Shaping a New Nigeria: 2019 Election Critically Crucial

By Fr Livinus Onogwu…

Right from 2017 or even much earlier, we began to see movements, strategies, plans, declaration of interests and comments about Nigeria’s next general election come 2019. The fact that the commentaries indeed began much earlier shows the high stake of the election for Nigerians. It is no surprise to anyone who has experienced or closely followed events in Nigeria since the current APC administration unseated the PDP-led government of Goodluck Jonathan. It seems, looking into the country’s democratic history, that Nigeria had not really had a decisive election prior to the election of M. Buhari.

All the elections before Buhari was elected president were not truly representative of the common will of Nigerians as the elections were doctored and tailored on tribal, religious, political lines or mere luck of ascendancy owing to natural occurrences. The election of Buhari – a Muslim of northern extraction, after series of failed attempts – was as a result of the great thirst, hunger and yearning for change and better standard of living by the majority of Nigerians. Nigerians knew that Buhari was not the best at the time but considering all the presidential candidates, he was the lesser evil and this paved his was to Abuja.

Nigerians therefore had high hopes for a positive change with the coming of Buhari – given his manifesto, campaign promises and track record as a retired military general and former head of state. I was one of the many Nigerians who had high hope that Buhari would certainly fix Nigeria or at least set Nigeria on the sure road to recovery. A more disciplined and strong character as Buhari was thought most suitable than the young, clueless and playful Jonathan. Years into his administration and with time tickling down to another election, it is good to reflect on how Nigerians have fared under Buhari and what should inform their vote come 2019. It is said that an un-reflected life is not worth living. A critical evaluation of every opportunity to serve the nation is crucial not only for scorecard and historical purposes but more so for voting wisdom for the electorates.

Nigerians have seen and lived through the Buhari administration and consciously or unconsciously they know how they would rate the performance of the government. As is always the case, the regime has some good and really bad fruits but my interest ultimately would be to weigh the two on a balancing scale to ascertain which side is weightier. The sustained fight against Boko Haram insurgents and some recovery of looted funds top the list of Buhari’s good fruits. Others are minor policies aimed at closing economic leakages and fostering a system of effective governance – comparable to years of diagnosis and trying to decipher the most effective form of treatment for a known and treatable ailment. Some would see this as a cosmetic approach towards fixing what should be fixed.

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In some previous articles I had praised Buhari and enjoined fellow Nigerians to patiently endure the short term pains for the lasting gains of a viable, stable and prosperous Nigeria – little did I know that I was being overly optimistic and that my high hopes would be flatly dashed. These good fruits are however not really tangible to the ordinary Nigerian on the street. High inflation, epileptic power supply, poor service delivery, non-payment of salary, growing insecurity, infrastructural decay, fuel scarcity and paralysing strikes are some of the bad fruits of Buhari’s administration. These bad fruits unfortunately touch directly on Nigerians of all walks of life including the never-lacking popular prosperity preachers. Put together, the bad fruits heavily outweigh the few good fruits but that is not the end of the story.

Crippling recession, freely marauding Fulani herdsmen, shielded sacred cows in war against corruption, lack of federal character in appointments, debilitating presidential ill-health and its paralysing impact on the nation would be considered the most rotten and abhorrent fruits of the administration. While some good hearted Nigerians could forgive the administration for the venial bad fruits listed in the previous paragraph, explaining it away as inherited and recurrent systemic problems, no sane or insane Nigerian would empathize with the administration over the grave bad fruits that have caused Nigerians untold pain, hardship, loss of God-given dignity, colossal death, hunger, unemployment, sleepless nights and mass migration of able bodied young Nigerians into slavery and untimely death in the high sea of Libya.

It is not Buhari as a person but those he involved in his administration that have religiously worked for this poor, dismal, shameful and disappointing performance. Buhari’s sickness I had posited in a previous article was as a result of the sick circle of people around him. Buhari has some knowledge of the deep-rooted problems of Nigeria. He also has good ideas on how to solve the problems. But his good ideas are either archaic and slow at coming out or are not wholeheartedly supported by his immediate political and administrative comrades who though verbally subscribe to the ideas and pretentiously propagate them to protect their jobs, inwardly they castigated his ideas and worked assiduously at night to frustrate the system. Suffice to say therefore that Nigeria’s biggest problem is Nigerians themselves!

From the foregoing, does Buhari genuinely deserve my vote for a second term? I would be very slow to say yes and very fast to say no. Why? I would be slow to say yes because looking ahead, I do not wish Nigeria to stagnate any further for the next four years; I would not want to see fellow Nigerians endure another term of hardship and dehumanizing suffering; I would not want the administrative incompetence and lack of productivity that had characterized the past years; I would no longer tolerate being treated as a nobody in my own country; I would not want a sick person to lead a sick nation. I would say no with the incredible speed of light because I want to see a better and progressive Nigeria where people feel safe, have food to eat, have a sense of belonging, have a currency that has value in the market, witness massive infrastructural development, booming business, job creation to absorb millions of idle minds and where the law applies to every dick and harry.

Former President Obasanjo’s clarion call on Buhari to go home with respect at the end of this term is therefore the call of truth not only to save Buhari from the headaches of carrying the heavy load called Nigeria but more so for Nigeria to begin a sound journey towards self-recovery from its many agonizing losses and mounting wasteful years of quack leadership. The next administration from 2019 need to total break from the past. Nigeria has had enough of the same old names and faces being recycled as though they are the only Nigerians capable of running the country. Obasanjo’s open letter to Buhari is a to-who-it-may-concern letter to all recycling politicians and government officials to respect their age and leave their children to carry on better as is the joy of parents to see their children assume responsible leadership positions.

We do have people who not only knows how best to make Nigeria work but who also have the willingness to spare no rod at dislodging powerfully selfish cartels from Nigeria’s road to greatness and prosperity. Neither PDP nor APC have such people but would the third force advocated by Obasanjo be any different? No, if the third force would be made up of people running off PDP and APC for a chance to shine. The Third force Nigeria needs come 2019 is a group of patriotic Nigerians from all works of life who are dead tired of the endless cycle of administrative incompetence that has characterised Nigeria’s recent democratic history. Do we have such people? Yes, we do!
Indeed we have able and capable Nigerians in their numbers both within and outside the country. The call on Buhari and his likes to honourably retire home is a call on such spirited saviours to rise to the occasion to take the mantle of leadership and rewrite Nigeria’s history for the better. ‘Arise oh compatriots, Nigeria’s call obey’ is the invitation from our national anthem to all Nigerians of goodwill to leave the back seats for the front seats and by so doing close the chapter of political recycling in Nigeria. The redemption of Nigeria depends on the courage of the new generation to take the bull by the horn.

 

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