BUHARI'S 2ND YEAR IN OFFICE: CELEBRATION OF FAILED GOVERNANCE - INT'L SOCIETY FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES AND RULE OF LAW NIGERIA

Buhari’s 2yrs In Office: A Celebration Of First Of The Firsts In Failed Governance Records In Nigeria Since 1960

(Intersociety, Onitsha Nigeria: 29^th May 2017)-The leadership of Int’l Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law has always maintained that the best way to measure or assess the records or performances of public governance in Nigeria carried out by successive and present Federal and State Governments, whether military, civilian or diarchy, since the country’s independence in 1960, is to embark on factual, realistic and comparative assessment of Nigeria with its peers in South America, Asia, Middle East and some African countries. Such comparative governance assessors must also be grounded with what modern public governance is all about or its core essence.

By Nigeria’s peers in South America, Asia and its Southeast, Middle East and its gulf region, and some African countries; they are those countries that got their independences in the same era or decade with Nigeria or those that shared same or lower Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or Gross National Product (GNP) as well as parity or lower income per capita with Nigeria in the 60s and 70s. Some of those countries include Singapore, Malaysia, China, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Omar, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Israel, Botswana, Ghana, Angola, South Africa, etc.

Most importantly, the assessors must fully be grasped and grounded with the core pillars or foundations of modern governance which are rested on facilitation at all times of greatest happiness to the greatest number of citizens through provision, delivery and maintenance of key public infrastructures and tangible and intangible social developments and services (i.e. security, safety, welfare, health, education, jobs, leisure and recreation, protection of citizens’ core values such as ethnic identities, religion and right of existence); human rights and rule of law (i.e. equality and non discrimination before the law, supremacy of the constitution or mother law and respect and protection of citizens’ constitutional rights/liberties); equitable and non dominant allocation of the public or collective resources, public institutions and appointments or public offices; total absence of three hydra headed monsters, namely: physical or direct, structural and cultural violence; and above all, promotion and institutionalization of public and individual moral decency in public governance and among the elected and appointed public office holders in the country or any part thereof.

Totality of these is called international best practices in modern public governance. It must be remembered and pointed out clearly too that modern public governance was parented by Social Contract, designed by modern thinkers for the purpose of earthly and humanly tame or control the wickedness of human beings against fellow human beings and the environment so as not to make life and the living short, nasty, brutish, dominant and dictatorial. These explain why the Social Contract or public governance and its dos and don’ts were put in place by modern thinkers.

The Social Contract, it must be emphasized, was inspired by the Holy Book’s instruction- do to others what you will want them do to you and refrain from doing to them what you will not do to them. The historical Social Contract is dated back to several centuries and became globally popular and recognized in 17^th, 18^th, 19^th and 20^th century ADs. It was particularly popularized by the great philosophical works of the trio of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1704) and Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778); resulting to 1689 enactment of British Bill of Rights, 1776 American Independence declaration and 1789 French Declaration of the Right of Man and the Citizens, etc.

To Jean Jacques Rousseau, man was indeed born free, but everywhere in chains. For Thomas Hobbes, the happiness of man in a society has been gripped by fear of violent death in the hands of another. The two great philosophers favored a society in which the society and its people were sovereign and free leading to a community where a group of free individuals agree for the sake of their common (social contract) good and protection to form institutions to govern themselves. John Locke added more popularity to the greatness of Social Contract.

In his 1690 famous book called the Second Treatise of Civil Government, John Locke saw and called for a situation where a free, equal and independent people agreed to be governed in return for certain secure enjoyment for their individual rights, which the courts and police powers of a government can enforce leading to every free individual having a moral right to be protected from arbitrary interference by government or other individuals, of his or her sacred rights. These reinforce the legal philosophy of man’s equality in dignity and rights and inevitable justifications for their protection by a limited government.

It is therefore important to inform that it is from the great philosophical work of John Locke that a leading American independence campaigner, Thomas Jefferson, who later became the third President of the United States (1743-1826), took his country’s independence declaration’s speech of July 6, 1776. The most popular part of the speech says and we quote:

“We hold these truths to be self evident that all men (and women) are created equal and endowed with certain natural and inalienable rights, and most important being of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And to protect these rights, men set up government whose authority rests on their consent. And whenever a government ceases to do what it has been set up for, its citizens have a right to change it or its order and put in place a new government or a new order that will provide for their safety and happiness”.

Following from the foregoing therefore, it is extremely important for those conscientious Nigerians and Nigeria’s regional and international counterparts to at all times have the above grand or fundamental governance measurement or assessment yardsticks at hands before venturing into performance assessment of any central or unit (State) government in Nigeria particularly the present Buhari Administration that has marked two years in office.

It is also very important for assessors to always ask and find answers to: what is Nigeria’s present state of public health, education, safety, security, citizens’ welfare and protection, economy, electricity power, employment, provision and maintenance of key public infrastructures, in comparison with those of Singapore, Malaysia, China, India, South Korea, Taiwan,  Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Omar, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Israel, Botswana, Ghana, Angola, South Africa?

Others are what is Nigeria’s state of industry and its policy, agriculture, foreign direct investments, inter ethnic and religious protection and coexistence, human rights, rule of law and access to justice, public and individual moral decency, all in comparison with those of Singapore, Malaysia, China, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Omar, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Israel, Botswana, Ghana, Angola, South Africa?

The rest of such mandatory questions required of credible assessors of public governance in Nigeria of the Buhari’s Presidency are what are the citizens’ living and practical attitudes towards the present governance of Nigeria? Are there high rates of rural-urban drift or migration, brain drain, human capital and material flights, internal conflict related and non conflict related or starvation/hunger forced citizens’ displacements? Are there steady increases or decreases of citizens’ militancy and restiveness?

Are there high increases or decreases in arms and militancy proliferations in Nigeria? Is there rampancy of direct or physical, structural and cultural violence in Nigeria, and if yes, what are the attitudes of the present central government towards them? Are these direct, structural and cultural violence created or sponsored by government? Which section or ethnic nationality or nationalities or religious bodies are targeted or made age long victims of the three hydra headed monster violence and why?

Is the present central government a truly democratic government or a diarchy or militarized civil space? What are the present composition and sharing formulae of the present central government in Nigeria as they concern public resources, institutions and appointments? Are they equitably or fairly composed or shared among the country’s six geopolitical zones and in accordance with Section 14 (3) of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution? Is Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution being protected, upheld and respected at all times and non-selectively by the present central government?

How far have the present government in Nigeria gone in obedience to court orders and pronouncements? Have more innocent citizens being killed extra judicially by the present government or murdered by government oiled armed opposition groups and criminal citizens than any other government in Nigeria since 1960 or even since 1999? Has the present government in Nigeria promoted, defended and protected the constitutional, regional and international rights of the Nigerian citizens as mandated by the Constitution, regional and international law enactments willingly accepted and adopted by the Federal Republic of Nigeria?

How many Nigerian citizens are happy today under the present central government? Has the present central government ensured greatest happiness to greatest number of Nigerian citizens through its governance policies, directions, pronouncements, conducts, projects execution and provision and delivery of social services, tangible and intangible democracy dividends including key public infrastructures? Does Nigeria really have a democratic government under the present central government or a diarchic, kleptomania, mafiaso, alarmist and deceitful government?

What is the morality and integrity placement of the public office holders of the present central government in Nigeria particularly its executive public office holders, in credible comparison with their counterparts in Singapore, Malaysia, China, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Omar, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Israel, Botswana, Ghana, Angola, South Africa? Is it not correct to say that the present central government in Nigeria is a government composed of and operated by the doyens of corruption?.

That is to say that the two years in office of the central government of Retired Major General Muhammadu Buhari is nothing but first of the firsts in failed governance records and measurements since Nigeria and its annexed ethnic nationalities regained its independence from the British led western colonial masters and mistresses on 1^st October 1960 as well as since its return to civilian rule on 29^th May 1999, which is 17 years today. It is very important to point out that the assessment of any tenured civilian government is properly done or started at its beginning or foundational stage; which is also why every democratic government is mandatorily made to pass a fundamental test of input (foundation) and output (outcome) legitimacy.

It is saddening and disastrous that the present central Government of Muhammadu Buhari cannot be correctly measured or rated in any way as it concerns international best practices in matters of public governance and its fundamentals. As a matter of fact, its failure is a triple digit one. For instance, the Buhari Administration brought gangsterism and mafiocracy into public central governance in Nigeria and have them gravely institutionalized. It parades the largest number of doyens of corruption, yet it claims to be "fighting corruption".

Corruption under the Buhari Administration has also given birth to a twin in the persons of legitimized or codified and open source corruption. It budgets and squanders N500M in each of the last two budget seasons on "Aso Rock Computers" and we have kept wondering what type and quantity of computers that are installed in Aso Rock every year that gulps N500M and made annually replaceable. This is also owing to the fact that e-governance or e-public service; just like e-security and e-intelligence is the cheapest form of conducting governance or securization affairs in the world. The N1billion (N500M for each of the two years) "spent on Aso Rock computers" in two years can comfortably build 20 modern public secondary schools for the educationally denied Alamajaris (Alamajarai) of the north at N50M each.

The Buhari Administration is also the most indebted Federal Government in Nigeria and has borrowed and misapplied more than other any past federal government in Nigeria. To its disastrous credit, it has borrowed over $20 billion since its inception in mid 2015 and another $20 billion is already penciled down for borrowing between now and end of the forthcoming 2018 fiscal or budget period. The huge loans have no miniature or minutest positive impact on the generality of Nigerians in terms of power energy, economy, health, education, industrialization, direct foreign investments, income per capita, security, safety and welfare and provision and delivery of social services and other tangible and intangible democracy dividends including key infrastructures to Nigerians.

The human rights records of the Buhari Administration are nothing to write home about and worst in the history of non civil war Nigeria since 1960. This is in spite of the Government’s assemblage of most of the country's leading human rights activists who have now become defenders of human rights abuses and abusers. More innocent and unarmed Nigerians totaling over 11,200 have been killed extra judicially or murdered or tortured under the past two years of Buhari Administration. This is far more than  those killed under any other government in Nigeria since 1960 and even 1999.

The Buhari Administration has also grossly bastardized Nigeria’s democratic civil space and militarized same in the form of diarchy style of government. The Administration is the most misleading and lying government in the history of Nigeria. Its foreign direct investments profile and performance is at ground zero with allied industrialization policy, economic growth and development negatively immeasurable.

The joblessness and unemployment level under the Administration has soared irremediably. The rates of brain drain, human and material capital flights, rural-urban drift or migration and urban refugees have reached an alarming stage and the number of Nigerians moving illegally and legally to overseas is roundly alarming and deafening.

The health, education, shelter and recreation and other social development sectors and policies under the Buhari Administration are in tatters; likewise security sector and policies which are confusing, misdirected, misleading, awkward and militantly frightening. Counter Boko Haram insurgency operations have become a conduit pipe through which billions of dollars worth of secured loans are diverted and pocketed with their allied lies and falsehoods capable of competing triumphantly in the Olympic Games of falsehood and propaganda.

Leading government corruption practitioners and other regime  criminal citizens in the Administration are protected and given corruption and criminal sanction waivers. As matter of fact, the beginning of wisdom for any doyen of corruption in present Nigeria is his or her express identification with the Buhari Administration in the form of "defection to APC".

Conclusively speaking, it will take a calendar of months to talk and discuss inexhaustibly about the Buhari's Government basket-loads of failure in governance. Which is why we said before that the best way to describe the present central government in the country is that it is "first of the firsts in failed public governance records or measurements in Nigeria since 1960".

Signed:

For: International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety)

·         Emeka Umeagbalasi (Criminologist & Graduate of Security Studies)

 Board Chairman

 Mobile Line: +2348174090052

 Email: info@intersociety-ng.org

Website: www.intersociety-ng.org

·          Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Esq., LLB, BL

Head, Civil Liberties & Rule of Law Program

Mobile Line: + 2348180771506

·         Chinwe Umeche, Esq., LLB, BL

Head, Democracy & Good Governance Program

Mobile Line: +2347013238673

·         Ndidiamaka C. Bernard, Esq., LLB, BL

Head, Int’l Justice & Human Rights Program

Mobile Line: +2348067557308

DEMOCRACY DAY: PROF OSIBANJO'S SPEECH

Dear Nigerians, I bring you good wishes from President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, who as we all know is away from the country on medical vacation.

1.     Today marks the second anniversary of our assumption of office. We must thank the Almighty God not only for preserving our lives to celebrate this second anniversary, but for giving us hope, strength and confidence as we faced the challenges of the past two years.

2.     Our administration outlined three specific areas for our immediate intervention on assumption of office. These were Security, Corruption and the Economy.

3.     In the Northeast of our country, the terrorist group Boko Haram openly challenged the sovereignty and continued existence of the state, killing, maiming, and abducting, causing the displacement of the largest number of our citizens in recent history. Beyond the North East they extended their mindless killings, as far away as Abuja, Kano And Kaduna.

4.     But with new leadership and renewed confidence our gallant military immediately began to put Boko Haram on the back foot. We have restored broken-down relations with our neighbours, Chad, Cameroon and Niger – allies without whom the war against terror would have been extremely difficult to win. We have re-organised and equipped our Armed Forces, and inspired them to heroic feats; we have also revitalised the regional Multinational Joint Task Force, by providing the required funding and leadership.

5.     The positive results are clear for all to see. In the last two years close to one million displaced persons have returned home. 106 of our daughters from Chibok have regained their freedom, after more than two years in captivity, in addition to the thousands of other captives who have since tasted freedom.

6.     Schools, hospitals and businesses are springing back to life across the Northeast, especially in Borno State, the epicentre of the crisis. Farmers are returning to the farms from which they fled in the wake of Boko Haram. Finally, our people are getting a chance to begin the urgent task of rebuilding their lives.

7.     Across the country, in the Niger Delta, and in parts of the North Central region, we are engaging with local communities, to understand their grievances, and to create solutions that respond to these grievances adequately and enduringly.

8.     President Buhari’s New Vision for the Niger Delta is a comprehensive peace, security and development plan that will ensure that the people benefit fully from the wealth of the region, and we have seen to it that it is the product of deep and extensive consultations, and that it has now moved from idea to execution. Included in that New Vision is the long-overdue environmental clean-up of the Niger Delta beginning with Ogoni-land, which we launched last year.

9.     More recent threats to security such as the herdsmen clashes with farmers in many parts of the country sometimes leading to fatalities and loss of livelihoods and property have also preoccupied our security structures. We are working with state governments, and tasking our security agencies with designing effective strategies and interventions that will bring this menace to an end. We are determined to ensure that anyone who uses violence, or carries arms without legal authority is apprehended and sanctioned.

10.                        In the fight against corruption, we have focused on bringing persons accused of corruption to justice. We believe that the looting of public resources that took place in the past few years has to be accounted for. Funds appropriated to build roads, railway lines, and power plants, and to equip the military, that had been stolen or diverted into private pockets, must be retrieved and the culprits brought to justice. Many have said that the process is slow, and that is true, corruption has fought back with tremendous resources and our system of administration of justice has been quite slow. But the good news for justice is that our law does not recognise a time bar for the prosecution of corruption and other crimes, and we will not relent in our efforts to apprehend and bring corruption suspects to justice. We are also re-equipping our prosecution teams, and part of the expected judicial reforms is to dedicate some specific courts to the trial of corruption cases.

11.                        We are also institutionalizing safeguards and deterrents. We have expanded the coverage of the Treasury Single Account (TSA). We have introduced more efficient accounting and budgeting systems across the Federal Government. We have also launched an extremely successful Whistleblower Policy.

12.                        The Efficiency Unit of the Federal Ministry of Finance has succeeded in plugging leakages amounting to billions of naira, over the last two years. We have ended expensive and much-abused fertilizer and petrol subsidy regimes.

13.                        We have taken very seriously our promise to save and invest for the future, even against the backdrop of our revenue challenges, and we have in the last two years added $500million to our Sovereign Wealth Fund and $87 million to the Excess Crude Account. This is the very opposite of the situation before now, when rising oil prices failed to translate to rising levels of savings and investment.

14.                        Admittedly, the economy has proven to be the biggest challenge of all. Let me first express just how concerned we have been, since this administration took office, about the impact of the economic difficulties on our citizens.

15.                        Through no fault of theirs, some companies shut down their operations, others downsized; people lost jobs, had to endure rising food prices. In some states, civil servants worked months on end without the guarantee of a salary, even as rents and school fees and other expenses continued to show up like clockwork.

16.                        We have been extremely mindful of the many sacrifices that you have had to make over the last few years. And for this reason, this administration’s work on the economic front has been targeted at a combination of short-term interventions to cushion the pain, as well as medium to long term efforts aimed at rebuilding an economy that is no longer helplessly dependent on the price of crude oil.

17.                        Those short-term interventions include putting together a series of bailout packages for our State Governments, to enable them bridge their salary shortfalls – an issue the President has consistently expressed his concerns about. We also began the hard work of laying out a framework for our Social Intervention Programme, the most ambitious in the history of the country.

18.                        One of the first tasks of the Cabinet and the Economic Management Team was to put together a Strategic Implementation Plan for the 2016 budget, targeting initiatives that would create speedy yet lasting impact on the lives of Nigerians.

19.                        Indeed, much of 2016 was spent clearing the mess we inherited and putting the building blocks together for the future of our dreams; laying a solid foundation for the kind of future that you deserve as citizens of Nigeria.

20.                        In his Budget Presentation Speech to the National Assembly last December, President Buhari outlined our Economic Agenda in detail, and assured that 2017 -would be the year in which you would begin to see tangible benefits of all the planning and preparation work. It is my pleasure to note that in the five months since he delivered that speech, we have seen tremendous progress, as promised.

21.                        Take the example of our Social Investment Programme, which kicked off at the end of 2016. Its Home-Grown School Feeding component is now feeding more than 1 million primary school children across seven states and would be feeding three million by the end of the year. N-Power, another component has engaged 200,000 unemployed graduates – none of whom needed any ‘connections’ to be selected. Beneficiaries are already telling the stories of how these initiatives have given them a fresh start in their lives.

22.                        Micro credit to a million artisans, traders and market men and women has begun. While conditional cash transfers to eventually reach a million of the poorest and most vulnerable households has also begun.

23.                        Road and power projects are ongoing in every part of the country. In rail, we are making progress with our plans to attract hundreds of millions of dollars in investment to upgrade the existing 3,500km narrow-gauge network. We have also in 2017 flagged-off construction work on the Lagos-Ibadan leg of our standard-gauge network, and are close to completing the first phase of Abuja’s Mass Transit Rail System.

24.                        In that Budget speech in December, the President announced the take-off of the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative. Today, five months on, that Initiative – the product of an unprecedented bilateral cooperation with the Government of Morocco – has resulted in the revitalisation of 11 blending plants across the country, the creation of 50,000 direct and indirect jobs so far, and in the production of 300,000 metric tonnes of NPK fertilizer, which is being sold to farmers at prices significantly lower than what they paid last year. By the end of 2017, that Fertilizer Initiative would have led to foreign exchange savings of US$200 million; and subsidy savings of 60 billion naira.

25.                        The Initiative is building on the solid gains of the Anchor Borrowers Programme, launched in 2015 to support our rice and wheat farmers, as part of our move towards guaranteeing food security for Nigeria.

26.                        All of this is evidence that we are taking very seriously our ambition of agricultural self-sufficiency. I am delighted to note that since 2015 our imports of rice have dropped by 90 per cent, while domestic production has almost tripled. Our goal is to produce enough rice to meet local demand by 2019. In April, the President launched our Economic Recovery and Growth Plan which built on the foundations laid by the Strategic Implementation Plan of 2016.  The plan has set forth a clear vision for the economic development of Nigeria. I will come back to this point presently.

27.                        Another highlight of the President’s Budget Speech was our work around the Ease of Doing Business reforms. As promised we have since followed up with implementation and execution. I am pleased to note that we are now seeing verifiable progress across several areas, ranging from new Visa on Arrival scheme, to reforms at our ports and regulatory agencies.

28.                        The President also promised that 2017 would see the rollout of Executive Orders to facilitate government approvals, support procurement of locally made goods, and improve fiscal responsibility. We have kept that promise. This month we issued three Executive Orders to make it easier for citizens to get the permits and licenses they require for their businesses, to mandate Government agencies to spend more of their budgets on locally produced goods, and to promote budget transparency and efficiency. The overarching idea is to make Government Agencies and Government budgets work more efficiently for the people.

29.                        The impact of our Ease of Doing Business work is gradually being felt by businesses small and large; its successful take-off has allowed us to follow up with the MSME Clinics -our Small Business support programme, which has taken us so far to Aba, Sokoto, Jos, Katsina, and we expect to be in all other states in due course.

30.                        Let me note, at this point, that several of our Initiatives are targeted at our young people, who make up most of our population. From N-Power, to the Technology Hubs being developed nationwide, to innovation competitions such as the Aso Villa Demo Day, and our various MSME support schemes, we will do everything to nurture the immense innovative and entrepreneurial potential of our young people. We are a nation of young people, and we will ensure that our policies and programmes reflect this.

31.                        One of the highlights of our Power Sector Recovery Programme, which we launched in March, is a N701 billion Naira Payment Assurance Scheme that will resolve the financing bottlenecks that have until now constrained the operations of our gas suppliers and generation companies. Let me assure that you will soon begin to see the positive impact of these steps.

32.                        Our Solid Minerals Development Fund has also now taken off, in line with our commitment to developing the sector. Because of our unerring focus on Solid Minerals development over the last two years, the sector has, alongside Agriculture, seen impressive levels of growth – in spite of the recession.

33.                        On the whole, just as the President promised in the Budget Speech, these early months of 2017 have seen the flowering of the early fruit of all the hard work of our first eighteen months.

34.                        We opened the year with an overwhelmingly successful Eurobond Offer – evidence of continuing investor interest in Nigeria. We have also launched the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) 2017-2020, to build on the gains of last year’s Strategic Implementation Plan. And the implementation of our 2017 Budget, which will soon be signed into law, will bring added impetus to our ongoing economic recovery. In the 2016 Budget we spent 1.2 Trillion Naira on infrastructure projects, another milestone in the history of this country. Our 2017 Budget will double that investment.

35.                        That budget also provides for substantial investment to implement the rollout of Industrial Parks and Special Economic Zones (SEZs), as well as our Social Housing Programme. The Industrial Parks and Economic Zones will fulfil our ambition of making Nigeria a manufacturing hub, while the Family Home Fund of our Social Housing Programme will provide inexpensive mortgages for low-income individuals and families across the country.

36.                        These plans offer yet more evidence that we are ramping up the pace of work; the work of fulfilling all that we promised. In the next two years, we will build on the successes of the last two. We have demonstrated a willingness to learn from our mistakes and to improve on our successes. The critical points that we must address fully in the next two years are: Agriculture and food security, Energy, (power and Petroleum,) Industrialization and Transport infrastructure. Every step of the way we will be working with the private sector, giving them the necessary incentives and creating an environment to invest and do business.

37.                        Our vision is for a country that grows what it eats and produces what it consumes. It is for a country that no longer has to import petroleum products, and develops a lucrative petrochemical industry.  Very importantly it is for a country whose fortunes are no longer tied to the price of a barrel of crude, but instead to the boundless talent and energy of its people, young and old, male and female as they invest in diverse areas of the economy.

38.                        And that vision is also for a country where the wealth of the many will no longer be stolen by or reserved for a few; and where the impunity of corruption – whether in the public or private sectors – will no longer be standard operating practice; a land rid of bandits and terrorists.

39.                        As citizens, you all deserve a country that works, not merely for the rich or connected, but for everyone. And our promise to you is that we will, with your support and cooperation, take every step needed to create that country of our dreams.

40.                        We also know that this journey will of necessity take time. But we will not succumb to the temptation to take short-cuts that ultimately complicate the journey. We did not find ourselves in crises overnight, and we simply do not expect overnight solutions to our challenges.

41.                        The most important thing is that we are on the right path, and we will not deviate from it, even in the face of strong temptation to choose temporary gain over long-term benefit. As the President has summed it up: “The old Nigeria is slowly but surely disappearing, and a new era is rising.”

42.                        And so, we commemorate this second anniversary of our administration with confidence and optimism. I firmly believe that we have put the most difficult phase behind us; and we are witnesses to the ever-increasing intensity of the light at the end of the tunnel. We ask for your continued cooperation and support, to enable us realise all our best intentions and ambitions for Nigeria. On our part, we will continue to carry you along on this journey, speak to you, explain the challenges, and share our Vision.

43.                        And while we all daily pre-occupy ourselves with pursuing the Nigerian Dream – which is the desire to better our lives and circumstances vigorously and honestly – it is inevitable that grievances and frustrations will arise from time to time.

44.                        This is normal. What is not normal, or acceptable, is employing these frustrations as justification for indulging in discrimination or hate speech or hateful conduct of any kind, or for seeking to undermine by violent or other illegal means the very existence of the sovereign entity that has brought us all together as brothers and sisters and citizens.

45.                        Nigeria belongs to all of us. No one person or group of persons is more important or more entitled than the other in this space that we all call home. And we have a responsibility to live in peace and harmony with one another, to seek peaceful and constitutional means of expressing our wishes and desires, and to resist all who might seek to sow confusion and hatred for their own selfish interests.

46.                        Before I end this speech, let me ask for your continued prayers for the restoration to full health and strength and the safe return of our President.

47.                        I congratulate all of you on today’s commemoration of this important day in the democratic calendar our country. Nigeria is on a journey of greatness, and together we shall arrive at the destination of our dreams.

48.                        May God bless you all, and bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

END

Happy Democracy Day  Nigeria.

Carol Ajie, LL.B(Hons) Benin; B.L(Lagos); MCIArb(UK); LL.M Georgetown, Washington DC