Babangida to Buhari, APC: Where is the promised change?

Ayorinde Oluokun/Abuja

One of the highlights of statement issued by former military president Ibrahim Babangida letter asking President Muhammadu Buhari not to run in 2019 was his lamentation that the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC has failed to deliver on the ‘change mantra’ it campaigned with to win the 2015 general election.

The former military ruler noted that the APC has especially failed to to “device new methods, provoke new initiatives and proffer new ways to addressing some of our developmental problems,” contrary to the promise of change it campaigned with.

Babangida was especially miffed by failure of the Buhari led APC government to deliver on its promise of restructuring, especially devolution of powers from the federal to states and local governments.

“By now, in line with her manifesto, one would have thought that the APC will give fillip to the idea of devolution of powers and tinker with processes that would strengthen and reform the various sectors of the economy. Like I did state in my previous statement late last year, devolution of power or restructuring is an idea whose time has come if we must be honest with ourselves.

“We need to critically address the issue and take informed positions based on the expectations of the people on how to make the union work better,” said Babangida who warned that most of the problems confronting the country can only be tackled with restructuring of the country.

He however warned political parties should not exploit restructuring as a decoy to woo voters

“We need to begin the process of restructuring both in the letter and spirit of it.

“For example, I still cannot reconcile why my state government would not be allowed to fix the Minna-Suleja road, simply because it is called Federal Government road, or why state governments cannot run their own policing system to support the Federal Police.

“We are still experiencing huge infrastructural deficit across the country and one had thought the APC-led Federal Government would behave differently from their counterparts in previous administrations.

“I am hesitant to ask; where is the promised change?,” the former military president queried.