President Buhari’s shot at redemption

Fellow Nigerians, finally, we have dutifully intervened to save this nation from imminent collapse. We therefore expect all Nigerians, including those who participated directly or indirectly in bringing the nation to this present predicament, to cooperate with us. This generation of Nigerians, and indeed future generations, have no country other than Nigeria. We shall remain here and salvage it together. May God bless us all. Good morning

—General Muhammadu Buhari, December 31, 1983.

In 1983, when President Muhammadu Buhari came to power through a coup d’état, I was a little boy in my father’s compound. The thought of elementary school was far in sight, but I had known the difference between lies and truth. 

I can say that the atmosphere in the country in 1983, when Buhari forcefully came to power was not much different from what we are experiencing for now. The country he came to superintend at that time just like today was in a prostrate position.

Evidently, Buhari needs no one to tell him that it will be no easy row to hoe as he swears to the oath of allegiance today. Nigeria is in a situation of a man that is having stomach upset who is lying down on his belly and in great pain. The corrupt politicians have caused so much damage to Nigeria and the country is now writhing in pain.

If you’re not convinced, read the Tales of Nigeria’s Fuel Crisis; Oil rich, Fuel poor. You will either be convinced or be confused. Schools, airlines, banks, telcos, radio and television stations, power distributors and others, all shut down, because there was no fuel to run their services. It was so bad.

We all know the truth. At the root of our challenges is Oil. There wouldn’t be any cabal if there’s nothing to grab. So when we keep hearing cabals from Obasanjo to Jonathan era since our country returned to democratic rule in 1999, it is simply because there has been a systemic corruption in place. The pot of that soup has been majorly the Oil sector. Our Oil stinks! It stinks with corruption.

Oil brought Nigeria prosperity. It also brought us poverty. The slump in prices without any serious economic plan to address the slump pushed us into recession in the 1980s and today we are facing that sag one more time and can’t seems to find a direction.

The recession in the country has been made worse by the corruption and mismanagement of our commonwealth by a few individuals going in and out of Aso Rock in the last 16 years.

Of course, Buhari tried very hard in tackling the mismanagement of the economy, lack of public accountability, and the insensitivity of the political leadership, when he came to power in 1983, but deterioration in the standards of living in the country had not changed much since that time.

Now, we are all expecting Buhari to perform the magic one more time, but the atmosphere is totally different from what he had in 1983 as a military ruler. More than anything else Buhari’s first fight will have to be with the members of his household, the All Progressives Congress (APC), the party that brought him to power, if he must succeed.

When you consider the failures of the Presidents produced by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), you’ll discover that the party’s overbearing way of doing things was at the root of their failures. I’m not making excuse for the ineptitude of some of them or their poor leadership skills. But, when you understand the pressure of party structure on PDP Presidents you’ll want to agree with my assertion.

Let’s do a little historical review together. The PDP before its defeat maintained overwhelming majorities in federal parliament and controlled most states for the vast majority of its rule, but that wasn’t a plus for the party to help change the bad situation facing Nigerians. Greed for wealth and power among the party leaders ensured consecutive administrations faced serious resistance to many of their policies from parliament and powerful state governors.

For instance, it has always been war getting almost all annual federal budgets through the parliament since 1999. The delays have been as a result of disputes between the executive and the legislature, often due to lawmakers demanding higher public spending, pay or one irrelevant constituency allowance. We have also had governors frustrating Presidents from carrying out their good intentions using their Governor’s Forum to make unnecessary and selfish demands.

Now, with 62 out of the 109 seats in the Senate and 214 in the 360‑member House of Representatives and no less than 25 states controlled by APC governors in, APC has a grip of governments at both federal and state level and that should be something to cheer us, but we are beginning to see signs that the road to revamp for Buhari may be tortuous.

A few days ago, the APC governors have now formed themselves into the same Governors’ Forum with which PDP Presidents had met their waterloo and if what we now know is true, they are already trying to get Buhari to accept their own list for ministerial appointments without serious consideration for merit.

We all know that APC is a child of necessity. The people who formed the party are from different ideological backgrounds and we will start to see the manifestation from today. In APC there are conservative and social democrats and like car tyres they will need wheel balancing to give us a smooth ride.

President Buhari will need a lot of wisdom and in addition be extremely careful in dealing with his party men. He must set forth at dawn showing the strength of  a lion where necessary and displaying attitude of a comrade,  where  that is important.

One more thing, Buhari will need money to run his government but we have been told that there’s no more money in the government coffer. So we are likely to see plea bargaining between Buhari and corrupt policians, but that must be done with caution as well, because without serious punishment, there will be no deterrence.

Buhari’s reputation as a honest ruler who governed with a firm hand between 1983 and 1985 has raised hopes that his government will succeed in tackling many grave issues that have been unresolved by previous administration and he cannot afford to let Nigeria down.

Like American President, Barack Obama said in a 2008 speech, Buhari, this is your moment. This is your time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the Nigerian Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can. We can take our country back.

This article first appeared in THISDAY