In a few days, President Muhammadu Buhari should be back on his seat at Aso Rock Villa. I hope that he is refreshed, rejuvenated and refocused. I wish him well because at this point, he needs every bit of wellness he can find to wrestle with the hydra headed challenges of the Nigerian nation.
If the truth must be told, being captain of this massive ship called Nigeria with too many holes in its structure and presently sailing over very troubled waters, can give anyone unending migraine. In my opinion, the president needed the time out.
Those whose job is to brief the President must tell him that while he was away, two events dominated the news cycle in Nigeria. Both events have been emotionally discussed, debated and dissected with the citizens practically shouting at each other.
WATCH: 2face talk on why we must march against bad government in Nigeria on February 6
The first is the wicked rumour of the President’s death. The second is the planned nationwide protest led by my friend and colleague, 2Baba, a frontline member of COSON, the organization that I serve.
Those who work with me will tell you that my attitude to leadership is that no development within a leader’s sphere is completely bad.
From what is happening around him, every good leader must find that which he can use to ensure the good of the people he leads. For instance, while no one in Nigeria prayed for a recession, our present circumstances might in fact be what propels this nation to greatness, if well managed.
The fact that some people in Nigeria, as crazy as it may sound, would contemplate the open celebration of the death of our democratically elected president should tell us something. The fact that the announcement of a planned protest by a singer hitherto mostly known for preaching love can generate such emotive reaction across the country, should also tell us something.
Let no one forget that our President was elected with significant support in several parts of the country. However, whether you like him or not, the incontrovertible fact is that things are not exactly as they were on May 29, 2015.
Some of the pipes and cables that connected the President with the citizens have ruptured. It is my humble opinion that they got ruptured because they were not properly tended to. We should not forget that Nigerians elected Buhari because in the main, the citizens were unhappy with the Jonathan government.
READ: ‘Buhari is not dead but they are killing him on social media’ – Tony Okoroji
Before the last elections, I had complained in this column that the extremely likeable President Jonathan in search of votes, appeared to have disconnected himself from the nation’s intelligentsia and had laid his pipes and connected his cables in the direction of OPC, MASSOB and the diverse irredentist groups across the country.
I thought that was dangerous because any nation that abandons knowledge to celebrate and empower its trouble makers has no business with education. I am 100% convinced that any nation that does not value education has no business with progress.
I believe that the government of President Buhari is seriously challenged because it is the first time in our history that an opposition government has taken over from a government in power. I believe that many in the APC remained too drunk for too long over their massive victory over the PDP and forgot that they have work to do.
I also believe that there was significant under estimation of the massive personnel and structural changes that needed to take place to get a new government running at full speed. That can be seen in the time it took to appoint ministers and the fact that almost half way into the life of the government, there is still a sizeable amount of leadership positions that are not filled.
I am aware that the sudden drop in the price of crude oil terribly affected a lot of the calculations. The president’s shutting-off of a lot of the pipes through which corruption flowed did not help matters. Suddenly, there is no more foreign exchange to keep a nation intoxicated in free food to continue partying endlessly.
Truly, a hungry man is an angry man but I am persuaded that if a serious effort had been made to make the average Nigerian a player and actor in the Buhari revolution, we can see sunshine at the end of the tunnel.
I am afraid that right now, a lot of Nigerians see themselves as spectators in what is going on in Aso Rock and do not see that there will be an end to the tunnel of hunger we seem to be trapped in. That is not helped by the fact that our President does not talk much in a world in which no one waits any longer for the 9 O’clock news but gets his news every minute on a smartphone.
As the President comes home, I plead with him to make serious efforts to redefine the Buhari brand. I have never doubted his commitment or personal integrity but I have not seen a one-man revolution work anywhere.
Let’s vote: Are you in support of 2face’s planned protest march or not?
The president owes it to millions of Nigerians to transform the Buhari revolution into a Nigerian people’s revolution. I believe that we can take the pain if we can feel our leader is taking us into confidence and we are part of the war against what is wrong with our nation. The President needs to ensure that the pipes and the cables to the hearts of Nigerians are reconnected.
During the week, I received a call from Mr. Femi Adesina, the President’s Chief spokesman. Femi had nice things to say about my last week piece, ‘Buhari is not Dead but they are Killing Him on Social Media’ which seems to have been discussed quite a bit in Abuja.
In the article, I had questioned the job of Femi’s team in protecting the President. A typical Nigerian would have called me to abuse my grandmother and grandfather for putting his job on the line. Not Femi Adesina!
He thanked me for the piece which he said is helping his case with respect to the role that social media must play in communication at this time. Let me say that it is not only at the Presidency that the role of social media in the present world must be understood. Every ministry, government department, police post, hospital, supermarket, etc., must understand that the world has changed. Real time communication is now everything.
See you next week.