Ruling party not close to achieving its campaign promises, says VC

Vice Chancellor, Igbinedion University Okada, Prof. Eghosa Osaghae, has described the two years administration of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) as one without well planned programmes, ideological platform and political structure.

In an interview with The Guardian where he appraised the party’s performance two years in office, the don said it is imperative to restructure Nigeria based on national consensus.

According to him, “Two years on, we are not close to what the party promised to achieve in its campaign. Sadly, it is difficult to distill what the party stands for. I say this because in the past we had parties like the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), Nigeria’s People’s Party (NPP), National Party of Nigeria (NPN), their policies were clearly defined and they were not just deliverable but were measurable-deliverables.”

Eghosa also faulted the ruling party, saying, “It was after it won the 2015 elections that it started putting together policies, workshops, which revealed it does not have the coherence and ideological platform from the beginning to achieve anything for Nigerians.”

Although, the don noted that some states under the control of the ruling party are performing better than the others “in general, it’s a problem and it’s largely because the states are failing that many people now put the blame on the Federal Government.”

According to him, “The states are mostly dysfunctional and have failed to deliver dividends of democracy. There are no sights of effective organisation in response to citizen demands, which made many people to conclude that the government at the centre has failed.

People assume the failure of the states to be that of Mr. President and this is the reason those agitating for restructuring are having strong point because as a federal system, we ought to be able to hold the state to account.”

The vice chancellor added that whenever the people complain about marginalisation, what they are simply saying is the absence of good roads, lack of drinkable water, good schools but these are the responsibilities of the state and local governments.

Said he, “If the states were working these evaluations, appraisals would be fairer but because they are not, our focus and attention is almost entirely on the Federal Government.”

He added that it was ironical to say that the Federal government is the only government that is working in the country simply because the quality of governance at the federal level cannot be compared to the quality of governance in any of the 36 states.