At dawn on July 23, this year, President Muhammadu Buhari returned to Nigeria after a fourday state visit to the United States of America. In addition to firing up diplomatic relations between both countries which went limp after former president Goodluck Jonathan declined American pressure to ratify gay marriage in Nigeria, the visit was successful for many reasons.
For one thing, the visit provided the platform on which the African giant successfully leveraged upon to secure a S21.1b loan facility from the World Bank. Apart from facilitating the reconstruction of the insurgency-ravaged North- East and the resettlement of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), in the insurgency, the interest-free loan which is to run for 10 years, the facility is also projected for deployment in the resettlement of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who are scattered across various centres in the zone.
Apart from providing both countries the opportunity to review various aspects of their bilateral relations, the presidential visit was also successful in the sense that it provided President Buhari the opportunity to unfurl, put in perspective and re-affirm the policy thrust of his administration which critics have lampooned as being slow, especially in its failure to appoint a cabinet over a month after its inauguration. Notwithstanding, the visit which was eagerly awaited, especially by supporters of the president, proved instrumental as a shot in the arm because the president used the opportunity to re-state the policy thrust of his administration. For example, during the visit, the president made various profound policy statements, not the least being the pledge to fight corruption which is arguably one of the greatest challenges facing the country.
According to him, the fight against corruption is non-negotiable because his administration is conscious of the fact that if the fight against this social monster is not fought and won conclusively, the alternative is surrender which is an option he vowed his administration is not prepared to consider. Apart from wide consultations with various stakeholders, including Nigerians resident in the US which the president was also able to make during the period, the visit also provided the president the opportunity to convince compatriots that delay in constituting his cabinet does not necessarily translate into sleeping on the tough mandate of rebuilding a devastated country whose economy is almost in ruins for several reasons.
For instance, it was during the visit that President Buhari explained that his delay in constituting a cabinet till September is borne partly out of the patriotic conviction to reduce the exhorbitant cost of governance and partly to ensure that he secures the services of people who shared in his vision to re-build the country. No doubt, another success attributable to the trip is the sensational disclosure that some former ministers in last administration either stole one million dollars worth of crude oil or pocketed proceeds from the equivalent daily; a criminality for which the president pledged to bring perpetrators to book in the interest of the country’s economy.
President Buhari lamented that corruption in the country had developed into a culture where honest people are abused and vowed that his administration would not relent in tracing all accounts of individuals who stashed away ill-gotten oil money. ‘When we get as much as we can get as soon as possible, we will approach those countries to freeze those accounts and go to court, prosecute those people and let the accounts be taken to Nigeria. The amount of money (involved) is mindboggling , but we have started getting documents’, he said.
‘We have started getting documents where some of the senior people in government, former ministers, some of them had as much as five accounts and were moving about one million barrels per day on their own. Whichever documents we are able to get and subsequently trace the sale of the crude or transfer of money from Ministries, Departments, Central Bank, we will ask for cooperation of those countries to return those monies to federation accounts and we will use those documents to arrest those people and prosecute them.
This, I promise Nigerians,’ the president said with finality. These profound statements contradict the erroneous impression that the administration is either slow or not doing enough as expected by Nigerians. Obviously, work is ongoing, albeit discreetly and only fortuitous opportunities like this can re-assure Nigerians that the president is definitely on course in his pledge to fight corruption.
It is our conviction that if a corresponding passion as that with which the president is pursuing sleaze in the oil industry is extended to the fight against insurgency, rich and powerful sponsors who secretly provide sympathy for Boko Haram would be exposed in no time. And insurgency quashed, once and for all. Unlike sleaze in the oil industry which the president has attributed, no significant sponsor of Boko Haram has been identified, years after the war against insurgency began. This failure is a slap on the nation’s pride and not even America can console Nigeria in this regard.
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