Every creature of God often gets rattled and swarmed by life’s unexpected and unwanted troubles. Sometimes, the troubles are architected by men close to us in one form or fashion. When this becomes my personal experience, the words of the great Roman poet, philosopher, orator, lawyer and politician, Marcus Tullius Cicero, always come to mind. The submission of Cicero has always been a guide of sort for me against the shocks that action and inaction of men will dump in my walkway. These were Cicero’s words:
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”
As Nigerians are grappling with the reality of the enormity of all that ails the nation, and as President Muhammadu Buhari journeys into all corners of the world negotiating help to effect change in the landscape, the words of Cicero continually gnaw at my spirit.
The word, “Change” as a campaign chant and motivational buzzword has some mellifluous character to it. When hummed in a band of voices, the sound of it is medicine to the weak and remedy to the dying soul. When repeated often enough, the feeling of self-defeat is defeated.
The problem with the chant and buzzword of change is that if it yields no quick positive results, the goodwill enjoyed by chaperons of change vamooses in a quicksand and mired in a morass. The one who has been touted as the champion of change may now have to dodge and duck lest he be “stoned” by the same people who once called him the Messiah.
I am not envious of the enviable position Buhari holds as President of Nigeria. I do not covet the assignments of men and women who probably mean well; and who now hold strategic positions of influence in this present administration. For all of us, and especially for millions of Nigerians who have no winds behind their sails, times are tough and troubling.
“Change” is presently in chains and trouble. It is daily contending with enemies within. Those who profit from all manner of protracted problems bedevilling the system are powerful. They are men with men, money and means. They are elements who don’t pray that Nigeria stays in good standing. They are characters who interpret Nigeria’s comfort as their discomfort. For them, the status quo of quagmire and backwardness must remain for them to remain relevant. Men who take tankers of Nigeria’s fuel across the borders for sale in neighbouring countries while their brothers and sisters struggle to get a liter to power their generators. They are enemies within. Those who vandalise our refineries at reckless will are those who will make change impossible. They are enemies within.
Can anyone in his good conscience fault Buhari for these rough and tough times? But who else do you fault? Buhari today is the President and Nigeria’s Mr. Fix-It-All. Yes; he inherited a big mess! But No, we are not hunting down the last occupier of the Presidency who led an administration that ceased to exist almost a year ago. Moving in that direction will be nothing but a sheepish attempt at cop-out from being responsible. No one should attempt to relocate the buck from Buhari’s desk. That’s where it stops.
It is an Herculean task rebuilding Nigeria. It is a mega-monumental assignment salvaging this nation from its present pit of stench. It is energy-sapping fighting against budget-padding ghosts, pipeline-busting visitants, contract-inflating, bribe-offering and kickback-cuddling faceless characters. These are all entrenched vices in the spine of a system that has been mangled and laced in bobble and boo-boo over many decades. We have a society which adamantly resists new ways of doing business but loves to pour libations on the old that is obliterating us as a nation.
In present-day Nigeria, you can recruit the best professors and nuclear scientists to serve in government; and draft the holiest pastors in whose mouths there are no guiles; convince the most God-fearing Islamic clerics, and get the most squeaky-clean civil-servants and human right activists to run Nigeria from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Authority, to the Central Bank of Nigeria, to the aviation sector. In three months, these men and women once adjudged great hands will be booed and booted out by the same people who drafted them. These good men will be hated and hounded by enemies within who have set booby traps and landmines for any good initiatives to thrive and survive. The fundamentals of the Nigerian society are as weird as they are faulty. Enemies within are working tirelessly to sink Nigeria as they stash up their wallets.
Nigerians are set in certain fashions and difficult to convince to see the impossible and hear the inaudible. Don’t preach too hard to Nigerians that tomorrow will be alright. For a generation in pain and hurt, it’s just got to be alright RIGHT NOW! Even if God announces from the heavenlies that He is dispatching a company of innumerable angels to bring some reliefs, the angels better get to work pronto and presto. Tomorrow is always too late for a man dying of hunger and sickness.
Forty five days away from today, this administration will clock one year in office. We have heard of lofty promises but we are waiting for their fulfilment. We have heard of 10,000 megawatts promises, but we are still waiting. We have heard a lot of noise about who stole what, but no one is in jail convicted. We have heard of trillions of naira missing from the till but some of the accused are still blustering on television.
The pain from one year ago continues until today. In some places, it is more intense. Even those of us who don’t reside in Nigeria feel the pang and prick. And please don’t ask me how. We will stand by this leadership because it’s not about them. It’s about Nigerians who are helpless and hapless. Hope deferred makes the heart sick.
The change moves on the agenda of President Buhari are already surging against a ferocious and vicious head wind from those fighting for their myopic self-serving agenda and wallets. In Nigeria, my friend, change is hard to effect. I just hope it will not be impossible.
PUNCH
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