ABSCOND NOW, ALHAJI PRESIDENT!
“Actually, I felt like absconding because 27 out of 36 states in Nigeria could not pay salaries and we knew they had no other sources,” said Buhari on November 3, 2016. He was speaking at the Presidential Villa, Abuja during a briefing by participants of Course 38 of National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS, Kuru, Jos, Plateau State. Their report was on poverty reduction in Nigeria.
Mostly APC (All Progressive Congress) governed states were unable to pay workers because their governors used their states treasuries to finance APC candidates during the 2015 election. Buhari benefited.
This Kuru jamboree has been ongoing since 1979 and several reports have been presented by the participants. It is really idiotic for a country with great universities to rely on a quasi-military organization to solve its problems. The outlandish sums of money spent on participants is unjustifiable. They go on foreign junkets ostensibly to study other countries. On closer examination, these are estacode generating trips. The policy papers produced by the Kuru graduates should be published for public scrutiny. My fear is that those reports will never see the the light of the day because they are lightweight quasi-academic papers.
Kuru is a bad idea and it is high time that it is shut down permanently. The budget should be used on strengthening the Nigerian universities where the best brains are. When Buhari relies on Kuru graduates to alleviate poverty in Nigeria, Africastallestman smells something fishy. It would be a good idea to publicize the curriculum vitae of the Kuru whiz kids who are more knowledgeable than the United Nations and the universities in poverty alleviation.
On no account should Buhari be allowed to borrow money on behalf of Nigeria for his sectionalist interests. A lawsuit against this borrowing may be necessary. Given the bad blood between Buhari and the judiciary, the legal approach is a viable option since Nigeria has a rubber stamp legislature.
Buhari continues to blame Jonathan, Yar’adua, and Obasanjo for his mismanagement. He should also be blaming Lord Lugard for amalgamating Northern and Southern Nigeria into a bipolar and non-functioning country. President Obama fixed the US economy screwed by Bush and never blamed Bush. When you rely on your relatives and Kuru to run down a once vibrant economy, Buhari can only blame himself for his woes. Aisha Buhari made the correct diagnosis of the personnel problems in your administration, while observing from the kitchen and other rooms of the Aso Presidential Villa, the shenanigans going on in the parlor.
It is not too late for Buhari to resign and spare Nigeria further economic hardship. He is ill-equipped to lead Nigeria out of her economic morass.