TheCable

Demola Olanrewaju, an aide to Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), says President Muhammadu Buhari has failed to fulfil the promises made in the manifesto that brought him to power in 2015.

Olanrewaju spoke on Thursday during the monthly ‘Thursday Talks’ by EiE.

The virtual conversation, a monthly programme focused on engaging thought leaders, was moderated by Deborah Tolu-Kolawole, a journalist.

Buhari became Nigeria’s president in 2015, ending the 16-year rule of the PDP.

He was re-elected for a second term in office in 2019 and is scheduled to hand over power to Bola Tinubu, the president-elect, on May 29.

Assessing the eight years of the Buhari administration, Olanrewaju said: “APC was voted in 2015 on the promise of change, and APC got and effected a change of promise”.

He added that “nobody attaches credibility to promises made by politicians anymore because of the inability of this administration to keep its promise”.

“We must cast our mind back to the promises made by APC in 2015 en route to taking over from the PDP. I think it’s quite obvious that if you look at those promises and the reality on the ground today, the APC has simply not fulfilled its promises. Buhari has simply not fulfilled the promises that brought him into power,” he said.

“The government came in with high hopes that began to be dashed gradually.

“There was a sense of Buhari’s administration not being a reflection of any other administration simply because APC had criticised the previous government for some of the things that they turned around to do; in terms of the integrity of elections, insecurity, and ideas on how to make Nigeria work.

“There were also attempts by this administration to distance itself from its own promises. Buhari promised ‘restructuring’ when he got into power, and he said he did not understand what restructuring means anymore.

“Basically, APC was voted in 2015 on the promise of change, and APC effected a change of promise. Based on that, I think the Buhari administration has not lived up to the billing of its promise.”

On his part, Oluseyi Olufemi, a data journalist, said while the Buhari administration ranked high in some aspects of state management, the government failed in economics and human rights issues.

“In terms of economics, that was a greater decline. The Buhari administration scored the lowest. Things have gotten worst than they used to be,” he said.

“In terms of the number of refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs), that increased drastically also under Buhari compared to other governments. Human rights abuse was also worse.”