7th May, 2013
It is sad that more than two years to the presidential election in 2015, governance has been largely abandoned by the Goodluck Jonathan administration for politicking. In fact, governance has taken a flight for political squabbles towards 2015 elections to dominate our airwave.
Rather than face the task of providing effective governance for the people, what we keep reading in the papers are moves by the government to consolidate its hold on governance in 2015 by crushing every perceived contender or opposition to President Jonathan’s desire to run for a second term in office.
We are amazed that a government that rode to victory in 2011 on the wings of transformation has not done anything significant to implement its transformation agenda for the country, two years after it came into power.
Rather than meet the needs of the people, the Goodluck Jonathan administration has devoted a large part of its time to fighting the opposition. As it is now, the president is fighting political battles on all fronts. Just as he is fighting the opposition which has mobilised to dislodge him from power, come 2015, the president is also battling with internal dissents within the rank of his party, the PDP.
In his region, southsouth, the president is waging an atrocious proxy battle against the incumbent Governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, in an effort to consolidate his hold on the region before the 2015 election. In his desperation to control the state, the Presidency influenced the judiciary to sack the PDP executive in the state. To make its intention clear, a caretaker committee, comprising loyalists of the president was constituted. The committee has been waging war against the governor and those perceived as his loyalists. This culminated in the sacking of 27 members of the state House of Assembly from the party.
In continuation of his war against the governor, the presidency has grounded the state’s aircraft on a flimsy excuse. It is regrettable that governance has been relegated to the background for politicking and the people are being made to suffer.
With every passing day, things are getting worse. Citizens are finding it difficult to survive. There is a lot of groaning in the land. Right now, power supply in the country has gone so bad. A lot of people and companies now use generating sets to generate power for their daily activities. Small and medium scale companies have had to reduce production because of the high cost of powering their generating sets, yet the government feels all is well.
Unemployment has reached an all time high. Our unemployed graduates have now turned to kidnapping and armed robbery to survive. Even the purchasing power of workers has gone so low that they cannot meet their basic needs through their salaries.
The country’s infrastructure has also gone from bad to worse. Our roads are now death traps as dozens of travellers die on them every day.
Instead of fixing our poor healthcare system, patients are left at the mercy of donors to get money to travel abroad for the treatment of their ailments that ordinarily could be treated in the country. It is lamentable that the government has virtually abandoned the people to suffer for another mandate, come 2015.
It is time for Nigerians to rise up and demand real governance from this administration.
We also want to advise the administration to stop overheating the polity for a race that is still very far. It should face the task of meeting the needs of the people. There are so many issues begging for government’s attention. Nigerians must learn from all that is happening now and ensure that they vote in a government that will meet their needs and aspirations in 2015.