Consummate Economist and former Anambra State governor, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, is not one that shoots his arrows below the hips. Since the uncertain days of the dreaded regime of the late General Sani Abacha, Ezeife has been speaking out against injustice and dictatorship. Even with the onset of the present civilian dispensation, he has always made his views known, regardless of who is in power. It is in keeping with that courageous carriage that he talks to Special Correspondent, OKEY MADUFORO, on President Muhammadu Buhari’s one year in office, describing it as an outright failure.
How would you rate Buhari’s one year in office?
All I can say is that we Nigerians should pray for Mr. President. Yes, he needs prayers so that the pathetic failure that we have witnessed in this one year does not happen again. All that he promised to do during his election campaigns have been forgotten. He has failed to keep at least one of his promises during the campaigns. It is really unfortunate that a lot of things were said about him and he made several pronouncements; but nothing, absolutely nothing, has been done by his administration.
People looked up to him to make a difference, but what we see today is a total disappointment. He said he would make the difference, but one now wonders if his predecessor is not better than him.
Look at our economy and you will discover that it is making a nose-dive, getting worse. How much is a dollar to the naira? What has he done in terms of basic infrastructure?
We in the South East geo-political zone have been at the receiving end of his administration. When you talk about security meetings, no single Igbo man attends. So how can he appreciate the problems of our zone? Virtually everything he does is against the South East and it appears that he has this hatred for Ndigbo of the South East.
When the herdsmen attacked our people, he was dragging his feet, and immediately the Niger Delta boys struck, he declared war on them. I do not want to believe that Mr. President has an agenda against our people. The South East zone, today, celebrates one year of hate by Mr. President.
How about his anti-corruption war; are you not satisfied with the success being recorded in the agenda?
Every new government starts with probing the past administration and at the end of the whole thing the so-called recovered money can never be accounted for. So what is the point? When you want to fight corruption, you take it all, whole and entire, and not to go after those who are constructively critical about your government.
Is Mr. President telling Nigerians that nobody in his party is corrupt? He said that people should come up with a proof and I ask: those that are being prosecuted who brought those evidence? You cannot spend four years fighting corruption when there are lots of work to be done.
We heard about the Abacha loot. And I ask, where did the money recovered go to? The common Nigerians in the rural and urban areas are not interested in how much you recovered; what they want is social security and provision of basic infrastructure. They need steady supply of electricity, water, good road, effective healthcare services, security of life and property and all that. If you fail to do that, consider yourself a failure.
What then do you suggest as the way forward?
The only remedy is for Mr. President to be focused and run an inclusive government. We are no longer in the military era where we were governed by decrees. This is democracy and he must subject himself to the rule of law and nothing more.
He should look into the problems of the oil and gas sector. You do not wake up one morning and fix the pump price of fuel at N145 and expect Nigerians to celebrate you. I have my fear that if he continues like this, our country is doomed for life.
