Buhari ill-prepared for governance,presidential candidate tells Nigerians

CHRIS EMETOH, Abuja

The Presidential candidate of the Citizens Popular Party (CPP) in the 2015 presidential election, Chief Sam Eke, has called on Nigerians to exercise restraints in their criticism of President Muhammadu Buhari for his perceived lack luster performance in his first one month in office.

Observing that Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) were not quite prepared for the take over and were unable to put their house in order, Chief Eke a two time governorship candidate of CPP in Abia State, believes that President Buhari may have the interest of the country and Nigerians at heart. He added that Buhari is ill prepared for governance which accounts for his slow pace in his first thirty days in office.

Eke pointed out that the APC never believed they would ever win the 2015 election and therefore did not articulate how it would appropriate the various offices which has been responsible for the crisis within the party, and at the national assembly, but stressed that it is rather too early to conclude on the president’s performance since leadership is a marathon and not a 100 meters race.

He stressed that it is better to start slow and progress steadily. However, he frowned at the president’s style of appointment of officers which he said should by now have taken off. He said that Buhari should equally have taken charge of governance, co-ordinate and have strong political will to execute decisions.

On the appointment of Lawan Daura, a retired kinsman of the president as the DG of DSS, he insisted that Nigerians are making mountain out of nothing, maintaining that the position is a sensitive one and requires caution in deciding who to appoint.

“If he decides that appointing his kinsman is what will guarantee the effectiveness of the service, I don’t have a problem with that as long as the man he appoints is qualified for that position. But where I will have a problem is when he steps out of his way to appoint an outsider or a retired man who hasn’t got the required experience and qualification and puts him ahead of senior officers who were in line for that post. But there are several other appointments to look up to and see whether he will still follow the same pattern.

Also reacting to the decision to relocate thousands of Boko Haram prisoners to Anambra State, Chief Eke said, ” Prison is not a place where you keep people to arm them or for other purposes but to reform them. So I don’t see the reason people should be scared. If the Prisons in the North are filled up and there is enough space for them elsewhere in the South East, I don’t see how taking the prisoners there should be a problem. All that is needed to be done is to beef up security, and I am not sure that that decision was taken during this Buhari administration, it must have been taken before he became president, only that it is being executed in his time.”

The presidential candidate supported the resolve by the present administration to withdraw the military from check points, stressing that the military was never meant to be at such places but were rather trained to protect the territorial bothers. “I have always been against the military manning road blocks; they have no business to be there. They are trained to kill and protect the territorial integrity of the country and therefore being around the civilians at all times constitute a threat to the environment.

On the crisis rocking the APC, he said it was inevitable considering the fact that the party was an amalgam of strange bed fellows whose only interest at that time was to unseat Jonathan. He urged the party to do more on instilling discipline among its members and on conflict resolution, noting that the party’s supremacy must stand above personal ambitions.

He also advised the President not to assume that his core duty is to go after criminals, but to concentrate on controlling and building the economy. He stated that once that is made a priority, he would be able to curb corruption especially by empowering those institutions that are saddled with the responsibility.

The CPP national chairman however said that he was yet to believe that President Buhari is sincere in fighting corruption without publicly declaring his assets, just as he added that Buhari should focus more on economic development of the nation and not to be chasing shadows over inheriting huge debts from his predecessor. “There is no government in the world that is not indebted, even the USA,” he adds.