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Obasanjo is postponing the evil day - Balarabe Musa
...He’s not an easy man -
Stella
soji oyinlola
Correspondent
Second
Republic Governor of the old Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa has said that
policies being pursued by the President Olusegun Obasanjo’s
administration are not addressing the real Nigerian problems but are executed
in ways that can only postpone the evil day.
He said the president
has been cutting corners with some of his policies, which have been inflicting
pains on Nigerian .
Speaking in an
interview with Saturday Independent, Balarabe alleged
that Obasanjo is at best pursuing and executing policies that can be best
described as anti-people.
Balarabe made the
declaration just as President Obasanjo’s wife, Stella, told Lagos-based
private television, African Independent Television (AIT), that her husband was
not an easy person to cope with.
According to Stella,
her husband is strong-willed and as such he hardly agrees with other
people’s opinion whenever he had made up his mind on issues.
While speaking in an exclusive interview with Saturday
Independent, Balarabe
said, instead of President Obasanjo to address the problems confronting the
nation, he has decided to play the ostrich, pretending all is well within the
polity.
“President Obasanjo has totally jettisoned democratic
ideas and has turned himself into a full-blown civilian dictator and thereby
remain adamant to the voice of reason,” he alleged.
Tracing the root
of Obasanjo’s current posture, Balarabe said the whole problem started immediately
after the last general election, which he alleged was massively rigged by the
ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). “Now, with no visible opposition
in sight, the coast became clear for the president to force his unilateral
policies on the people”.
On the recent increase in prices of petroleum products which
necessitated the just suspended four-day warning strike by the Nigeria Labour
Congress and the civil society, Balarabe said the government action did not
come to him as a surprise as the ground was well prepared for government to
force its decision on the people.
“You can
see the hurriedness with which the Senate passed the labour reform bill without
having due consideration for the people they represent. That actually paved the
way for government to underrate the people by going ahead to increase the
prices of petroleum products,” he stated.
He said the action of the National Assembly has actually
confirmed it to be an appendage of the executive.
“The Assembly is at the beck and call of the President
and the members are bound to do his bidding regardless of what befall the poor
masses. The masses are the worst hit for all the connivance going on in
government circles.”
Alhaji Musa said if the government thinks muzzling the
labour union is all it needs to carpet opposition, then it was mistaking a big
mistake.
According to him, “labour has never been alone in
whatever struggle to resist bad government policies. The civil groups are much
awake to their responsibilities and will always take up the fight to liberate
the people.”
Suggesting a way forward for the country, Balarabe said the
only option is to convene a sovereign national conference. “There are
a lot of injustices going on in
the country. You have each section agitating for one thing or the other and it
is quite unfortunate that those in authority have chosen to look the other way
rather than face the problem squarely. We need to come to the round table and
lay bare our problems for us to really see how we can move forward or else, we
may be moving towards the precipice.”
On the failure of progressive politicians to speak with one
voice, Alhaji Musa said the whole problem started during the long transition
programme of former millitary president, Ibrahim Babangida.
“That period of long transition by Babangida threw the
progressive into disarray and the political moneybags cashed in on this problem
and hijacked party politics”.
Alhaji Balarabe Musa also cautioned the president against
further harrassment of Adams Oshiomhole.” The harrassment of the NLC
president by government is not enough to kill the morale of the people.
Oshiomhole is just one person out of the millions that are crying for justice.
So removing Oshiomhole or harrassing him will not remove anything from the
struggle,” he warned.
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