Just as morning shows the day, the first week of the Buhari administration is a signal to what to expect in the next four years. It is not too early to identify the resolve and operational style of the engineer and conductor as the Buhari/Osinbajo train takes off in full speed.
We cannot afford to miss the import of the president’s inaugural address. Those who complain that the address doesn’t contain a laundry list of policy items misjudge its intent. Its goal is to present the president’s governing philosophy to the nation, to remind the people of their proud heritage and thus call them into a fruitful partnership, and to reassure the global community of Nigeria’s readiness to take on the mantle of leadership for Africa’s economic and political development. On these important areas, the President delivered a powerful message which was not lost on the assemblage of leaders and dignitaries around the world.
Five special messages are clear and distinct in Buhari’s inaugural address. First is the deliberate effort to reaffirm his campaign pledge to govern with the fear of God and serve as the president of all Nigerians. “I belong to everyone and I belong to nobody” is more than a sound bite. It is a powerful message to all, including the doubters. It is to allay the fears of those who demonised him and terrified prospective voters with baseless claims of prison time for opponents that Buhari declared that “the past is prologue.” For a president with a mission to rally the nation to confront the very difficult issues she faces in these trying times, Buhari doesn’t have time for revenge. This is change.
Will he remain true to this pledge? A good question, the answer to which the president himself has provided, not in words but in action. Shortly after the inaugural, the president declared that his government has not banned anyone from travelling, and warned overzealous officials that ministers and other officials of the Jonathan administration must not be “subjected to any undue harassment and intimidation at the airports or at any other points of entry and exit.” He urged that fellow citizens must be treated with courtesy and respect, and that due process must be followed by officials at the border. This is as firm and clear as he can get to demonstrate fidelity to his pledge.
The second message that came out forcefully was Buhari’s zero tolerance for terrorism in general and Boko Haram insurgency in particular, which he declared as the most immediate of the national challenges. For a start, the president directed that the command centre be relocated to Maiduguri “until Boko Haram is completely subdued” and Chibok girls and other innocent persons held hostage are rescued. This is a General’s insight.
Buhari has since met with the Service Chiefs and must have given them the marching orders to prosecute the fight and “avoid human rights violations in operations” as he pledged in his address. The President’s Wednesday visit to the President of Niger Republic was a further demonstration to the doubting Thomases, of his resolve to tackle the security challenge frontally.
The third message of the address is on the economy, with the president fingering the epileptic power situation as the major culprit of the nation’s poor economic performance. To those for whom the economy has performed superbly, especially since rebasing, this assessment must be bitter to taste. But for the millions who live in abject poverty, and for industries performing at sub-par and millions of youth without job, it is the commonsense depiction of reality.
The president rightly noted the close to $20 billion expansion in the power sector since 1999 which have only “brought darkness, frustration, misery and resignation among Nigerians.” The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting different results. Therefore, “we will not allow this to go on” is the president’s firm resolution that Nigerians will certainly find reassuring but for which they will also hold him and his administration accountable. With the disclosure of careful studies that are already “underway during this transition to identify the quickest, safest and most cost-effective way to bring light and relief to Nigerians”, I suspect that Nigerians will not have to wait for long.
The fourth message is to the international community, which has waited patiently but in frustration for Nigeria to take its rightful leadership position in the comity of nations, globally and in the African region. The challenge is reconciling domestic strength or lack of it with international expectations without being embarrassingly compared to the physician who is unable to heal himself. You cannot claim to be partners with others in the war against terrorism if you half-heartedly prosecute the war within your border. You cannot honestly pledge cooperation with the international community in financial crimes if you cannot confront financial criminals in your backyard.
Buhari can faithfully make the pledge because he has confidence in his ability and will to fight corruption in the public and private sectors. And he knows that the overwhelming majority of Nigerians have his back in this important war. The key to the success in this fight is the collective resolve of our people. Buhari has vowed to get to the root of corruption even at the local government level. But since he is not an omnipresent being, he cannot be expected to know what goes on in the 774 local governments plus more local development areas around the country.
The final message is a presidential call to unity and greatness. In light of the foregoing paragraphs, it is perhaps the most important message. It’s a lofty appeal to the better angels of our people, and a reminder of the great heritage of a proud people who despite the divisions of tongue and religion, have so much in common.
We must “remind ourselves that we are heirs to great civilisations” the president says. And “the blood of those great ancestors (of ours) flows in our veins.” In other words, we are the children of our forefathers and mothers. They were known for greatness in various ways. Our brothers and sisters outside the borders of Nigeria in faraway America and the Caribbean continue to relate to their homeland with pride, invoking the names of our ancestors.
The president’s message is that we must look inward to the strength in our diversity and combine our cultural resources to fashion a great civilisation for ourselves and our descendants. Hitherto, we have only perceived our differences as weakness. The blame for this can go round.
There mustn’t be a superiority or inferiority complex on the part of any section of the country. There cannot be a deliberate attempt to marginalise any section politically, culturally, or economically. If we want a united and progressive nation, we must treat every group as an integral part of the whole. We must rethink our ideal of politics and ensure that every part of the country matters.
Surely, there have been occasions when division and disintegration appeared the only solution to our challenges. We have sometimes entertained reasons to go back to pre-colonial or colonial times. We may have been moved by the political principle of ethnic or national separatism.
However, we are now at a place where this principle cannot be effectively implemented without bloodshed, and we must go for the second best. That is what the idea of true federalism is all about. It has worked well in the other places with our sociological complexity. There is no reason it cannot work with us. People rightly fear domination by others they don’t trust. Grant them some cultural, political and economic freedom within a federal system and they can be fully integrated into the multiethnic or multinational political community.
This is a challenge for President Buhari to take up. The call for true federalism is a reasonable call in light of our past. The founding fathers whom the president praised for “establishing a viable and progressive country” embraced true federalism. The independence constitution was a true federal constitution. Let us take our cue from their wisdom.
NATION
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On point. We’re not God yet but we’re endowed with the qualities of God. So we can become like God if we put our minds to doing just that. We must be true to ourselves to be able to accept the opinion of others as being founded on truth. We cannot afford to find us in a situation where someone is seriously making a hole in a boat we are all sailing together.