Return of President Buhari: Prospect for a new beginning

BY SHEYI BABAEKO

It is inexorable and imperative to welcome his excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari (GCFR) back to the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

I particularly wish to welcome you back to the country from your vacation and medical “tourism” that lasted about forty days and nights in the United Kingdom. Your coming back to Nigeria has finally put to rest speculations about your demise which has generated so much tensions.

However sir, the moribund and the mechanistic state of the nation has to be pushed to work and only a collective resolution can make it work.

Even if the president yes-men and women cannot tell His excellency the sincere truth about the horrible state of the nation, the recent global rating of Alhaji Aliko Dangotte networth should be an omphalos for the president to realize himself.

Mr president sir, truth be told,  there is agony, anger, killings, hunger and wanton looting in the land. The nearly collapsed state of Nigeria under your Excellency needs to be urgently addressed sir.

The Nigerian economy at this moment needs holistic measures for things to get back to normal and the incumbent CBN Governor with the Minister for Finance seem to have lost the appropriate policies whether micro or macro to save the situation despite their window-dressing and cosmetics approaches which they are taking to make it look as if all is well when the world is aware that the nation’s economy is under the guillotine and about to be slaughtered.

Governance is service delivery and in view of this, i enjoin the president to reshuffle his cabinet as a matter of exigency. It is also expedient for the president to jettison all the counterproductive, incapable, futile, and unfruitful ministers and heads of sensitive government agencies. The president must appoint competent, apt, and experienced people that can set Nigeria towards the path of redemption and recovery.

In the end it will not be about how many billions you recovered from corrupt leaders nor how many years you detained Das Uki, Nnamdi Kanu and El Zakzaky. The question will be whether you are leaving Nigeria better than you met it or whether you made positive change.

There is no better time to change Nigeria for good and if this must happen, there is urgent need for the change in your thinking, approaches and methodologies especially now that you are back “safe and sound” to create a new beginning for a NEW Nigeria where equity, fairness and justice will reign supreme.

This task must be done without any further delay. In my view it is better late than never.

Permit me to end this piece with the words of Frantz Fanon: “Capitalism versus socialism is already losing its importance. What matters today, the issue which blocks the horizon, is the need for a redistribution of wealth.

Humanity will have to address this question, no matter how devastating the consequences may be”.

Once again, welcome back to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Buhari.

Long live Mr. President!
Long live Nigeria!

Babaeko is a social commentator, policy analyst and countererrorist strategist. He writes in from Leeds, UK .