Like the biblical King Belshazzar who encountered the prophet Daniel, Nigeria’s president Muhammad Buhari has read the handwriting on the wall.
Trying to retain the presidency in 2019 will almost certainly hold disastrous consequences for the incumbent as what seems to be entirely the whole South West voters bloc seems to have tuned out from the 2015 arrangement to support Buhari’s candidacy.
Like the 6th century Jews who were oppressed by the Babylonian king Belshazzar, Nigerians indeed feel entrapped in a never-ending cycle of poverty and stagnation and no one has highlighted the people’s dilemma much more than President Muhammad Buhari, an ex-military head of state who has presided over two crushing economic recessions coining the term Buharinomics to reflect his bad math.
Buharinomics has led to a weak Naira, blistering unemployment rates across educated and semi-educated swaths of the population, degraded infrastructure, fuel queues, human rights abuses and a list of other leadership blunders so long that it would very easily stretch to the middle east and back.
The pure disdain Goodluck Jonathan ignorantly attracted to himself from the average Nigerian due to his penchant for looking and often acting like he was clueless was the main reason why Nigerians were ready to elect anybody but him in 2015. In fact it was surely because people were ready to accept a NEPA bill as Buhari’s WAEC certificate, and some even proudly boasted that they would elect a goat as far as its name was not Goodluck Jonathan into Aso Rock in 2015, that Nigerians find themselves presented with this odious dilemma that is akin to a second coming of Belshazzar.
Fast forward to 2018 and quite possibly the worst Christmas (of 2017) ever recorded by so many young Nigerians, and ‘Buhari gotta go’ seems to be the title to a hit single waiting to be recorded by any musician weighing the scales to fine tune a hit single.
Only two days ago, despite the recession, a cross section of illustrious and eminent Yoruba personalities under the aegis “Voice of Reason’ took out a full page ad in The Punch newspapers to tell Buhari and the current crop of political rulers in Nigeria ‘Enough is Enough’. The Voice of Reason which comprises successful entrepreneurs and eminently decorated Yoruba sons and daughters lent their voice to the call for restructuring Nigeria
Their message reads in part, “The Yoruba people are irrevocably committed to a fundamental restructuring of this current union within the shortest possible time, preferably before the next elections, failing which, we Yoruba may have to exercise our option not to continue to be part of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as presently constituted. In the inalienable right to self-determination guaranteed by the United Nations Charter, we are prepared to use ALL means and resources available to us to extricate our people from this failed, unfair and unworkable union”.
The Voice of Reason also made it clear that the process could not be umpired by the National Assembly as it is currently comprised.
“The restructuring exercise envisaged and demanded by the Yoruba cannot and should not be carried out through the National Assembly as presently constituted.
They said this is because the 1999 constitution does not reflect the wishes of the people but that “it is a flawed document conceived and hatched under a Northern Military Government with fraudulent and unwarranted structural advantages given to Northern Nigeria and foisted on the rest of us.”
The statement was signed by pedigree such as Olorogun Sunny Kuku; Prof Oye Ibidapo-Obe; Prince Goke Omisore; Otunba Yomi Alao; Capt. Samuel Akinyele Caulcrick; Adminral Okanlawon Oni; Akinsola Akinfemiwa; Chief Samuel Bolarinwa; Chief Dele Fajemirokun and many others.
Now just today, former President Olusegun Obasanjo composed a cautionary message to Buhari that the PResidency is struggling to find their footing to know how to properly respond to. Their lack of a response is telling. Their silence is a worthy accomplice to their failings. Eventually Adesina, or Shehu will bang out a statement that is as equipped with lies as many they have disseminated before but surely it is obvious Buhari sees the writing on the wall.
It may be in the form of his physicians prescription or perhaps he may see it if he were capable of glimpsing the misery he has brought upon the average Nigerian, but surely he sees the handwriting on the wall and he will take his leave sooner than later if only for the very sight of it. For the writing on the wall states, “you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting”.
David Ajesa writes from Lagos