It is all going to happen within four days. Four days to the great
national revival and renewal. Four days to the rejuvenation and
restoration of the Nigerian economy. Four days to the great “changi” we
have all been waiting for. Four days to the arrival of the Nigerian
messiah, Muhammadu Buhari. I am sure we all can hardly wait.
In four days time, there will be an end to the problems of Nigeria.
Corruption will be killed. PHCN will be reborn. Youth unemployment will
be a thing of the past. The international oil market will stabilise. The
naira will find its level. Petrol will sell for 40 naira per litre.
The Boko Haram will lay down their arms. Fulani herdsmen will stop their
killings. Our cotton mills will roar back to life. The groundnut
pyramids will reappear. Our cocoa farmers will laugh all the way to the
bank. Our hospitals will stop being consulting clinics. Our universities
will once again become ivory towers of learning.
Hallelujah
We will achieve all this “changi” because Muhammadu Buhari will make a
transition from president-elect to president of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria. May 29th will no longer be known as Democracy Day. It will
henceforth be Buhari Day. On Friday, we will finally bid goodbye to the
PDP, and usher in the APC who will rule Nigeria for the next 60 years! I
can hear vice-president-elect Osinbajo saying: “Let everybody shout
hallelujah!”
However, the hallelujahs have been dying down lately. The “Amen and
Amen” are getting few and far between. Believers are becoming uncertain.
Cynics and skeptics are beginning to come out of the woodwork. The
Buhari brigades are fast losing their mojo. Indeed, if the election were
to be re-held today, many would not even bother to vote for their Daura
favourite-son. Not much is heard anymore of “Sai Buhari; sai Baba!” The
wedding is on Friday, but we are not even sure anymore whether the
bridegroom will show up.
Buhari supporters are no longer as bullish as they used to be. They are
no longer sure if there will be “changi” after all. Some now hasten to
insist they did not vote for Buhari; they voted against Jonathan. They
are now likely to point out that Buhari is not a magician. They would
have us know that Rome was not built in a day. But nobody bothered about
these truths during the election campaign. Then, Buhari was presented
as the answer to every question. He was sold as the solution to every
problem.
Illusory change
I am a Nigerian who lives in Nigeria. It is in my interest for Buhari to
succeed. I am the potential beneficiary of every Buhari success. But I
don’t see him succeeding because APC told too many lies in order to get
him elected. They built up expectations to unrealistically high levels.
They are not going to be able to tamp down those expectations now. They
are simply going to be left to drown in them.
There is an expiration date for the current penchant to blame the PDP
for everything. That date is May 29, 2015. The blame-game has served its
purpose. It has secured APC the certificate of occupancy to Aso Rock.
What Nigerians need to know now is what the APC has to offer. Alas, in
that department, Buhari and his cohorts do not seem to have a clue. They
are now just holding conferences at this late hour in order to put
together a road map. By all indications, that road map leads to nowhere.
“Power must return to the North. Power must return to the North.” We
have heard this chant for the better part of six years. Congratulations
are now in order: power has returned to the North. Now what is the North
going to do with this power? Will this power be used to revamp the
Nigerian economy? Or is it merely fulfilling the imperatives of
“Turn-by-turn Nigeria Limited?” Will the power now light up our home and
industries? Will it be used to overwhelm the Boko Haram?
Not likely! Those who wanted power to return to the North are now
calling for amnesty for the cold-blooded Boko Haram killers. Could it be
that their insurgency has fulfilled its purpose? Those who insisted
power must return to the North certainly did not make this demand in
order to make Nigeria great. They made the demand because they are
hungry. They want a Northern lion share of the national cake.
Anti-corruption is anathema to their agenda. In the anti-corruption
campaign, Buhari is on his own. He is a lone-ranger. He cannot even
secure the unflinching support of members of his own APC party.
Corruption incorporated
One of the myths of the last presidential election is that it was won
and lost on the platform of anti-corruption. Nothing could be further
from the truth. The APC and the PDP are yin and yang. Neither party is
anti-corruption. As a people, Nigerians are definitely not
anti-corruption. From the mechanic to the plumber to the dentist to the
policeman to the Senator; Nigerians are corrupt. In Nigeria, we live and
breathe corruption.
The new class of 2015 in the National Assembly is not anti-corruption.
One of our Senators-elect is already wanted for drug-smuggling in the
United States. Both within the APC and the PDP, we have re-elected
thieves and robbers. These people cannot be expected to fight
corruption. What is likely to happen is that they will fight Buhari’s
pretensions to anti-corruption to a standstill.
In my youth, there was the story of Ali Monguno, a federal minister from
the North-East, who was hated by his people. Their angst against him
was that he was not corrupt. His people found it unacceptable that while
other ministers were corrupt; their own representative was foolish
enough to be upright. They wanted to be fully represented in the
corruption at the national level. They wanted a representative thief for
Borno in Lagos.
Buhari does not understand this propensity. As long as we continue
within the current federal framework where the centre controls far more
resources than all the states combined, the issue of corruption will
remain with us. As long as Buhari sits in Abuja with 55% of national
resources to which he and most Nigerians are abstracted, so long will
there be corruption in Nigeria. As long as the whole point of government
is the allocation of resources deemed to belong to nobody and to
everybody, even so will the emphasis be on dividing the cake rather than
on baking it?
If you steal the money of cocoa farmers, you will have to answer to
cocoa farmers. But if you steal Nigeria’s oil wealth, you are the man.
To deal with corruption structurally, you have to deal with Nigeria’s
lopsided federal structure. But the issue of fiscal federalism does not
feature at all in Buhari’s anti-corruption road map.
Political dynamite
In any case, any attempt by the in-coming Buhari administration to
address the allegations of corruption under Goodluck Jonathan is bound
to be problematic. Out of 55 years of Nigeria’s existence, the
South-South has only been in power for five years. You cannot prosecute
corruption in the five years of South-South rule without being accused
of ignoring corruption in the 50 years of North-West and South-West
rule.
In many respects, South-South corruption while in government is
justifiable in view of North-West and South-West corruption while in
government. Since the oil is from the South-South, the geopolitical zone
is entitled to its own oil billionaires as those of the North and the
South-West. Why should Theophilus Danjuma and Folorunsho Alakija be oil
billionaires when the sons and the daughters of the Niger Delta are not?
These questions will continue to haunt any and every attempt at
addressing past corruption in Nigeria.
Anti-corruption is good public relations, but it is no substitute for a
viable programme for economic growth. In the final analysis, it is all
sound and fury signifying nothing. Making a difference means ending the
petrol shortage. It means increasing electricity generation and
distribution. It means providing jobs for unemployed youths. It means
providing social security for the teeming poor. In these practical
decibels of government, the APC is at sea. It simply has no idea what to
do.
Running against time
Buhari has just 100 days to make a difference. After that, all bets are
off. With the same measure the APC used, it will be measured back to it.
APC used social media masterfully in order to defeat PDP. They will now
come to understand what it means to govern in the age of social media.
They called Jonathan “clueless.” They must know that new names are in
the offing for Buhari. Some are already going viral. But I leave it to
others to conduct the naming-ceremony.
Complaints about how bad things are will just not cut it. Buhari cannot
expect to get any sympathy from Nigerians. He showed no sympathy for the
plight of Goodluck Jonathan. He deserves none in return. If the economy
is in bad shape as a result of the drastic drop in oil prices, that
fact was known before the election. Nevertheless, he asked for the job.
No point in telling us now what is wrong with the job or how difficult
it is. You were elected to overcome the difficulties.
In my youth, I used to sing a popular Yoruba song. It says: “Omo n’wase,
o ri’se. Ise to wa lo ri.” It means: “the chap looking for a job, got a
job. You got the job you were looking for.” Buhari wanted to be
president. He ran for president four times. He is finally the
president-elect. But one week to his inauguration, he runs away to
London. He is already tired, even before the job begins.
Is he sick? Does he need regular medical attention? The General talks a
lot about the need for transparency in government. However, he does not
seem to understand that this must also apply to his personal life as a
public official.
In order to achieve anything meaningful as president within the first
100 days, General Buhari is going to need all the good luck he can get.
However, Goodluck will be leaving Aso Rock unfailingly on 29th May,
2015.
