After all, we must move on to the next level of national engagement with slight references to our wins and defeats in the immediate past. But to politicians, this may not always be the case and in one way or the other, they will still come back – for some don’t usually feel defeat-able. It is normal per human psychology of bossing tendencies. Saraki/Dogara victories are transient. In politics, you don’t win the battle against time. These power brokers have managed to become BIG in a short while with their win-it-all posture, and they will enjoy this status for a while, just for a while, when the game will take a turn to hunt them. They should expect a comeback from the downtrodden students of Bourdillon College whose ego has been enmeshed in nothingness and in such a manner that poses great danger to the future of their career. It is not in all cases that grandstanding wins.
Back to the trenches
Nigerians are justifiably impatient. Yes. You cannot go through hell while eking out survival without calling for an overnight ‘change’. You cannot be subjected to deliberate negligence and put at the mercy of suicide bombers without holding on firmly to the promise of wiping out Boko Haram. You cannot forego your time tested investment because of poor economic management without crying atop your voice for economic reinvention. You cannot be tagged ‘potential fraudsters’ in oversea stores without asking too much questions of when our diplomatic rebranding will happen. You cannot lose your cars and loved one to death traps on our roads without shouting for immediate reconstruction. You cannot lose your about-to-be-born baby due to bed inadequacy in government hospitals without carrying foul of being short-changed. You cannot keep running on high cost of production due to zero electricity without feeling uncomfortable with it. Again, Nigerians are justifiably impatient.
We have been so tortured, so bruised and so neglected that all we wanted is for Buhari to keep announcing changes ‘with immediate effect’ – like stabilizing power supply with immediate effect, ordering Health Ministry to procure more beds and dialysis machines with immediate effect, announcing substantive head of agencies to take over with immediate effect, calling for military take-over of Boko Haram enclaves with immediate effect, announcing the reconstruction of North-East with immediate effect, ordering the facelift of all our airports with immediate effect, ordering the construction of 100,000km of roads with immediate effect, ordering the construction of tram, rail tracks, metros across the country with immediate effect, ordering the reformation of law enforcement agencies with immediate effect, ordering the relocation of IDPs back to their original homes with immediate effect, ordering with immediate effect the facelift of our waterfalls, game reserves, rocks monuments, museums etc, ordering the construction of the tallest building in Africa with immediate effect, re-evaluate our currency with immediate effect such that naira to dollar exchange is brought below 100 naira, ordering with immediate effect the construction of a mass low cost housing of 20million units across the country, ordering with immediate effect that pump price of PMS should be pegged at 25 naira per litre, secure bilateral relationship with the US such that Nigerians don’t need visa to travel to the US, ordering the immediate industrialization of every state in Nigeria such that the states are self-sufficient.
Nigerians have so many ‘immediate effects’ they need from Buhari and they are justifiably on a good standing. The only thing that must be taken into consideration however, is that even embedded in the ‘immediate effect’ lies the transformational processes that are dependent on time for maturity. While people are right to condemn Buhari’s seeming tardiness and also tag him a ‘disappearing presidency’, they should understand that the lots that have gone wrong with the country require deliberate planning, logical politicking and intentional thinking. These cerebral exercises need some dialectical queries into the deep shit of our sorry past, out of which the scalable plan for the country can be developed.
The assumption here is that Buhari’s ‘snail’ speed is driven by the above self-purification exercise. The indicators that will lend credence to the assumptions above will be the quality of his first-eleven team and the quality of his bench as well as the designed road map for short term, medium term and long term impact for the country. In the end, it is expected that Buhari’s first-eleven and bench will have a place in our history, reappraise his campaign promises and party manifesto in accordance with current reality , and after a few prefatory steps and troubleshooting measures, will in the many months ahead plan and execute uplifting and soaring projects with ‘immediate effect’.
Jonah Ayodele Obajeun blogs @obajeun.com. Reach him on twitter via @Obajeun
