If Nigerians are normal, APC will never be voted again

By Aliyu Nuhu

There is no way Nigerians will vote APC back to power if the country is a normal society with normal people. But the people voting our leaders are not the ones reading this write up. They are the people who vote with their stomach instead of their conscience. Stomach infrastructure is very much around and it is the reason why governors will be the deciding factor in who becomes the Nigeria’s president.

Here are APC failures and why Nigerians are not happy with it. But first let’s mention the areas the government made some progress.

This government built infrastructure. It is the best in Africa by regional standard. More are needed but within its two terms it completed Kaduna-Abuja railway and kept it running. It completed Itakpe-Aladja rail and it is operating. It built in record time Ibadan-Lagos railway and it is running. It has started Kano-Kaduna rail, Kano-Katsina-Maradi rails. It has almost completed second Niger bridge. It has almost completed Lagos-Ibadan express. It has gone far in building Kano-Kaduna-Abuja express. It has almost completed Kano-Maiduguri express. It has expanded and improved all the international airports to very high standards. Aminu Kano international airport, Nnamdi Azikwe international airport, Murtala Muhammed international airport, Portharcourt international airport and Enugu international airport. There are many roads that cannot be mentioned. In terms of infrastructure, APC has developed Nigeria.

Economic development is about infrastructure. That has been achieved to a modest standard. The next government will build on it. That is how societies develop.

However, the areas of failures are here but not according to their importance though.

1- Electricity: APC did not build power plants and did not build transmission infrastructure. The Siemens $2.3 bn power deal is still on paper. The government inherited 4000mw Electricity generation and today we have national grid collapse and abysmal 2000mw generation. Nigeria can never grow without electricity. Any claim of growing the economy is simply preposterous.

2- APC did not build refineries. The country is still shamelessly importing fuel. Petroleum products are the country’s biggest import and biggest waste of foreign earnings. Whatever the country gains in exporting crude oil is wasted in importing refined petroleum products in the most corrupt and dubious style. Nigeria will never grow by importing a commodity it has in abundance and has comparative advantage over 160 countries. Because Nigeria imports fuel the commodity is never enough nor available.

3- Insecurity: by any standard, Nigeria is among the most violent countries on Earth. The whole country is circled by terror so much that killing of 40 worshippers is quickly overshadowed by more violent events. Most of Nigeria’s roads are taken over by bandits. People no longer travel for normal living. A journey from Abuja to Kaduna is becoming a suicide mission.

4- Bad economy: the economic health indicators are level of poverty, inequality, corruption, hunger unemployment, inflation, interest rates, foreign exchange rate and volume of international trade. There is no space to take each of them but in a nutshell Nigeria is simply facing economic crisis.

5- Education: APC inherited university strikes and is bequeathing university strikes. Primary school enrollment is at its worst level with 12 million children roaming thr streets. Child education is the telescope used in looking at the future of a nation. If the children who will be around in the future are not getting education, then it is easy to know the kind of Nigerians in the next 20 years.

6- Health: the hospitals are still what they were before APC or even worse. No equipments, no trained personnel, no drugs and no electricity. Nigerians travel outside for medical treatment and those that have no money stay and die.

7- Corruption: this government is gradually overtaking PDP in official stealing. The little gain made in jailing few governors has been reversed by the departing president who made fight against corruption his cardinal goal.

These are just few areas critical to nation’s life that makes APC a terrible choice for Nigerians. But unfortunately and very sadly APC may still remain in power because of a weak opposition. If the small parties don’t merge and present a single candidate in PDP there is no way APC will not form the next government. Mark my words. No political party can take on APC alone.