think it’s quite obvious that if you look at those promises and the reality
on the ground today, the APC has simply not fulfilled its promises. Buhari has
simply not fulfilled the promises that brought him into power,” he said.
“The government came in with high hopes that began to be
dashed gradually.
“There was a sense of Buhari’s administration not being a
reflection of any other administration simply because APC had criticised the
previous government for some of the things that they turned around to do; in
terms of the integrity of elections, insecurity, and ideas on how to make
Nigeria work.
“There were also attempts by this administration to distance
itself from its own promises. Buhari promised ‘restructuring’ when he got into
power, and he said he did not understand what restructuring means anymore.
“Basically, APC was
voted in 2015 on the promise of change, and APC effected a change of promise.
Based on that, I think the Buhari administration has not lived up to the
billing of its promise.”
On his part, Oluseyi Olufemi, a data journalist, said while
the Buhari administration ranked high in some aspects of state management, the
government failed in economics and human rights issues.
“In terms of economics, that was a greater decline. The
Buhari administration scored the lowest. Things have gotten worst than they
used to be,” he said.
“In terms of the number of refugees and internally displaced
people (IDPs), that increased drastically also under Buhari compared to other
governments. Human rights abuse was also worse.”
Add Comment