OPINION: APC AND 'LIE' MOHAMMED AGAIN By Francis Ehigiator

Must Lai Mohammed lie to be relevant in the All Progressives Congress (APC)? Even when other discerning members of his party make public statements that are devoid of the bias that has been his lot, he declares the opposite as the spokesman of a party that is trying to win the hearts of Nigerians.

An example will suffice here. The media was awash with a piece he wrote to seek to prove that President Goodluck Jonathan has been more or less a failure. Mohammed’s piece appeared the same week a participant observer of the APC was praising the President on the occasion of launch of the N14-billion Dry Season Farming Fund in Abuja.

Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture and APC member, Mohammed Monguno, said of Jonathan on his performance in Agriculture: “Mr President, at the risk of being cited for anti-party activities because I’m of the APC stock, I must say that the agricultural transformation agenda being pursued by your administration is unparalleled and unprecedented. We must learn to give credit where credit is due and I’m exactly doing that.

“As a parliament that is responsible and responsive to the yearnings of the people, that has the mandate to be in the legislature, and having listened to the testimonials of the stakeholders that are on ground, we, as a legislature, have decided to proactively introduce a bill to the floor of the house with a view to making the Growth Enhancement Scheme a law so that it will stand the test of time, so that it will bind subsequent administrations and sessions.

“The major problem we have in this country is that of policy somersault by successive administrations. Once the Growth Enhancement Scheme becomes law, it will be to the benefit of all Nigerians, and as a House, we have decided to do that. I don’t need to repeat the various achievements of the Growth Enhancement Scheme. It has been clearly stated out by all the stakeholders that have so far testified before me.

“In addition to that, Mr President, I want to talk about wheat. The Lake Chad Research Institute that is based in Maiduguri where I come from has developed a wheat variety called Noman Borlaug that produces about five to six tons per hectare. Before the development of that wheat variety, our farmers produced only two to three hectares per ton but now we have a variety that produces five to six hectares per ton, I think Mr President, you should encourage and give more support to wheat production especially against the backdrop of the fact that agriculture has the potentials, if unlocked, to give employment to our teeming restive youths that are unemployed, especially in the North where we are having security challenges….”

Lai Mohammed, in his diatribe, believes the President dashed “another chunk of what is left of his political goodwill with his unguarded boast that his performance in two and half years has dwarfed those of all his predecessors since independence;” and even challenging his critics who “criticise without thinking” to compare his administration’s performance to others in the world.

Barring any careful editing of the President’s words by Lai, I must agree with him that the country’s chief executive was a little haughty. However, with the eulogies Nigeria has been getting from the IMF/World Bank, and a recent one by a Filipino billionaire, Enrique Razon that the country is the investor’s destination for 2014, Jonathan may not necessarily be boastful.

Lai hinted that one of the reasons Obasanjo is not happy with Jonathan is because of his boastful claims that he has surpassed his predecessors. As he put it, “the President’s claim of superior performance over his predecessors has enlarged his enemies’ camp beyond former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who has engaged the President in recent times.” May be that is what the former President told his junior navigators when they met him in Ota, Ogun State, recently.

But Obasanjo has claimed to be a father to some bigwigs in the PDP, including Jonathan. So, would Obasanjo be proud of a son that exceeds him, knowing, as he has been accused by many, including the APC, of cunningly foisting Jonathan on Nigeria by picking a dying Yar’Adua?

Or, is Asiwaju Bola Tinubu not proud of the achievements of Lagos Governor, Babatunde Fashola, who he foisted on the good people of that State as his “son.” Lai said that Jonathan’s inclusion of governments outside Nigeria as those the country has surpassed further exposed him to ridicule as development indices indicate that many African countries, many of them less endowed, rank much higher than Nigeria in the development continuum. And by Lai’s logic, it is better to live in countries like Egypt, Libya, Angola, Algeria, Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mauritius, and South Africa than Nigeria. I don’t know about the others, but I prefer Nigeria to Egypt and Libya.

If it is okay to use internationally tested indices like Per Capita Income, life expectancy, maternal mortality, access to education, potable water, housing, employment, security, agriculture, power, etc, which are all used to measure a country’s Human Development Index, why have Lai and his co-travellers continued to be vexed by applauses from the IMF/World Bank and other international agencies?

In a way that betrays the fact that he did not think out his piece before releasing to the press, Lai wrote: “Let us, even for the purpose of argument, assume that the President’s performance has been exceptional, there is still no basis for comparison with his predecessors without highlighting what parameters have been used in arriving at such a conclusion. This is because each succeeding administration in Nigeria operated in different local and global environments and was confronted with peculiar challenges. For instance, Gen. Yakubu Gowon had the challenges of fighting a civil war, managing post-war relations, and effectively managing the windfall that accrued to Nigeria in the post-war oil-boom era.”

Has Lai forgotten that something equally devastating is happening in the North-East and the President is handling it well like Gowon, even though it is beginning to emerge that top APC chieftains like Ali Modu Sheriff and the sitting Governor Shettima of Borno State are accusing each other of being responsible for the growth of terrorism there.

His other commendations for other dictators and the Obasanjo that APC once hated show Lai and APC as a hypocritical lot that would return to vomits just to win votes. Was it not under Generals Buhari, Babangida, Abacha, and Abubakar that men like Tinubu cut their teeth as pro-people democrats? So they are now angels because APC chieftains think they can help win votes? Na wa o!

It is not necessary to take Lai on all his positions on issues but one caught the eye at the close of his immature treatise. According to him, “when you mention the rampaging prevalence of corruption, what you are greeted with by government officials is that it did not start with Jonathan. Neither could you hold him responsible for the poor state of public infrastructure in the country. However, the same government is quick to claim credit for any achievement by a Nigerian, even when it is through the individual’s dint of hard work, perseverance and a determination to escape poverty.”

So after the deluge of corruption that APC chieftain, Nuhu Ribadu, fought with bulging veins in his neck under former President Obasanjo, with reports in the Senate listing South-West Governors and others at that time, who are now APC chieftains, as culprits, Lai Mohammed can still raise this issue in the public domain? Well, the records of corrupt individuals will soon hit the public and we shall know those behind corruption.

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