SIR: Without doubt, the victory of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and its presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, at the just concluded Presidential election brings hope and a big relief to a distraught nation and her citizenry. Nonetheless, it is important to point out that the victory and relief may be short-lived if the President-elect allows himself to be entangled in the web of deceits and manipulation by some political jobbers and sycophants the way and manner they held the outgoing president spell bound.
The outcome of the presidential election did not come to many of us as a surprise, especially in the light of the generality of dissatisfaction and disenchantment over the squander of the country’s fortunes by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the last 16 years and more particularly under the watch of the outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan.
Some of us are of the firm belief that if the elections were held as scheduled in February, the margin would have been too wide and embarrassing. But the outgoing President appeared to have stolen victory in defeat through his timely conceding of defeat to Muhammadu Buhari. President Goodluck Jonathan, for the first, freed himself from the cabals and hawks around
him and took the path of honour. This is the only aspect of the exercise that came to some of us as a surprise and nothing more.
As opined in the opening of this piece, the President-elect must be wary of those factors that made President Jonathan became disconnected from the over twenty two million Nigerian electorate that freely gave him their mandate four years ago. President Goodluck’s major problem appears to be his deliberate alienation from the masses and their sufferings as largely represented by some of his policies and actions . Instead he surrounded himself with questionable characters that only told him what he wanted to hear. They used him to satisfy their unbridled gluttony. They pilfered our commonwealth at will and with reckless abandon.
The incoming president must avoid these people like a plague. He must continue to maintain his closeness with the “talakawas” (the downtrodden) who championed his election victory through his government programmes.
Thankfully, the President-elect is noted for his zero tolerance for graft and indiscipline. He must maintain this attitude throughout his tenure in office. The incoming president must not allow the cacophonies of goodwill messages coming from all manner of people to distract his commitment towards building a corrupt free and safe Nigeria. He must not fall into such dubious and hypocritical gestures meant only to lure him to their traps as usual. These are obvious ditches the President-elect must avoid if he must sustain his electoral fortunes.
The interest of Nigerian masses must come first in whatever policy and programme his administration initiates. It is also necessary to remind the “People’s General” that he will soon discover the extent of damage and destruction which the outgoing administration and its cohorts had done to our economy and national pride? But regardless of these, the President-elect must somehow find a way to return the country to the path of glory and growth. And this is where his experience as an ex-Head of State will come to play.
He is not new to the system, and so Nigerians expect him to navigate his ways and the country out of this murky water and political cum economic landmine laid by the outgoing leadership. Moving forward, it is equally our collective duty to help the incoming administration succeed on its electoral promises. There is no better way to achieve this than through constructive criticisms that will constantly put the incoming administration on its toes. To do otherwise is to drift back to the era of impunity symbolised by the outgoing regime. It is essential too we come to terms that it is not until we completely wrest power from the cabals that we can shout Uhuru.
- Barrister Okoro Gabriel,
Ebonyi state.
