Category: Segun Gbadegesin

As I type this piece on my laptop, it’s still Wednesday, May 27, 2015. By the time you get to read it, however, it will be Friday, May 29, 2015 when history is made and the aspiration for change becomes the reality of a new beginning.

You don’t have a tree in the garden without having a good knowledge of its fruit. I have a good knowledge of Opalaba, my good friend. I know what he is capable of doing and what to expect from him. With his awareness of my location an ocean away and therefore an unavoidable absence from all the festivities of this day, I expect Opalaba to arrogantly show off his closeness to the heart of the show and rub it in on my face. By 5am Eastern Time and 10 am Lagos time on May 29, I know that Opalaba will wake me up and taunt me about what I am missing. I am sure that I will be treated to his baritone rendition of the famed Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood theme song:

“It’s a beautiful day in Nigeria

A beautiful day for my nation

Would you join us?

Could you join me?”

“It’s democracy day in Nigeria

True democracy for my nation

Would you join us?

Could you join me?”

 

That is my friend, only being true to his sadistic pastime. And you better believe that my preempting him with this piece will not alter the course of events that has been predicted.

It’s surely a beautiful day in Nigeria. Its beauty is not in the cool breeze of the wind or the brightness of the sun. It is not in the gentle drizzle or the showers of blessing. This day is beautiful on account of what it represents. Even the humidity of the air cannot take away that beauty.

Like many patriotic Nigerians, Opalaba has looked to this day with great excitement. He has invested a great deal of hope and cannot be more ecstatic about the outcome. He welcomed the unambiguous mandate that citizens handed Buhari and Osinbajo. It was a mandate for change, the rallying cry of Nigerian electorates on March 28, 2015. But that mandate was not only for a change of actors. It was also for a change of outlook and direction. Therefore, for Nigerians to be satisfied that real change has truly occurred there must be change of outlook and direction.

The change of actors is the purview of the people themselves. By voting out the outgoing administration on grounds of incompetence, impunity, corruption and moral decay, the people have performed their own side of the contract. They must now hold the incoming administration responsible for fulfilling its own side of the bargain: provide strong and effective leadership for a change of outlook and direction. Our people respect strong leaders. They appreciate focused attention on the challenges facing the nation. But they are rightly contemptuous of leadership from behind.

With respect to a change of outlook, the Buhari/Osinbajo administration must proceed with the understanding that every citizen matters and deserves respect. They must know that the politicians’ sacrifice is no greater than citizens’ sacrifice. Therefore, there is no moral justification for jumbo compensation for political appointees and elected officials. And any legal impediment against corrective measures must be speedily removed so that morality is reconciled with legality.

This administration must pay serious attention to the needs of the smallest among us and invest in the development of human talents. The beginning of political wisdom in the matter of a change of outlook is the avoidance of all the terrible isms: egocentrism, ethnocentrism, sectarianism, and nepotism, in word and deed. For heaven’s sake, real change must occur in these areas that have badly tainted our politics in the most recent past.

There is always the political temptation to use and abuse the symbols of political power. It is not a coincidence that power is the battle cry of PDP and it abused it to the point that Nigerians became thoroughly disillusioned and demoralised. This administration must avoid such an outlook. It must make transparently conscious efforts towards the restoration of our people’s confidence in the police, DSS, and other security agencies.

It is imperative that the likes of Ekitigate be consigned to the dustbin of history. And it is certainly a positive development that the governors have redeemed their image away from the infamous “16 is greater than 19” election verdict. Now they must join hands with the new administration as moral forces in a nation that is thirsty for a commonsense moral revolution. Today, we must start a new tradition of morally sanctioned politics, a politics of virtue that abhors greed and self-centeredness. The administration must strengthen our democratic structures and allow the free flow of ideas in the political marketplace.

The country has headed in the wrong direction in the past 16 years. Education which ought to be given the utmost priority was sadly placed at the back burner of government’s attention as private institutions took precedence even in the attention of public officials saddled with the responsibility of advancing our public schools. The consequence is mass failure because teachers who secured employment on political grounds and party affiliation can hardly read or add. You cannot feed garbage in and expect a different output.

It is worse. Children and young adults have become apprentices in the workshop of the devil, and cultism is a national embarrassment. Politicians use the young ones during elections and dump them thereafter. But the used and dumped don’t evaporate into thin air. They are absorbed into the world of crime and into the enclaves of militants and terrorists. Do we care for the future of the youth and of the nation?

We need a change of direction in our approach to the education of the youth. We must offer them functional and quality education and prepare them for good life prospects. If we do, we will experience a great relief from the tragic dehumanisation and unfortunate loss of our youth population to drug addiction, cultism, and thuggery. And from the fruit of good education, our youths can start making useful contributions to the economy and inculcating the values of discipline and moral rectitude. I am sure that these ideas are consistent with the change agenda of the APC and the Buhari/Osinbajo manifesto.

Investing in human assets is a no-brainer. It has the potentials for a multiplier effect not only on the economy but also on those intangibles that make a society great and livable. The rot that pervades the Nigerian landscape is odious and revolting.

Someone told me that it is not possible to eradicate corruption because it has become so entrenched in the system and that the President must not waste his political capital on that impossible task. I disagree. If the APC government campaigned on its ability and will to fight corruption, it cannot afford to be discouraged or disenchanted. If it doesn’t look back, it can count on the support of ordinary Nigerians who see corruption as the major obstacle to their personal progress.

Corruption is fingered as the culprit in most if not in all the challenges facing the nation, whether it has to do with the collapse of the power sector, fuel subsidy scam, security challenges, electoral fraud, or waste in public service. It is time that we confronted the tumor before it consumes the nation.

As President Buhari takes over the mantle of leadership of this great nation today, he must lead by example and with the fear of Almighty God who has smiled on his fourth attempt. He must resolve to repay the kindness of God to him by putting the nation first in all that he does. It’s only by so doing that he can bring the much deserved change to a nation that is in desperate need of a new direction.

It’s a beautiful day in the land that pleases God to locate us all. Let us make the best of it.

Good morning!

Election is to democracy what oxygen is to life. Without periodic elections a democracy cannot survive. But while nobody resents oxygen because of its indispensability to life, the opposite appears to be the case with regard to elections and democracy. Many “democrats” would wish elections were not that essential. Without worrying about seeking voters’ periodic endorsement, many politicians would probably still deliver the proverbial dividends of democracy. But they would not have the mandate of the electorates. Not a problem for those politicians claiming to know better than the wearer where the shoe pinches. Too bad, therefore, democracy demands citizens’ input.

When a candidate loses an election which he or she was sure of winning because of assurances of campaign aides, party leaders, and a strong conviction of having out-performed others in office, it can be a humbling and traumatic experience. This is especially true in the case of an incumbent with enormous powers and material resources to dispense. But it does happen.

Elections are to be won and lost. Losers just accept the verdict of the people and move on, either to come back at a later time, as Buhari did on three occasions, or to retire into the role of an elder statesman, as Jimmy Carter did in 1980 and the world has been a lot better for it. This latter option is even more glorifying when it is approached without leaving behind any baggage of political actions and activities that may raise moral eyebrows.

President Jonathan gracefully accepted his defeat and heroically averted disaster for the country. He deserves a lot of credit for this. Though some would argue that it is what is expected, I learnt in my Sunbeam class a long time ago that people deserve credit not because of the good they perform but because of the evil that they avoid. For avoiding the evil of a sit-tight-till-heaven-falls loser, I give him credit.

Now, I am disturbed by two developments. One is from the President’s activities since the elections. The other is from his supporters’ actions. Let me start with the second, an aspect of which I touched on a couple of weeks ago in “Conspiracy Theories.”

Since the end of the elections, there has been a civil war within the Peoples Democratic Party. It is natural and reasonable to ask the question “why?” after such a disastrous thumping of the largest party in Africa. So I perfectly understand the rationale behind the call for a post-election assessment. What worries me is that even before the beginning of such an assessment, some party members and presidential aides have been able to identify the answer to the question “why?” and they laid it squarely at the doorstep of the leaders, especially the Chairman.

Of course, we have to be fair and accept the truism that the buck always stops at the desk of the leader. But in the run-up to the election, PDP had two parallel leaders—the NWC and the Campaign Organisation with its Chairman and Directors of different departments. If there was no coordination between the two such that the Party Chairman was the overall head of both, how is he to blame for what the campaign did or didn’t do? And how will the call for his head now solve the major problem of disconnect between the party and the electorate which was the reason for its loss?

The Chairman has identified the major mistake that the party made over which he appeared to have no control again because the campaign team was different from the NWC which he led. The campaign team ran a campaign that was fit for the 60s. It was a hate campaign; it was a campaign of crude power reminiscent of the NNDP days in the old Western Region.

PDP campaign failed to realise that we are now dealing with Millennias, and it didn’t count on the pledge of INEC to use technology to block rigging.  When INEC didn’t buckle under threats of fire and brimstone, the game was over. Why should we all be concerned? We want a democracy with at least two strong parties that present candidates with real choices. Let PDP go back to the drawing board and learn from its corporate mistakes. It cannot do this with finger-pointing that only escalates the civil war and promotes fratricide.

I am aware that President Jonathan is still in charge until 12am on May 29 and his presidential powers are still enormous. But he can use it for good or for ill. Certainly, he can use it to cement his newly found image as a statesman and a graceful loser. On the other hand, however, he can use his remaining days in office to confirm the belief of many that voted against him as a crafty and divisive leader. I am worried that the latter image may stick with his new actions and activities.

When we woke up to the announcement that IGP Abba had been relieved of his position, many had an ambivalent attitude to the news. What does it matter? He was used and dumped. Too bad, but Abba didn’t deserve any pity. What goes round comes round. That was the general feeling. It wasn’t that the President was right or wrong. People just didn’t care because of Abba’s inglorious record as a partisan law enforcement officer.

Then more shocking news about firing and hiring followed. First, was the hiring of former Governor Peter Obi as Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) barely a month to the end of the President’s term in office. Obi had defected from APGA to PDP in 2014. Is this payback for his support before and during the elections? We recall the role played by Obi in the infamous Nigerian Governor’s Forum election. Still, what does this political appointment mean? Does the President expect that a President Buhari will retain Obi to appease the Southeast? Is it a sort of booby trap? What was the motive?

On the same day the announcement of Obi’s appointment was made, the firing of Femi Thomas, the Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), was announced and Olufemi Akingbade was tapped as Acting Executive Secretary. The same questions as above arise here. How is the public to take this hiring and firing at the dusk of life in Aso Rock?

There is more. On April 29, the announcement was made of the appointment of Sanusi Lamido Ado Bayero as the Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the firing of Habib Abdullahi who had served in that position. There was no reason offered for the change.

That wasn’t all. On May  5,  the Presidency announced the Presidential approval of the appointment of a serving Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Asabe Asmau Ahmed as the new Executive Secretary of the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF) and the firing of Sharon Adefunke Kasali who had been in that position since 2007. A second appointment that was approved on the same day was that of Denzil Amagbe Kentebe as the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Management Development Board (NCDMB) and the firing of Ernest Nwapa who has been in that position since 2010.

For each of these new appointments, the President’s expectation is that the appointees will be in their posts long enough to (as he is reported to declare in the case of the new Secretary of PEF) put their years of public service to good use in “re-engineering, repositioning, and re-invigorating” their various agencies “for present and future challenges.”

These are relevant questions: Did President Jonathan confer with President-elect Buhari before making these appointments? If not, is Buhari morally and politically obligated to retain these new hires? I would think not. If the President made these appointments because he believed that he had the power, then Buhari also has the moral authority to reverse the appointments when he takes over power unless he believes, not only in their abilities to perform, but also in their loyalty to his mission. Thankfully, Nigerians didn’t elect a naïve President.

Let us start with a couple of definitions.

Theory: an idea or thought deployed to account for some fact, situation or the outcome of some event.

Conspiracy: a covert plan by a group of people to do something unlawful or harmful. Thefreedictionary.com more specifically defines conspiracy as “an agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.”

Conspiracy theory: “a theory that explains an event or a set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators.”—Merriam-Webster. The covert or secret plan need not be criminal but the objective of the conspiracy theorist is to present the object of his or her theory as evil and therefore condemnable.

There are many examples of conspiracy theories in history ranging from the theory that the assassination of President J. F. Kennedy was not a lone act of Lee Oswald but a conspiracy by some powerful actors to the one that explains the 9-11 terrorist attacks as a government insider job. Recently, there is a conspiracy theory claiming that polio vaccine is a ploy by some evil powers to effectively sterilise children of the Third World.

Not all conspiracy theories lack evidence and some of them may be self-explanatory or self-justifying. Many intelligent people believe that some Western powers implicitly supported the Apartheid regime of South Africa for a long time with their refusal to impose economic sanctions.

Nigerians too are adept in theorising and where two or three Nigerians are gathered, you can expect a theory of everything from Ebola to labour, from corruption to education, and from soccer to cancer. The average Nigerian is a Monday Quarterback. On Saturday before the Sunday game, he lacks the prospective insights for a winning formula for his team. On the Monday after, however, he has an enormous capacity for retrospective analysis for why his favorite team lost the game.

We have seen a large number of Monday Quarterbacking since the elections, and they all conspiracy theories. These theorists don’t dig around the reality of the loss of the ruling party for fear of the truth. For them the party did not lose because it underperformed. PDP did not lose because Nigerians from north to south are tired of a government of impunity and endemic corruption.

In the inner recesses of its theorists, PDP did not lose because a large number of its party leaders felt marginalised and therefore discouraged, leaving the party in droves or staying put but without any enthusiasm to work for its victory. For our conspiracy theorists, PDP lost because there was a conspiracy against President Jonathan and by extension against the Southsouth and Southeast.

First, in the delusionary realm occupied by some PDP leaders and their armchair theorists, including professorial columnists and professional activists, the loss of the party was because of a secret plot, a gang-up of sort by four zones—Northwest, Northeast, North-central and Southwest—against two zones—Southsouth and Southeast. It was an evil plot, even if not criminal.

Second, there is a theory of a criminal plot as well and it was between INEC and APC against PDP. This was criminal in the sense that INEC, as an independent entity, is constitutionally responsible for free, fair and impartial elections. But, the conspiracists argue, it did none of these.

There is a third theory about an internal evil plot akin to the Brutus conspiracy against Caesar. We are told that PDP lost because even the Chairman of the party and some of his leadership team were in deplorable evil cahoots against the party and its candidate.

Finally, we are now just being treated to another category of conspiracy between the outgoing IGP and APC and its presidential candidate on the one hand against PDP and its presidential candidate on the other.

Let me make a couple of preliminary observations on this new development. First, my initial reaction after the announcement of the results of the presidential election was to move on. I thought there was no point revisiting all the nauseating actions and inactions of candidates and their supporters during the campaign. It was time for a new beginning based on a new social contract as I later remarked. But since then many PDP supporters have refused to let go even when the President himself conceded gallantly.

Second, while I think that it is natural and indeed reasonable to ask the “why” question in the face of such a disastrous thumping of a party that arrogantly vowed to be in power for 60 years, it appeared to me that it would have been more beneficial to look into those of its policies, actions and, more importantly, attitudes and behaviors, that turned Nigerians off.

Instead, the same analysts who misled the party and its candidates with incredibly erroneous permutations even up to the last minute on Election Day still have the audacity to pontificate about what went wrong. It is truly amazing. What it means is that much as it is good to have a strong two-party system, PDP may never get its act together and correct its mistakes to compete effectively in future presidential elections.

Now, I invite our PDP conspiracy theorists to the impartial chamber of ethical reasoning for a candid interrogation. They must prepare to answer fundamental questions that scream for answers.

One: You claim that there was a conspiracy of four zones in the North and Southwest against the Southsouth and Southeast. Where were you in 2011? Was there a conspiracy then? If not, what makes you think that there is one now? Are ordinary Nigerians not able to decide what is best for them without a charge of conspiracy hanging over their heads? By the way, comparing the number of votes that your candidate received in the North and Southwest with the number of votes that the APC candidate received in the Southsouth and Southeast, which party has a more legitimate claim to the allegation of a disturbing gang-up against its candidate?

Two: You claim that INEC Chief and his team conspired against your candidate and the party. Was it the same INEC Chief that conducted the 2011 elections? Was this the same Jega that your analysts in 2011 considered a credible candidate for a 2019 presidency slot on account of his impartiality? Were there the same two candidates in that election? If INEC Chief didn’t conspire when your candidate won, is it fair to charge him for conspiracy when your candidate lost? More importantly, how was the use of PVC and Card Readers which were introduced to improve credibility an element of conspiracy? Don’t you want electoral credibility?

Three: I wouldn’t know if there was an internal plot within PDP. But if there was, doesn’t that tell us more about the dysfunction in your party? How is that a problem for the rest of us? Can you then put your house in order?

Four:  Can you really substantiate the charge of a conspiracy by the IGP against your party in light of public knowledge about the atrocities committed by the IGP against the opposition? Do you forget so soon his stridency against Speaker Tambuwal even after a court verdict? How about his order for voters to leave the polling areas even after INEC’s affirmation of voters’ right to remain there? Or his deployment of partisan AIGs to the areas you wanted to capture? Or his complicity in the Ekiti saga?

I have a humble advice for PDP because I really want there to be a strong two-party system. Borrow a leaf from the proactive stance of Bola Tinubu and the ACN. In 2011, its candidate lost woefully. But it didn’t come up with any conspiracy theory. Rather, licking its wounds, ACN went back to the drawing board of political organisation. With a vow not to join a discredited train of retrogression, a strong determination to compete effectively, and confidence in their ability to build a progressive party to take on the PDP behemoth, Team Tinubu went to work. The rest is history.

Can you please stop whining and hurry back to the basics of attitudinal change and organisational restructuring?

Since its debut in 2006, this column has been concerned with the fat lie that we tell ourselves regarding our democratic credentials as a country. It has invited critical attention to the failure in leadership, especially at the federal level. I have often sought an analogy between the state of affairs we champion and the Hobbesian state of nature which leads to the war of all against all because of the reign of ego in climes lacking an impartial authority in command.

If we are honest with ourselves, we must agree that we missed the boat right from the beginning. This means that the Jonathan administration, far from being its originator, only pursued its inheritance of impunity with more zap. The Obasanjo administration mocked the rule of law in a spectacular and odious manner in the way it contemptuously ignored the judgment of the Supreme Court regarding the Lagos State Local Government fund.  Odi was the predecessor of Baga, and Ekitigate only reminded us of the perversion orchestrated by partisan election umpires and security agents in the first eight years of this republic.

What Hobbes taught us, which we have hitherto neglected to our detriment, was simply that the state of nature is a metaphor for lawlessness. It is a condition in which the rule of law exists only in name. Therefore it can be experienced in a civil society even with a government in place.

Hobbes’s insight is ingenuous in three respects. First, he taught us that egoism is part of human nature and therefore not necessarily bad. Second, he explains how egoism impels us to quit the state of nature and create a political community based on mutual interests. Third, Hobbes suggests to us that once out of the state of nature egoism admonishes us to do whatever we can to remain in the political community we created because it is unwise to go back to the state of nature.

There are different ways to conceive the state of nature. In our case, we have also experienced it in various forms, in the “might makes right” mentality that characterised our previous conditions from pre-colonial societies to colonial rule, to military dictatorship. The naturalness of egoism—individual or national— was manifested in each of those moments of our national journey. When we finally confronted colonialism and initiated a new contract of association as a republic, we failed to be guided by the admonition of Hobbes to do whatever we can to remain in the political community we created because it is unwise and against our egoistic interests to go back to the state of nature. That was the reason for the fall of our former republics.

Before I am accused of unfairness, I should clarify. It is certainly not the generality of the citizens that is included in the “we” that failed to be guided by the admonition of Hobbes and those included know themselves. They are the ones who went back to the state of nature mentality of “might is right” even when we have ideologically and constitutionally established the notion that right is not a question of might and that everyone is equal before the law. Living in the political community governed by the rule of law but operating with the mentality of the rule of might has been the narrative of our national existence in the last 16 years. How has it been possible?

If everyone did it, it would have been utterly disastrous because it would have meant the clash of egos in a most pervasive and anarchical way. But a few to whom we granted the authority to govern on our behalf and moderate the egos of everyone for the mutual advantage of us all decided to play a fast one on the rest of us. At every turn, they acted on behalf of their ego, abusing the power that we gave them, marginalising everyone else, and in the process alienating all. They were helped by the fact that the majority still hung on the spirit of the social contract and still reined in their ego, while the few ruthlessly advanced theirs.

What the few failed to pay attention to is the law of nature to which even the mentally unbalanced responds. Extend a piece of elastic as much as you care; when it reaches its limit of endurance, it would snap. Push a crazy man against the wall and he quickly realises that to survive he must turn back and challenge your audacity. On March 28, Nigerians realised that they had been pushed to the wall and they can’t take it anymore. That was the meaning of the defeat they handed the ruling party.

Now that we have a new ruling party, do we also have a new social contract? There are two primary areas of concern. First from the outcry against the current ruling party in the last 16 years, our people have clearly indicated that they contracted for a republic and not a fiefdom. Therefore they would rather be governed in accordance with the rule of law which they themselves established and in accordance with the norms of human decency. Second, and along with this first point is that the people also want their government to pay undivided attention to their well-being. What they did with their votes in the just concluded elections was a rebuke of the current ruling party for failing to deliver on these two areas, and at the same time, a brand new contract with the opposition which has now become the new ruling party.

I would like to believe that the new contract is based on the attraction to the people of the manifesto of the APC and the President-elect’s Covenant with Nigerians. If I am right, then the people have a right to expect that APC will deliver on its own side of the contract. I also think that the incoming administration has a keen understanding of its obligations to the people and the nation.

In his Covenant statement, President-elect Muhammadu Buhari was clear about the challenges facing the country: “building a country that is fair to all of its citizens; a country in which all individuals feel and know that they are valued members of the society with constitutionally guaranteed rights; a country that respects human dignity, promote human development, foster human equality and advance human freedom.” This recognition of the basic minimum of governmental responsibility to citizens is the starting point. For many of our people, this is all they want to be assured of. They can deal with other matters themselves.

It is reassuring therefore that Candidate Buhari pledged to “lead a government founded on values that promote and protect fundamental human rights and freedoms… promote the supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law, affirm separation of the powers of government and support an independent judiciary.” The fulfillment of this pledge is the most important of all the tasks that the President will be faced with because it is the foundation of our democratic system from which every other matter follows. Get this right and you cannot be wrong. But it is certainly human to be distracted.

Of all distractions that can get in the way of delivering fully on this pledge, ego is still the most destructive. It could be personal ego. It could be the collective ego of party, cabinet, National Assembly, governors, or leaders and advisors. Ego is destructive if it succumbs to irrationality. Fortunately, ego is also constructive if it submits to rationality. In the moment when ego rears its destructive head, assuring the new power brokers that they are all-in-all, it is hoped that rationality will prevail and the voice of reason will come to their rescue with a forceful reminder that it is in their egoistic interest to suppress destructive egoism and deliver on their covenant with the people.

Let me start with a statement of fact. The title of my piece today is not my original idea. Like most Nigerians abroad, I was glued to my IPad on Monday and Tuesday watching Channels Television, courtesy of nigerianfm.com in eager expectation of the presidential election results. On Tuesday night, I witnessed live the laborious task of compilation and addition of final results of the Presidential election by Professor Attahiru Jega and his Commissioners.

At last, when I heard Jega finally declare the results around 11 pm Eastern Time, I breathed a sigh of relief for him and for Nigeria. Every morally conscious citizen who understands the importance of commitment cannot but appreciate and commend the dedication of these patriotic Nigerians. Vilified, demonized, and harassed by agents of destabilization for selfish reasons, even until the final hours when a former “Honorable” Minister of the Federal Republic let emotion take over and reason take leave of him as the world watched him embarrass himself, Jega and his team kept their cool. And when he was finally allowed to respond, it was with intellect and dignified poise. I smiled for Nigeria.

On the final announcement of Buhari as the winner, the thought of how best to capture and characterize what has just occurred for my readers clouded my mind. Is it “a new day”? Or a “new era”? How about “a new dawn?” I dismissed all of these because they didn’t really speak to the dynamic energy that has just been released on the nation. Each of those potential titles appeared too static, inert, and motionless to do the job. What just happened is not only for the moment (day, month, year, even four years). Yes, it is all that; but it is more than that. It is the beginning of a new “us.”

Then I went to bed. As I woke up in the morning and picked up my phone, the first message that caught my eyes was from my good friend with the subject line “A New Beginning.” “This is it”, I said to myself. Known for his outstanding contributions to national development in the private sector, my friend does not discuss his political views in public. But he has been a dogged fighter for social justice and a promoter of social welfare at the national and local levels. I immediately responded to him with gratitude for his accurate capturing of what the moment meant. I choose not to name him because I didn’t ask for his permission to do so. However, he knows that, with much appreciation, I owe today’s title to him.

In her 54 years history as an independent country, and her 16years in the fourth republic, Nigeria has been known for its notoriety as a maker of the wrong kind of history. We bungled the First Republic. We waged a senseless civil war. We annulled our first free and fair presidential election. We lost territories to terrorists. To these add the ugliness and divisiveness of this last campaign. None of those political histories made us proud and we would rather not remember them.

Now, for the first time, we just made a positive political history. The ruling party candidate, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, lost the presidential election to the opposition party candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari. And as if this wasn’t earth-shaking enough, the loser in the keenly contested election found the moral courage to concede defeat and to congratulate the winner, thus avoiding the disaster that has been predicted no matter who won. The conclusion that I drew from both of these linked events is that God is not done with Nigeria and now He has granted the country a new beginning.

The meaning of the election of General Buhari is that the country is at a new beginning of the race to genuine nationhood and its attendant features. We should therefore be singing a new song, thinking new thoughts, and generating new ideas. Indeed, the president-elect would benefit immensely from a national focus on new ideas for moving the nation forward. However, it is also true, as the Yoruba know too well, that in order to move forward uneventfully after once stumbling, we must apprise ourselves of the cause of our stumbling so as to avoid it in the future.

On this page over the last four years, we have not shied away from telling the truth about where challenges were for the Jonathan administration. I have always thought that Jonathan is a good man. He has demonstrated his inward goodness by conceding defeat and has thus earned for himself the commendation of the global community. His political undoing was his political naivety which made him to be too trusting of the evil cabal that surrounded him. He was too weak to say “no” to their wicked manipulation of the system. From ministers to political advisers to PDP governors, they are all a bunch of self-conceited egoists. It was not an ethnic issue. It was not a religious matter. It was malicious egoism run amok. A president that lacks the natural instinct to separate the weed of deceit from the chaff of sincerity cannot survive.

Consider the debacle of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum elections. That was not a battle that the president should engage in and it was not one he could win. It is the case of the proverbial carrier of elephant flesh who could not keep his eyes off the ant on the ground. There were multiple such missteps that ended causing public disaffection and marring his legacy.

General Buhari has a mandate that comes with great expectations. It is not an easy spot to be on. But just like Jonathan in 2011, there is a lot of goodwill, considering the ecstatic jubilation across the land. Even his bitterest opponents until Saturday, March 28 have turned around to shower Buhari with praise and prayers for a successful tenure. The People’s General cannot afford to disappoint!!!! As the father of the nation, he has his work cut out for him now. He must reach out as he has vowed to do. He must build trust. And he must satisfy the yearnings of the youth and the elderly for the dividends of democracy.

To start with, then, the APC manifesto is the political Holy Book of President-elect Buhari. He referred to it incessantly and campaigned on the three priorities that the manifesto highlighted. He promised that he will provide adequate security of life and property for citizens; that he will attack corruption at its root; and that he will reboot the engine of the economy and will diversify it to tackle youth unemployment.

There are a variety of approaches to handling each of these priorities but they are all related. There is no doubt that corruption, like money, is the root of all our evils. If it is tackled, we will have resources for improving our educational system so that the youth may have adequate training towards employability. We will not need to hire mercenaries to fight our battle against terrorists. And the resources that are not lost to corrupted hands will be available to relieve poverty and contribute to the welfare of the masses.

General Buhari cannot afford to, and must not be tempted to, surround himself with sycophants who only tell him what pleases him. That approach to governance has been the undoing of many otherwise great leaders. He must tap into the wise counsel of those who will boldly disagree with him with good and unselfish reasons. He must make it easy for his aides and advisers to approach him with new ideas. He must avail himself of the wise counsel of professionals and technocrats. He has been elected, and the bulk now stops with him. In four years, Nigerians will be ready to evaluate him at the polls and give their judgment with their votes.

The die is cast and politics will not be the same again because Nigeria has turned the corner in the matter of democratic governance. The voter is now in the driver’s seat. It is a new beginning!