Abuja-based constitutional lawyer and human rights activist, Mike Ozhekhome, SAN, has reacted to President Muhammadu Buhari’s 60th Independence anniversary broadcast, saying, he has lost touch with the Nigeria’s reality in all ramifications.
In a statement he personally signed and sent to DAILY POST in Abuja on Thursday, the law Lord averred that Buhari made untenable assertions that depicted him as bereft of what to do in governing over 208 million Nigerians.
He was further saddened that Buhari’s administration got it wrong in taming the tide of corruption, while he further nested corruption and increase woes of Nigerians by hiking pump fuel and other social services.
The statement noted: “The broadcast was lame, defensive, lacklustre, uninspiring and devoid of Presidential gravitas.
“It convinces more that the president is out of tune with the stark reality of a 208 million people he governs be compared with some neighbouring countries .
“I disagree with Mr president. Do many of them produce oil? Are we not the 7th oil producer in the world? Is Buhari aware that most of our industries have relocated to, and found solace in these countries?
“Those economies he compared us with are better, more buoyant, less populed and more focused and productive than Nigeria. They do not glanouralise and celebrate corruption as a national fundamental objective and directive principle of state policy as we do.”
Ozekhome recalled how President Muhammadu Buhari demonised former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s government over minimal increase in fuel price, but he increased fuel price with reckless abandon.
“It is also about credibility, integrity, honour and dignity. Did Buhari not join other Nigerians, including the major players in his government, in January, 2012, to castigate and demonstrate on the streets against Jonathan’s minimal increase, arguing that it was corruption – laden and amounted to thievery?
“What has changed? Have the oil cartel he glowingly talked about vanished? Has his government not used more than three times the sum used by three successive governments for importation of fuel?
“Has he built a single refinery? Are the ones he met functional still working? I beg, give me a break from the cluelessbess, propaganda and anti-people policies of this opaque government.”
