Will Tinubu Pay WAEC Fees Of Every Nigerian Child, Just The Way Buhari Made N1 To Be Equal To $1? By Favour Amako

Another cycle and seasons of empty promises have started. This is normally the norm, typical of any desperate politician who want to cling on to power.

2023 Presidential Hopeful, Bola Tinubu has already promised to pay the WAEC fee of every Nigerian Child, the same way the person he brought to power in 2015, President Muhammmadu Buhari promised to make one naira equal in value to a dollar.

Before the election, which was the first that saw the then incumbent President losing to an opponent, APC Leaders capitalised on many of the failures of the PDP-led Government of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan.

In their campaign promises, the APC declared that insecurity, poor economy, corruption, weak naira amongst other nation’s difficulties would be successfully tackled if they won.

It is 7 years that Buhari has been at the helms of national affairs, but the headaches it assured his administration would cure have worsened under his watch.

Unarguably, Nigeria’s major problem at the moment is insecurity. During Jonathan’s reign, Boko Haram terrorists were the main problem. They launched attacks against churches and public places which they executed through suicide bombings, planting of explosive devices, and shootings. The height of it was the abduction of about 276 female students in Chibok, Borno State on April 14, 2014.

Buhari campaigned vigorously that his APC-led administration would crush terrorists when he assumed office. However, Boko Haram insurgents have remained audacious in their assaults. They never lack the effrontery to attack Governor’s convoy and military bases times on many occasions.

Apart from Boko Haram, other criminals have been terrorising the peace of the country. For instance, under Buhari’s watch, killer Fulani herdsmen and bandits cannot be tamed by the security agencies.

They even now negotiate with the government as abductions and other atrocities they engage in threaten the sovereignty of the country.

The country has experienced horrible incidents like the abduction of 110 Dapchi girls in Yobe State on February 19, 2018; 344 Kankara boys in Katsina State on December 11, 2020; 27 Kagara boys in Niger State and 300 Jangebe girls in Zamfara State on February 17 and 26, 2021 respectively.

Gunmen attacked the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka, in the Igabi Local Government Area of Kaduna State, kidnapping 39 students.

Digging deep into the security lapses under President Buhari would reveal the killing of farmers by Fulani herders at Yewa Local Government of Ogun State in which lives were lost, farmlands destroyed, women raped and people displaced.

The massacre of 76 rice farmers by Boko Haram in Zabarmari, Borno State on November 28, 2020, was among other callous attacks of criminals against the masses, that the government could not handle. Kidnapping has now become rampant across the country and many roads are unsafe..

Under ex-President Jonathan, the nation’s economy was the largest and fastest-growing in Africa, but Buhari pledged to establish a market-based economy. Buhari said such an economy would be run with a clear definite regulatory framework and effective enforcement mechanism. He further assured that this would help Nigerian people to participate and engage in productive economic activities, to renovate the economy.

Now, according to a prominent non-partisan private sector organisation, the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, NESG, the Buhari administration has plunged the nation’s economy into rising inflation, contrasting GDP, unsustainable borrowing, the dwindling value of the naira, falling industrial capacity utilisation and frightening unemployment figures. In the last 7 years, Nigeria’s economy has been left with a prostrate and deficient economic condition.

Buhari in his campaign promises said he would create 3 million jobs yearly. At that time, during Jonathan’s administration, precisely in the 4th quarter of 2014, the report put the total number of unemployed citizens at 4,672, 449.

Since Buhari took over the affairs of the nation, the unemployment indication has increased. Unemployment in Nigeria surged to the second-highest on a global list of countries monitored by Bloomberg.

At a Presidential rally of the APC at Dan Anyima Stadium, Owerri, Imo State a few weeks to the 2015 General elections, Buhari promised that he would ensure that the naira was equal to the dollar in value, if voted into office.

“It is sad that the value of the naira has dropped to more than N230 to one dollar; this does not speak well for the nation’s economy,’’ he said.

Now, the nation’s currency has deteriorated in value under his watch. One dollar is exchanged for N500 which has wreaked havoc on the nation’s economy.

Buhari frowned on the Jonathan era of seeking medical trips abroad. He promised to place a ban on such medical tourism and also build a world-class health care system when in office. He said the country had been wasteful with such trips, thus vowed to put an end to it.

Getting to office, Buhari himself embarked on such trips for long periods. In June 2016, President Buhari flew to London to be treated for an ear infection. Since then he had made frequent medical trip abroad.

However, for Tinubu, Nigerians are watching and taking note of his campaign promises. I rest my case.