2019: Nigerian political climate in serious ‘change’ since Buhari declared interest to run
Since penultimate Monday’s declaration by President Muhammadu Buhari to contest the fast approaching 2019 general election for the post of presidency, there has been a strong sign of alignment and realignments’ both within the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) and other leading opposition parties.
Whereas the currently clear opposition party, the Peoples Democratic party (PDP) was forced by APC to continue a fresh homework of struggling to clear the names of their bigwigs from the observed endless list of alleged looters of the treasury being randomly released by the government’s spokesman and Minister of Information, Mr. Lai Mohmmad, former President Olusegun Obasanjo who had previously written President Buhari to forget second term agenda, recent revealed that his purported ‘Third force’ party, is swelling in membership ahead of 2019 election even though he has constantly claimed that the group is not a political party.
Though it has not been proven that the target of the ruling party is to use the gradual release of looters’ list is to cripple any form of opposition from any party especially the PDP, the chairman of the PDP, Chief Uche Secondus, through his lawyer, recently handed down a notice to sue if the list including his name as a looter is not withdrawn and an apology tendered within a given time frame.
Only weekend, the presidency, having observed that the recent declaration by President Buhari is suffering serious acceptability crisis, issued a statement that tends to show that why the government is not really performing is because of the looting of previous government which had been the key claims of the government since May 29, 2015.
Whereas political economists are criticizing Buhari administration for aggravating Nigeria’s worst recession in 25 years by introducing a currency peg that spooked investors and depleted foreign reserves which however, seems to be rising now, others find it hard to give a pass mark on the three key areas of his campaign in 2015 which include improving the economy, fighting insurgency and cleaning up corruption.
Analysts say scaling the current administration on these three campaign promises remains a herculean task even as 2019 election knocks at the door.
