Uneasy, they say, lies the head that wears the crown, but it should not be uneasy for President Buhari, he has worn the crown before.

President Muhammadu Buhari, while receiving Dr. Bernard Aliyu, the President of the International Civil Aviation Organization, at the State House on Monday, yet again lamented the wastefulness of the past administration and the former ruling party, PDP. In his speech, the president made a comparison between the military-led administration in the First Republic and PDP’s 16 years of leadership saying that “In the First Republic, more enduring infrastructure was built with meagre resources, but in the past 16 years, we made a lot of money without planning for the rainy day.”

He recalled that for a larger part of PDP led administrations, a barrel of crude oil was sold for more than $100, but the country lacks the evidence of such wealth. PDP did not take the president’s accusation lightly at all. In a statement by the party chairman, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, “advised the leaders of the APC to stop blaming the PDP” for the woes it is facing during its administration.

Although this is not the first time President Buhari and his team have blamed the opposition, Nigerians hoped that with almost a year of leadership, the current administration would have gone past the blame game and focus on fixing the country. The absence of electricity and fuel coupled with the inflation rate is causing untold hardship in the country. Talk time is over Mr. President, it is time for action.

This is not to say that the past administration did well, no, it was far from perfect. Maybe they were very wasteful and really did plunge the country into a crisis, (which may be why The Economist had the effrontery to call the former President an “ineffectual buffoon”), but they are no longer in government, so what will the APC do differently? Will it step up to correct the wrongs or continue to levy accusations?

While it may be okay for President Buhari to publicly acknowledge the level of decay in the country, he needs to remember the imperfections during his own rule and the First Republic he proudly made attributions to. The military government was very popular as the biggest agent in the corruption ‘fight’ since the country’s independence.

No government can get it right all at once, this is why the blame game is unnecessary. So Mr. President, the past administration has failed, what are you going to do about it?

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