A monthly job approval rating survey, which gauges public support for the president, conducted by NOI polls shows that President Muhammadu Buhari’s approval rating has hit a four year low, dropping to 36 percent in October 2018 from a high of 80 percent in October 2015.
Disapproval ratings stood at 50 percent while 14 percent were undecided.
There has been growing dissatisfaction with the 75 year old retired general’s rule that has witnessed an economic recession – the first in more than two decades.
Even after coming out of recession, the economy continues to stutter, growing at a sluggish 1.81 percent rate in the 3rd quarter of 2018, far below the country’s population growth rate.
Meanwhile, food inflation continues to grow at an alarming rate making most of the rural poor to fall into the extreme poverty.
The country, Africa’s largest economy and biggest energy exporter, was recently tagged by the Brookings Institution as the poverty capital of the world, overtaking India.
According to the Institution, over 87 million Nigerians were living in extreme poverty and 6 Nigerians fall into the extreme poverty hole every minute and 8,000 every day.
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A breakdown of the approval ratings across the geopolitical zones shows that the president received the highest approval ratings of 62 percent in the North West, followed by the North East where he got 55 percent.
In the North Central, a region that had hitherto supported the president but where the relentless Fulani herdsmen attack has seen the decimation of the local farming population, he got 31 percent approval rating.
His approval ratings were generally poorer in the south. In the South West where he still retains some support due to his alliance with the region’s political masters that saw the region clinching the vice presidency and key government positions in the government, he managed to poll 24 percent.
In the South South, his approval rating was a mere 18 percent and in the South East where he did not receive much support in 2015 and where his decision to send troops into the region to quell the Biafra secessionist group stoked anger, he polled only 8 percent.
Meanwhile, confronted by his low approval ratings and the threat of the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to his re-election bid in next year’s election, the ex-general has resorted to type, ignoring democratic norms and setting security and anti-corruption agencies to ruffle and unsettle key members of the opposition.
Earlier last month, security agents forcefully searched the private plane of his main challenger in the 2019 elections, former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, as he returned from Dubai, the United Arabs Emirates after a holiday.
On Saturday the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) said the bank accounts of its vice-presidential candidate, Peter Obi, had been frozen by the Buhari administration, saying the development followed relentless harassments of the politician’s family members by supporters of the ruling All Progressives Congress. The country’s main anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financials Crime Commission (EFCC) denied the claim.
Also on Saturday, another opposition member spokesperson, Doyin Okupe, alleged the EFCC visited his house and sought to arrest him for “cyber stalking.”
“They knocked and I told them to come in, but when they identified themselves as being from the EFCC, I asked for letter of invitation or arrest warrant, but they could not provide either,” Okupe said. “I immediately said I cannot follow them that they should give me time and also go back and obtain a warrant or invitation letter.”
Also last week, a governorship candidate of the PDP in Lagos state, Jimi Agbaje, alleged that the Lagos state government removed and vandalised his campaign posters and boards from the streets of Lagos.
In response, the Lagos State Signage and Advertisement Agency (LASAA) justified the removal saying the PDP candidate did not get authorisation before mounting the billboards and posters.
“There are rules and regulations guiding the pasting of bills and posters in Lagos State which must be strictly adhered to,” Mobolaji Sanusi, General Manager of LASAA, said at a meeting summoned by the Lagos State Commissioner of Police to resolve the matter.
On Saturday, the anti-corruption commission raided and searched a building in Abuja housing an apartment occupied by two sons of Atiku Abubakar, the PDP’s presidential candidate and Buhari’s main challenger.
Meanwhile, the PDP Presidential Campaign Organization (PPCO) has condemned Saturday’s raid on the residence of the sons of its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The Council described the raid as vicious, outrageous, dirty and reprehensible.
A statement by Kola Ologbondiyan, Director of Media and Publicity, Presidential Campaign Council, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to stop “importing such vicious underhand tactics into our political hemisphere”.
The Council also reminded the President to note that as an opposition Presidential candidate from 2003 to 2015, none of his children or family members were attacked or victimized by the PDP government.
The statements reads: “The invasion of Aliyu and Mustapha Abubakar’s home, even in their absence, allegedly in search of imaginary cache of foreign currency, has further exposed how depraved the Buhari Presidency has descended in the desperate plot to harm, traumatize and malign the character of our Presidential candidate and his family, having realized that Nigerians have aligned behind him as the next President of our country.”
“It is indeed appalling that the Buhari Presidency can now go as low as engaging in wicked politics of chasing after family members of a Presidential candidate, who are neither government officials, government contractors nor involved in any underhand dealings, but young students pursuing their legitimate personal educational careers without ill will to anybody.
“While nothing incriminating was found in the apartment, the PPCO has been made aware of how the squad, said to be acting on ‘orders from above’ ransacked the house and destroyed valuables belonging to Atiku’s children and we demand an explanation from the leadership of the EFCC.
“The PPCO completely rejects the wicked politics that the APC and the Buhari Presidency are importing into our polity. We hereby urge all Nigerians, particularly the youths, to rise in condemnation of these vicious acts,” the statement said.
This may just be history repeating itself.
In his first coming as military head of state, confronted by the apparent failure of his command and control policies and his failure to revamp the economy as promised, the Buhari regime became more oppressive and intolerant of criticism.
As Adebayo Olukoshi and Tajudeen Abdulraheem, scholars in Nigeria’s government and politics rightly noted, “The Nigerian Security Organisation’s powers were significantly expanded.”
In his second coming, Buhari has often bemoaned his lack of adequate powers to deal with the corrupt unlike when he was a military general where his words were laws and where he locked up the corrupt and assumed them guilty until they could prove their innocence.
Meanwhile the Presidency on Monday washed its hands clean on the purported freezing of the bank accounts of the PDP Vice Presidential candidate in the 2019 elections, Peter Obi.
This is just as Presidency also denied ordering raid of the home of the son of the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.
A statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, on Monday advised Nigerians to “ ignore the rumour” , describing it as “fairy tale” from the PDP.
According to Garba Shehu, “ The story about the raid “ordered by Buhari-led government” on the home of PDP Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar’s son and the fairy tale on the alleged blockage of the bank accounts of the running mate,Governor Peter Obi and his family are both untrue.”
