He ensured that turn around maintenance (TAM) on our refinerieswas done by Nigerian engineers thereby saving us foreignexchange. He also started paying off all our debts as soon as he incame into power, as corrupt Shehu Shagari’s government wasunable to meet any debt repayments before they were overthrown.By the time Buhari was overthrown he had paid off over $4 billionof our foreign debts in two years from the huge $15 billionShagari had being ill-advised to borrow, and brought inflationdown from runaway 40% to less than 5.5%. Also by the timeBuhari’s regime was usurped by IBB we were running a budgetsurplus all in less than two years, the first and only time that hashappened since after the oil boom of the 70s in Nigeria.Since August 1985, when IBB came into power Nigeria has alwaysran a budget deficit consistently, possibly under the late SaniAbacha we had a budget neutral once but consistently its been adeficit. Nigerians don’t even talk about something that is a bigissue in every serious country around the world including PuertoRico, where its a big political talking point. The Nigerian budgetunder the PDP since 1999 has always been a deficit despite oilprices at an all-time high. Under Jonathan since 2010, we’veconsistently ran a budget deficit (which for those who don’t knowmeans we spend more than we earn as a nation to the detrimentof the economy and the masses) and under Buhari we had abudget surplus (we earn more than we spend as a nation to thebetterment of the economy and the masses). Yet they insist Buhariis easy to defeat, so why the fear?I leave with feedback I got from a reader on my last article titled:“A Closing Argument for Buhari’s Case”. Chimezie Okezie, writingfrom [email protected], wondered why the APC is shyingaway from building a fanatical followership across the country forBuhari like he has in the North, and why they are treating the issueof unseating President Jonathan with kid gloves. He advocates thatthe APC should mobilise their registered members to collect theirpermanent voters cards, and verify they are doing so.Okezie posits that the APC should start recruiting vowed loyalmembers as polling booth agents across the country and starttraining them on how to counter rigging and arm them withreadily available technologies that can be used to capture voting(declared results) in each booth and polling unit, with resultscollated in real time at the APC central campaign coordinatingoffice.This would ensure that results come in live to APC and there is noway election results can be rigged by the PDP across the countryas the results are being collated from each polling unit in realtime by the APC, should they deploy the technology Okezieadvocates.He finishes by saying: “If we get our act (APC, Buhari supporters,and Nigerian masses I believe) right, I will close my eyes, beat mychest and tell you that Buhari has won.” This is coming from anordinary Nigerian. The question I need president Jonathan’shandlers, supporters, media supporters and the PDP to answer is,if Buhari is easy to defeat as they claim, why the fear?Ola’ Idowu, a management consultant and researcher, writes infrom the UK. Contact him at: frenchcoast2@ gmail.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 08:08:52 +0000
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