Buhari Failed To Deliver On His Electoral Promises, Bungled 2023 Elections-Bode George

A former deputy national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Olabode George, has described the outgoing administration of President Muhammadu Buhari as a colossal failure.

George, who spoke in Lagos on Friday in an interview with selected media said he would only give the Buhari led administration 5% having failed to secure the country, reflate the economy and fight corruption which were the three major planks of the change mantra.

The PDP chieftain said unfortunately, even the free and fair election that he promised through the use of BVAS, which the Prof Mahmoud Yakabu led Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, promised will be a game changer failed when it mattered most.

He said; “My personal assessment is that they failed, not completely in every sector, but if you do an exam and say you must have a minimum of 33% then you can go to the next class, but they did not attain that 33%.

“If I give them maybe about 5%, even the 5% requires a lot of introspection, the economic sector, the education, agricultural and infrastructural sector, the most important thing you must guarantee to your people as a government is security of lives and property. Who is safe now? Whether you’re a poor man, middle aged, when you are walking towards any direction, you have to be looking, front, back, left and Centre.

“So, it is very, very disheartening and heartbreaking that the number one job, which is to guarantee security of lives and property has failed.

“So for me, I’m in a quagmire, heavily disappointed, but the almighty in his words says that, the journey of life cannot be in a straight line all the time, there are times we need the bump, sometimes the round about, sometimes we go into the tunnel, I believe we will learn and make mistakes and I now quote the words of General Powell, the former chief of defense staff in the US armed forces, he said “ the only mistake a human being can make is the one that you do not learn lessons from, but if you learn from it, it’s no longer a mistake” those are heavy words, so for them the end of another era, you know when he was coming in, oga was telling us, I would fight corruption, I will secure the lives and properties of the people, I will do this, I will do that, all kinds of promises.So let’s put those promises now into his departure, because that’s what will be written in the pages of history, so whatever a leader does during his time, it is on the pages of history.

“So now I’m saying that we are starting another journey on the 29th, we must be full of prayers, because, I worked with oga before, I think maybe age is not on his side, he came out around the middle of last year, publicly and internationally and stated that, look, I am going to leave one legacy, that the electoral process in this country will be second to none in the world, the mess we used to call election process will be a thing of the past, that they were going to buy a technology that will remove interlopers, manipulation and manipulating people, straight from your polling unit into the control center, we organized a party here that that is the end of madness in Nigeria, we were so happy, we even popped a champagne here, they said are you sure? I said it’s a general who is talking, okay.

“They budgeted, released the money, bought the equipment, headed to do the test run in Anambra, flawless! Did a test run in Ekiti, flawless! Did another one in Osun state.

“But on this final election, Professor Yakubu made a broadcast and reassured Nigerians that they have done a test run, no problem we were all sitting hoping that for the first time the will of the people will prevail, whatever you vote will be the answer, and then on that D-day, Professor Yakubu, told us there was a glitch, on the D-day and the 8hour like we say in the military, it was disgraceful, shambolic, it wrenched my heart.

“All hopes were on the fact that yes! There was going to be Justice, fairness and equity and the respect for the will of the people, shamelessly they said there was a glitch.They now went back to the way we used to do it, what happened to all the money, all the many talks, and if you look at it that way, you come back and sit down, yes I retired as a general, there’s a lot of differences between the military and the civil, but haven gotten all the training we had, the best thing you can do to your country is bring about that experience into the system to make sure we do not default.We do not degrade, we do not fall to the lower level, look!

“We have almost hit the bottom in this nation, take any sector, there was a time the children in the university were home for almost nine months, no school, no nothing, the teachers were asking for their salaries.

“Look at our economic area now, the interest rate, few days ago was increased to 18.2% by the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele.

“Who will go and borrow now? Unless you’re a thief or you know you’re going to default, because you will pass on that extra to the people, in the main time, the consumers, what’s their take home? So what are we breeding? Who is driving who? Inflation rate has also soared to more than 22%. What the hell is going on? I’m not a pessimist, but facts are facts.

“Where are we on the committee of nations?

“The giant of Africa, for every 10 Africans, 7 are Nigerians, and look every high level professionalism, anywhere in the world, you would find half a Nigerian there who is an expert. So what is wrong?

“God didn’t create us like this , all these ‘Wahala’ I’m talking about are handmade, self inflicted, let’s put those who can put a smile on our face to run this country, it’s like ship that is taking water and you’re not stopping it.”Who wants us now?”

” The G-20 don’t even invite us again, they are now saying Rwanda, what’s the total population of Rwanda? We sent our armed forces to help in liberating South Africa, Zimbabwe, Sierra-leone, Liberia, Mali, so what is wrong with us?”