Not a few Nigerians gasped for breathe when the public relations machinery of the extant ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) including the Presidency appeared to have been caught napping on the 100th day of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration. Specifically, the spokespersons for the president, Malam Garba Shehu, and the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, seemed to have been lost on the significance and quite oblivious of the import of the first 100 days of a democratic government in power
For the benefit of hindsight, the concept of the first hundred days was developed in the United States of America, considered as the beacon of democratic principles and practice around the globe. The One Hundred Days phenomenon is a sample of the first 100 days of a first term presidency of a democratically elected government. According to Wikipedia, the day is used to measure the successes and accomplishments of a president during the time that their power and influence is at its greatest. The term was coined in a July 24, 1933, radio address by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, although he was referring to the 100 day session of the 73rd United States Congress between March 9 and June 17, rather than the first 100 days of his administration. Consequently, since 1933, the 100 days in office has been institutionalized as democratic culture.
It is, therefore, on the backdrop of this age-long practice that has spanned several decades and in fact, close to a century that Nigerians were shocked to their bone marrows when the public relations apparatchik of the ruling party at the centre were apparently taken by surprise when asked by journalists to present the score card of the Buhari administration.
Shockingly, the APC, which rode to power on the promise of change, told a bewildered nation, and, by extension, the entire world, that neither President Buhari nor the APC as a party political “promised to do anything” in 100 days. As a matter of fact, the Senior Special Adviser (Media) to the President, Malam Garba Shehu, disowned some documents listing a litany of promises the President Buhari reportedly vowed to fulfill in his first 100 days in office. He said that the administration could not be judged by a series of “activities” within the prism of 100 days.
“In the course of electioneering, the presidential campaign had so many centres of public communications which, for instance, for whatever reason were on the loose.
There is a certain document tagged ‘One Hundred Things Buhari Will Do in 100 days’, and the other, ‘My Covenant With Nigeria’. Both pamphlets bore the authorized party logo but as the director of media and communication in that campaign, I did not fund or authorize any of those. I can equally bet my last kobo that Candidate Buhari did not see or authorize those publications.
“As a consequence of these publications, expectations have been raised ‘unreasonably’, that as president, Muhammadu Buhari will wave his hand and all the problems that the country faces – insecurity, corruption, unemployment, poor infrastructure – would go away,” Garba Shehu said.
Speaking in the same vein, Lai Mohammed, the ruling APC’s spokesman, countered claims that President Buhari made certain promises during the electioneering.
Mohammed said, “Buhari never promised he was going to do anything in 100 days, that is the honest truth. You see, when you are running a campaign all kinds of literature will emerge with all sorts of volunteer groups, but I came here and I said there are only two documents that you can judge a party with, that is the constitution of the party and the manifesto of the party; those are the only two documents that are registered with INEC you can go to court on or hold party accountable for”.
One shudders to imagine that the foregoing analyses and extrapolation of a democratic setting can be made by true democrats who sought and got the popular mandate of over 170 million Nigerians. It also reinforces the fact that governance of a large and complex nation like Nigeria is not as easy as the APC tried or deceived the Nigerian people, or at least the gullible ones to believe. The ruling APC lack or more appropriately poor report card on its 100 days in power on Saturday, September 5, 2015 is also a vindication of the immediate past ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), particularly the administration of former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan which celebrated its first 100 days with pump amd pageantry and a lot of democratic dividends for Nigerians to savour with relish.
However, the reasons for the failure of the Buhari government are not farfetched. The principal factor for the failure of the Buhari government to hit the ground running is the fact the government is dissipating so much time and resources to fight its predecessor while at the same lamenting on issues that are at best mundane, infantile and imaginary.
The Buhari administration, which has already lost about seven percent of its tenure, is likely to end up a colossal failure it does not go back to the drawing board and face the real issues of governance and proper management of the economy which is presently in rapid recession. Chasing shadows and witch hunting of the Jonathan government cannot deliver democracy dividend to the Nigerian people. A word is enough for the wise.
–
Barrister Njah wrote from Angwan Television, Kaduna
