As Nigeria Bleeds At 57: Buhari Government Must Return To Int’l Best
Practices Of Governance And Stop Breeding Local And Int’l Enmities
------Intersociety
(1st October 2017)-The present Federal Government of Nigeria headed by
Retired Major Gen Muhammadu Buhari and Prof Yemi Osinbajo is steadily
losing its slim chance of putting the Federation of Nigeria and its
175million People back on track in matters of civil and constitutional
governance.  The Administration must also return the country to
international best practices of governance and stop breeding local and
international enmities or earning itself a regional and international
pariah status. The Administration’s hard and atrocious stance on
collective issues of governance has gravely put the country at
crossroads and dangers of alarming proportions at local, regional and
international scenes.
At 57, Nigeria and Peoples of the country comprising 383 tribes, 400
languages and multi religions are more divided, segregated, polarized,
balkanized, frightened, terrorized, impoverished, starved and
under-developed especially in the past two years of the
Buhari/Osinbajo Administration. The level of State and non State actor
violence, militarization and terrorization of political space and the
citizenry; and shrinking of citizens’ constitutional liberties is not
only second to none in democratic Nigeria, but also capable of
exploding  and enveloping the entire country with hybrid civil
violence of widespread and intractable magnitudes. It is also correct
to say that the Administration is dangerously taking Nigeria and its
175million to the Somali way (i.e. failed and intractably fragmented
state).
It is now a truism that the greatest threats to Nigeria’s Unity and
Oneness are not ordinary Nigerians including the People of Igbo Race,
but President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, the
present Service Chiefs, the Police IGP and other key cabinet members
of the present Federal Executive Council, including Alhaji Lai
Mohammed, who appears to be one of the greatest tragedies that have
befallen the Administration since its inception on 29th May 2015.
Apart from earning notoriety in propaganda and official falsehood, the
said Information Minister has further let loose, to the extent of
engaging in international blackmailing and stampeding of key members
of the international community including Permanent Security Members of
the United Nations Security Council; namely: EU, US, UK, France and
Russia; by dictating to them how to operate within international best
practices and laws and conduct their diplomatic activities. It is now
a case of an antelope tormenting a lion in its den or territory.
Stampeding and blackmailing international community into labeling or
tagging innocent members of the Igbo Race per IPOB as a terror race is
a height of diplomatic hara-kiri or suicide and crossing of
international redlines.
We make bold to say that there is no difference between the position
of the international community including the Commonwealth of Nations
in 1995 when the Abacha military’s inglorious epoch resorted to
judicial infamy and murder, resulting in the hanging of “Ogoni Nine”
(inclusive of Ken Saro Wiwa) and the recent vindictive, wicked, hasty,
hurried, militarist and unconstitutional proscription by the present
Buhari/Osinbajo Administration of the Igbo Race per IPOB as “a terror
race/organization”.
The referenced act constitutes both psychological and physical war
declaration against an unarmed, defenseless and peaceful race or
population using all kinds of government arsenal including militarized
judiciary and force of arms. The act also brazenly wears the outlook
of retroactive pronouncements and punishments; which are gravely
unconstitutional and below the international best practices, leading
to present grounded stance of the international community including
key members of the world super powers (EU, US, UK and France).
Blackmailing and stampeding the international community and world
super powers to join the lopsided composed Federal Government of
Nigeria in its latest conduct deformities is official propaganda,
falsehood and provocation taken too far. To the extent of assembling
and paying again the same people that were hired and paid barely two
months ago to besiege the Amnesty Int’l office in Abuja and US Embassy
in Lagos in phantom anti AI and US protests; to hold to ransom and
ground the business activities of US Embassy in Nigeria in the name of
another anti “US pro IPOB terror activities”’ protests; is a height of
diplomatic and international provocation.
If the present militocracy of the Buhari Administration is pushing it
to stampede, blackmail and provoke the west including USA, then
Nigeria and its 175million People are in danger or endangered. The
recent purchase or moves to purchase 12 Super Tucano jet fighters
valued at $593million or purchase of  MiG 35 fighters, Yak-130
aircrafts, artillery equipment and armoured vehicles from Russia, or
donation by the Hashermite Kingdom of Jordan of 200 rickety and smoky
armoured tanks and war helicopters or reception of Four Super Mushshak
Jet Fighters from Pakistan; etc must not give the Buhari/Osinbajo
Administration impression that it has arrived militarily, to the
extent of now blackmailing, verbally attacking and provoking key
members of the international community especially US, UK and France.
The present Federal Government of Nigeria must tread softly and
cautiously internally, regionally and internationally. Republics of
Iraq and Libya were once noted as antagonistic countries with
sophisticated military hardware and software. Before the 1991 Gulf
War, for instance, Iraq used to have over 320 sophisticated war planes
with other hi-tech military arsenals, mostly assembled in its
undergrounds. At the height of similar international provocation, its
run-away terminals of its military airports were targeted and
destroyed by more advanced US warplanes and all the Iraq war jets were
grounded in a twinkle of an eye and reduced to rubbles.
Today, it is 57years of sorrowful and anguish nationhood with all
indices weighing brutally negative against Nigeria and designating it
as polarized and failed state. Nigeria under Buhari/Osinbajo
Administration cannot be measured or factored into any of the Seven
Dimensions of Human Security; intellectualized and conceptualized by
the UNDP in 1992 and packaged for public governance in developing
countries such as Nigeria.
Rather, Nigeria, especially under the present central Government has
decayed and dangerously relapsed to the status of the least developing
country and highly indebted poor country (HIPC) status.  That is to
say that Nigeria at 57 under Buhari/Osinbajo Administration is a
colossal failure. None of the seven dimensions of human security:
territorial security, personal security, food security, health
security, community security, economic security and environmental
security is tangibly and intangibly put in place in Nigeria in the
past two years.
The country and its central Government as presently constituted
virtually rely on huge internal and external borrowings to sustain its
over-bloated and alarming cost of governance. Its capital budget is
barely 30% of the annual federal budget; yet it is still characterized
by half-baked implementation and project execution that is cloaked in
white-elephantism.
Statistically, the Buhari/Osinbajo Administration has in two years
borrowed 40% of Nigeria’s total domestic and foreign debts. In June
2007, according to Nigeria’s Debts Management Office (DMO), Obasanjo
Administration left a total of $16.5billion as local and foreign
debts; comprising N1.8t or $13b local debts and $3.5b foreign
debts(using then official exchange rate of N140 per $USD).


In June 2015, the Jonathan Administration, inclusive of that of late
Yar’Ardua left a total of $45b or N12.2t (N197 per $USD). In the past
two years, or from 30th June 2015 to 30th June 2017, a period of two
years or since the inception of the present central Government of
Buhari/Osinbajo, Nigeria’s total local and foreign debts had risen to
N19.16t or $65b (using present official rate of N305 per $USD); sowing
that over N7t or $25b has been borrowed. These did not include the
$30b foreign loans being sourced by the Administration from various
lending institutions around the world.
By the end of June 2019, Nigeria’s total official debts stocks must
have risen to N28.5t or over $95billion especially when the $30b
foreign loans under borrowing must have been fully followed and
captured by the DMO and the NBS. For more information concerning the
Buhari’s debt-mania, please see the following link
http://www.newsexpressngr.com/news/30045-Intersociety-moves-against-Buharis-bid-to-borrow-30-billion-warns-of-consequences.
In all these borrowings, the critical social sectors including key
infrastructure development, maintenance and management as well as
provision and delivery of social services are still left in a worse
and worrisome state.  Apart from brazen militarization of political
space and State terrorization of citizens of Nigeria and flooding of
the country’s armories with State and non State actor procured Small
Arms and aerial weaponry; most of them rickety, smoky and outmoded;
the country’s federal road network is in acute sorry state.
Energy crisis has risen to an apogee, direct foreign investment has
dropped and shrunk sharply, education and health institutions are in
shambles, local industries and industrial growth are at their lowest
ebb, institutional corruption has not only quadrupled, but also become
scientific, and youth militancy and restiveness occasioned by acute
unemployment have soared intractably.
We make bold to say that Nigeria at 57 is nothing but celebration of
hopelessness and double digit negativities in all indices of Human
Security and its Seven Dimensions. The Buhari/Osinbajo Administration
is therefore called upon to rewind and reverse before the slim chance
slips off its hands. Nigeria and its 175million People must be
returned to the international best practices of governance, rule of
law, constitutionalism and internationalism.
The  reversal being demanded from the Buhari/Osinbajo Administration
must include: immediate de-proscription of the Igbo Race per IPOB as a
terror race and accompanying open government apology to Igbo Race,
mass sacking of all members of the Service Chiefs and the IGP of
Police; immediate dissolution of the Federal Executive Council
including sacking of Alhaji Lai Mohammed as Minister of  Information;
de-blackmailing and de-stampeding of international community including
EU, US, France, UK, etc and accompanying government open apology to
them.
Others are: de-militarization and de-radicalization of Nigerian
military and the democratic space, de-terrorization of 175million
People of Nigeria, reconstitution and re-composition of the Federal
Government of Nigeria and its FEC and Service Chiefs in line with
Section 14 (3) of the Constitution or geopolitical spread; withdrawal
of soldiers and other members of the Armed Forces from the arenas of
all parts of the country, except the Northeast States of Borno,
Adamawa and Taraba;  release and de-criminalization of all innocent
members of the Igbo Race and their South-south counterparts wickedly
tagged “ IPOB terrorists” and comprehensive criminal investigation of
all cases of gross abuses of human rights in Nigeria including Shiite
and IPOB massacres, etc.
Signed:
For: Int’l Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety)
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chair
Mobile Line: +2348174090052
Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Esq.
Head, Civil Liberties & Rule of Law Program
Chinwe Umeche, Esq.
Head, Democracy & Good Governance Program