Opinion: Why Buhari should step down for Mathias Baba Tsado in 2019 - by Francis Onyema

How do you solve a problem like Nigeria?

There's insurgency in the North; agitation in the East and oil spillage in the Niger Delta region. Governor El Rufai’s plan to sack over 20,000 teachers in Kaduna State on grounds of incompetence underpins the fact that the nation's educational system is in disarray just as the health system continues to fail. Whereas Morocco are concluding plans to acquire what would be Africa’s fastest trains, the Nigerian government cannot boast of adequate road networks across the nation. The roads are in a bad state and often constitutes deathtraps to commuters who must meet their daily ends while not forgetting that electricity supply is not efficient to boost local productivity.

The most damning indicator that the end of Nigeria's problem is not clearly in sight,  especially with this crop of leaders at the helm of public affairs, is the recent fuel scarcity that has become almost synonymous with the Christmas season. It is embarrassing that a State that produces more than 2 million barrels of crude oil daily cannot refine her own crude and “wet the land" with enough Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) that would serve the need of every Nigerian. It is particularly unacceptable that issues of urgent national interests are relegated to the theatre of comedy as the Minister of Information Lai Mohammed made us believe that the recent fuel scarcity was a result that Nigerians bought more cars in the almost concluding year, 2017. The United States of America, with a population of over 300 million people, is known to have more than twice as much cars as Nigeria have, had never had it so bad to be scrambling for PMS at the end of every year. These indices point to the fact that there's an underlying problem we are yet to address as a people - the problem of leadership.

Most saddening, however, is the increasing rate of unemployment in the country as the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) suggests the country’s unemployment rate rose from 14.2% to 18.8% in 2017. It also said that Nigeria’s labour population increased from 83.9 million in the second quarter to 85.1 million in the third quarter of 2017, a difference of 1.2million in additional workforce. This practically means there's increasing hardship in the land. Unfortunately, it is the ordinary Nigerians who bear the brunt of failed leadership in the country. The ruling elites continue to cling on to power, even at a age that they are incapacitated health-wise, just to loot our national treasury and consolidate power. A friend once opined that most of the leaders we have in the country are those who should be in Bahamas or somewhere around the world spending colourful holidays with their grandchildren. I do solemnly agree with him and believe that it is time for President Buhari to bow out of politics and give Mathias Baba Tsado a chance in the forthcoming 2019 Presidential election.

Almost 3 years into his administration, President Buhari is yet to deal with the issue of Boko Haram insurgency decisively and recently requested that the National Assembly approved a $1 billion fund to quash the terrorist group. It is a pity that the presidency is yet to clearly direct the military to unravel the sponsors behind the Boko Haram dastard acts as a strategy to deal with the insurgency decisively.

It is no secret that despite claims of the Buhari led administration of recovering and generating more funds through government agencies and strengthening the reserves, the past 2 years had been arguably the most difficult times for Nigerians. This is clearly due to an economic policy that turned catastrophic or at best the absence of informed economic policy to drive development. Over the past two years, the cost of goods and services almost doubled. There was an overwhelming retrenchment of workers by private organizations who could no longer afford the high cost of doing business in the country. With the failure of the Buhari administration, it is clear that the solution of Nigeria's problem is not far from a competent leader like Mathias Tsado whose “Make in Nigeria” economic policy is capable to set Nigeria on the part of development.

Tsado opines that for Nigeria to become a world power, it must pursue a productive economy which shall be predicated upon the innovative and creative capacities of our people, to harness Nigeria's natural resources and transform them into finished products. The strength of Tsado’s “Make in Nigeria" economic policy lies in the sense that it is capable to displace the import based economic system in place in order to redress the economic vulnerability that has made our nation worse off.

This policy is predicated on the need for every goods consumed by Nigerians to be produced in the country. His idea reflects that for Nigeria to develop industrially and tackle the rate of unemployment that has ravaged the nation, there's the need to strategically manoeuvre foreign companies to produce most of the Nigerian consumed goods within the country while encouraging local production and industrial growth.

It is a know fact that the economy is the superstructure of any modern society and with the growth of the economy, other sectors of society develops in line with it. President Buhari should honourably step down for Mathias Tsado in the 2019 elections to give room to youthful ideas projected to drive the development of our nation.