It is indeed a new dawn as today marks the beginning of another decade, which we prayerfully hope will herald great possibilities, progress and national cohesion almost completely eroded in the past twenty years of the combined leadership of the PDP and APC respectively.
We commend the resilience of Nigerians in spite the several challenges we have gone through as a nation in the last decade most of which can be attributed to leadership failure and made worse by the visionless APC government, which has succeeded in bringing more hardship to Nigerians through her several obnoxious anti-masses policies thereby catapulting Nigeria to the pinnacle of poverty ladder and making the nation the poverty capital of the world.
Today, Nigeria has never been this divided along ethno-religious lines due to the nepotic disposition of the government in skewing appointments in favour of a particular ethnic group in a nation that boast of diversity as one of her greatest assets.
While the party commends the letter written to Nigerians by Mr. President today to inspire hope, we are however bold to tell President Muhammadu Buhari that until he starts matching words with actions, the country will continue to be trapped in a rat race that will only see the nation and development moving in opposite directions. Our reasons are not farfetched:
1. The President cannot be talking of tackling the root causes of violent extremism and the networks that help finance and organise terror without rijigging the current security apparatus to be more responsive and emphasize more on intelligence. The current service chiefs have been in place since the beginning of this administration in 2015 and government cannot continue to do things the same way and expect a different result.
2. The President cannot be talking of reforms in education, health care, water sanitation, and the huge opportunities our young and vibrant population offers after allocating a paltry sum of N40b for capital expenditure in education and less than same amount to health in the 2020 budget but proudly allocating N37b for the renovation of NASS building that was erected from foundation to completion for N7b.
3. The President cannot be talking of international partnerships without knowing where the world is heading. We are already in the 4th industrial revolution where the world is talking about robotics, Artificial Intelligence, clean and renewable energy and this government is spending billions of Naira prospecting for crude oil in the north.
4. The President cannot be talking of unity when his actions are clearly nepotic and divisive where all appointments are clearly skewed towards favouring those from the northern part of the country.
5. The President cannot be talking of fighting corruption when rather than build institutions, systems, and processes, he is busy basking in the euphoria of political witch-hunt, which explains why we are still ranked 144th on the Corruption Perception Index by Transparency International.
6. The President cannot be talking of Nigerians being tolerant, law-abiding and peace-loving without first setting the example through complete adherence to the rule of law and also embarking on the restructuring of the country.
It is our firm belief that the President Muhammadu Buhari led APC will be sober and humble enough to rescind all anti-masses policies that have made life unbearable for ordinary Nigerians such as excessive taxation rather than expanding the tax net in a bid to raise more revenue, balance appointments to reflect our diversity and invest more in education, health and technological innovations rather than the wild goose chase of borrowing $30b to finance frivolities.
Conclusively, Nigerians should not despair because there is hope that things will get better if only we can unite in holding this government accountable at least till 2023 when we would have yet another opportunity to change political leadership.
This is wishing all Nigerians a 2020 filled with socio-economic and political growth that will translate into prosperity for the masses.
Signed:
Comrade Egbeola Wale Martins
National Publicity Secretary
Young Progressives Party
www.ypp.ng; email: nps@ypp.ng