Buhari, victim of unrealistic expectations of Nigerians – Presidency

The Presidency has described the heaps of abuses on President Muhammadu Buhari as a fallout of the high expectations of Nigerians.
The Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the President, Malam Garba Shehu, stated this in an opinion piece on Sunday.
In the piece, which is published elsewhere in full on this website, Shehu said in part: “He came to power with a lot of expectations and Nigerians had, justifiably placed very high hopes on him.
“As we said sometimes back, he as a consequence, has become a victim of the tyranny of expectations.
“The weight of unrealistic expectations has evidently blinded many of the people from seeing the revolutionary changes happening across the nation.”
Shehu said with the country gearing up for the general election next year February and Buhari having declared to seek reelection on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, all hell has been let loose “by the chaotic, ill-prepared opposition camp”.
He added: “A joke on WhatsApp last week was about the abuse and insults heaped on Buhari, attacking him for everything wrong with the country but failing to answer an important question: who do you have that is better?
“In democracies around the globe, second terms by incumbents are usually harder to get simply because, somehow, there is always some kind of anti-incumbency leading to a loss of faith among those supporters.
“For President Buhari, who won with massive votes in 2015, his major challenge is to do as well as he did, or even better. He came to power with a lot of expectations and Nigerians had, justifiably placed very high hopes on him. As we said sometimes back, he as a consequence, has become a victim of the tyranny of expectations. The weight of unrealistic expectations has evidently blinded many of the people from seeing the revolutionary changes happening across the nation.
“Nigerians expected him to undo the damage in several decades of misgovernance and naturally, many are already feeling frustrated that he hadn’t done that in three years.
The problem with our opposition is that beyond fault-finding, they are unable to give or innovate a vision of their own on how they can make the nation better.”