At your first coming, you ruled by decrees; you cannot do that now, much as you will be tempted. You must now find ways of persuading people about the rightness of your action and how beneficial it will be for them to swallow the bitter pill you are about to shove down their throat
I don’t know if you have noticed this trend but these days, there seems to be a great deal of emphasis on the dancing put up by brides and grooms at wedding receptions. It is such a serious competition between bride and groom that no one is in any doubt that some rehearsals have gone into it. Just imagine this scenario; while preparations are on, the young ones are busy practicing their dancing steps!
A friend confided that once, when she attended a wedding, she found herself watching the bride’s exhilarated dancing and she could not help shed tears for her. My friend said she cried because she was sure that the couple had no idea of the bitter experiences waiting for them in the new marriage. Rather an extreme view, don’t you think?
Nevertheless, one cannot help but be distrustful of the euphoria greeting the coming of the new leader of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari. Nearly every corner you go to now, there are cheering notes in the air and congratulatory songs on the lips on account of THE RETURN OF GMB, a man we all turned down in 2011, as the 5th president of Nigeria.
I guess many things are responsible for this euphoria. They say if one does not try two things, he/she cannot really tell which is better. I think that is the philosophy behind all competitions: sports, cooking, marriage, etc. It is useless for a man to stand atop a hill, thump his chest and declare that he is the best husband the world has ever seen. I think he would need to pit his skills against other husbands who would be miffed enough to challenge him. Ditto for a woman, or indeed, a president.
I am sorry, dear reader, that I could not join you at Abuja to cheer in the new president. Even if I could, I suspect that I would not have been a good compliment of that cheering crowd. The surveillance camera might have caught me standing in one corner bawling out, like my friend, in great pity for the man. You see, I would have convinced myself that this man does not quite know what he is letting himself in for. How on earth is he going to fix Nigeria? Indeed, where will he start from?
As we said here last week, the economic pot of the country has been scraped burnt right down to the bottom, either by accident or design. The only reason that Nigeria still appears to be standing is that the government is the major employer of labour; the private sector has since been consigned to the back burner. Therefore, the government can afford to borrow from internal and external sources to pay salaries, something the private sector cannot do. This thus means that we as a nation are living beyond our means.
On account of the fact that the private sector has been disabled and most of the work force loaded onto the government, it means that there is no real productivity on which the economy can rest on in the country. This is the result of the country’s tolerance of the years of the locusts, when we all watched on as the devourers, who began to drift in from the Obasanjo era and swarmed in large droves in the Jonathan era, gorge themselves into stupors. The economy is now bedraggled, tottering around in tatters, and looking for real-time, real-life productivity, not playing-to-the-gallery claims of productivity. Would the new president start from there?
Perhaps, he will start from the rather intractable energy problem which has allowed some unconscionable individuals to grip the nation’s throat. I hear all kinds of things now. I hear there is a conspiracy between generator makers and retailers and gas vandals to keep the nation in perpetual darkness. This means that should the new president turn his attention to the energy sector, he would have to break this vice ring. God help him. I am also waiting to say God bless him should he succeed.
Or, would he start from the oily problem we have on our hands? The country desperately needs to recover from the slump in oil prices, and at the same time reexamine our consumption of the stuff, and how it is we are not putting our money where our mouth is; i.e., we are importing what we are consuming. I think he wants to examine our refinery records and just who it is that has been planted to throw spanners into the machines as soon as they get going to make those refineries stop working. It’s sabotage; I say it is sir, and the new president might want to take up arms against the foes there. But he would need ten heads to do that because nine of them will be cut off and hopefully, they’ll run out of steam before the tenth is completely off.
Then there is the problem of the voracious appetite of the national assembly. The upper level of the country has been used to living beyond the means of the country. I think they think it is their divine duty or something. This will not do; it cannot stand. How this will be achieved is the job of The Persuaders. You never heard of them? Oh my! It’s that group of people who go around with special briefcases. They will politely tell these people that less than 0.000000000000000000001 per cent of the country’s population cannot keep eating up 25 per cent of the gross income in the name of lawmaking. For the sake of our national health, The Persuaders must be brought in to work their mathematical magic of deductions and inductions and wisdom based on convincing evidences. By the time they are through, we won’t have this problem again. Oh yes, it can be done. Now that the oil business is not as lucrative as before, we must look our empty treasury squarely in the eye and deal with it.
Congratulations, Mr. President. I am happy for you for one reason: you achieved your ambition to return in triumph a second time to govern this troublesome country. I am sure there is no need to tell you that the Nigeria of your first coming is nothing like the Nigeria of this your second coming. Things are different. For one thing, literacy is slightly higher. This means that there are now more people who can read, write and give stupid comments on things they are completely ignorant about.
At your first coming, you ruled by decrees; you cannot do that now, much as you will be tempted I’m sure. You must now find ways of persuading people about the rightness of your action and how beneficial it will be for them to swallow the bitter pill you are about to shove down their throat. This means you have to talk, smile at, laugh and cry with the people, especially when they are hurting, like now.
More importantly, as president of the country, you must realise you are the father, mother, brother, sister, uncle and aunt of the nation made up of tall and short members, black and light-skinned, Christians, Muslims, animists, fire, stone and sun worshippers, traders, soldiers, teachers, children, adults, thieves, rogues, robbers, murderers, and all sundry things. You must learn how to treat all equally, fairly and justly. I assure you that your coming is not accidental; it is ordained. This means you will be held responsible. Good luck. No, that’s gone now; all the best.