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- Alhaji Shettima Usman Yerima said the Buhari administration has failed
- The Arewa president said more was expected from the current administration
- He said another person will be selected to replace Buhari in 2019
Alhaji
Shettima Usman Yerima who is the president of the Arewa Youth
Consultative Forum (AYCF) has lamented that the President Muhammadu
Buhari administration has failed to live up to expectation.
In
an interview with Vanguard, Yerima said a lot was expected of the
Buhari administration but it has failed to deliver on its promises.
Yerima insists Buhari will be replaced in 019
He
said ordinary people in the north supported Buhari hoping that the
change he promised will make their life better but the reverse has been
the case.
The AYCF president said Buhari
will be replaced in 2019 and that his replacement will be a younger
person who understands the trends in the world.
He said: “This
government enjoyed a lot of support and goodwill from the people who
were hoping that things will be better if we could put a new government
in place. And that is why they came out en-masse to give the kind of
support and mandate the government got in 2015 against then ruling
party. And then opposition party won an election the kind that has never
happened in the history of this country.
“Eventually
we had a new government in place but the hope of the people has been
dashed. The hope has been destroyed. So, the state of the nation is
neither here nor there. The economy is nothing to write home about. A
lot of things are not just right. I think this is not what Nigerians
bargained for. And so, in essence, a lot of Nigerians are not really
happy.
I think we are going to
bring an alternative in 2019. We have to bring a new order in the
country because we cannot afford to have a president who is not in
charge of the affairs. This is coupled with the fact that some of us
looked at his age ahead of 2015 and came up with the reservation that it
was not a good idea to have a man of his age to lead a country like
Nigeria with a population of about 200 million people. People thought we
were undermining him at that time but we said no because somebody of
Buhari’s age would find it difficult managing his personal affairs not
to talk of the affairs of a huge country like ours. We have nothing
against President Buhari personally but we believe somebody of his age
should be home to manage his health.
“And
age is not even the problem because, when you look at global events,
the way things are turning around universally, you will agree with me
that we need, in the saddle, somebody who is in tune with the global
reality. We need people who are digitalization compliant to turn things
around in terms of intellectual capacity, in terms of globalization and
people who will be in touch with the current world order. We need
somebody that is agile and knowledgeable enough to move round the world
with his counterparts. For now in Nigeria, that is not the case. And I
don’t think we are making any headway in that direction.
“And
the worst thing is that, for government to look for capable hands that
can turn around things positively, it ended up picking individuals that
had been out of circulation for a very long time. These outdated and
spent forces constitute government and they are not doing well. Now, you
can see the confusion everywhere. The reality is not all about Buhari
as a person. The reality is about nature that is taking its toll on him
coupled with the situation of his health that nobody knows. I am afraid
we may fall into a constitutional crisis we were plunged into during the
Yar’ Adua government. And that would not augur well for us as a
country.
This view is across
board. You know, from what we gathered, there are some aggrieved people
who find it difficult coming out openly to speak the minds of their
people or to express their views on the state of the nation. But some of
us who are trained to speak the truth without minding whose ox is gored
will always come out to speak. For now, nobody is happy with the
situation.
“It is really sad
that those of us from the northern part of the country who thought the
coming of Buhari would be a new dawn for us, the down trodden who feel
marginalized and thought would be rescued by him, are also disappointed.
The common man in the North, the pepper seller, the sugarcane hawker,
the beggar and others, who trooped out to give him the mandate thought
he would look round to see a policy that would help their cause, are
disappointed. At the end of the day, some of his policies are only on
the air! And directly, you cannot feel the impact.”
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