Fellow Nigerians, let me confirm what you already know; I’m an absolute supporter of President Muhammadu Buhari despite being one of his most vociferous critics in the past.
The reasons are very simple and I shall try to enumerate them one by one. Though I wanted a young and vibrant President, and did present myself once upon a time, I’ve since realised that even the young voters can’t readily identify who they want and what they need to do to have him when they see one.
Two, our younger leaders have not demonstrated their seriousness and passion for developmental goals over and above the older generation.
Three, President Buhari has what most people lack and that is integrity.
Four, the former ruling party, PDP, left us with no option as they went on a reckless binge at the expense of the nation.
As I told two newspaper publishers earlier in the week, my interest in President Buhari has become a religion and indeed an article of Faith. By fire and by force, he must succeed. For me and my house, failure is not on our plate.
I consider myself a humble stakeholder in this Presidency and I’m ready to give it all it takes from my little corner. That does not require me to be in his government. We can all contribute our quota. I will not deny him like Peter denied Jesus.
Many of our opponents during the last elections are already teasing and taunting us and threatening Buhari’s government with impending doom and unmitigated disaster.
They are quick to write him off instead of seeing themselves first as Nigerians and telling the President what he should be doing that he is not and so on.
The road ahead is long and rough and would be tough to navigate but the people’s General must keep marching and pushing because the world is watching and waiting with bated breath. Will Buhari fail or succeed and break the jinx of monumental failure in leadership and governance in Nigeria? In order to make the difference our President must take certain steps.
I will mention a few. He should skilfully avoid the professional power-grabbers who are experts at misleading most leaders. As broke as Nigeria seems at the moment we are still a wealthy nation. Our riches are from human and natural resources. We are a lucky country stupendously blessed by God. The biggest trouble is our unquenchable profligacy.
We waste too much on very few. We need to be more visibly austere. Our 2016 budget should be an embarrassment to a Government that professes change. We are going to borrow money to fund extravagant spending. As usual, we want to maintain the status quo by practising capitalism without capital.
President Buhari should not dismiss the harsh criticisms of major international media organisations as the handiwork of his enemies. He should read, digest and consider the merits of their anxieties over Nigeria. Some government agents are already behaving like the neurotic disciples of former President Goodluck Jonathan who in their abject paranoia abused and accused anyone who dared to say their government was on its way to perdition.
The Buhari government must realise that the best way to punish an enemy is by succeeding. The Financial Times, Bloomberg and The Economist can’t all be wrong at once. We hailed all these publications when they wrote off the Jonathan administration which eventually came to pass. It is sad we are wasting scarce resources in advertising in those journals instead of tidying up at home and harnessing our huge potentials.
The period of campaigning is gone and we should stop engaging in unnecessary propaganda. What is good would be seen by those who have eyes and felt even by those who have none.
There is nothing new that we’ve not done to woo investors in the past. What we need to do is to create a new nation and a new way of doing things. We don’t need to sweat so much if we do the right things. In those circumstances we won’t see enemies where none exist.
Let’s get on with the job, get it done and stop the blame game.