In a television interview granted Channels TV by Muhammadu Buhari, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, on Wednesday, January 5, 2022 at 1:00 pm American time, he summarized what comes to mind when he hears the name of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as failure. The president was right in his own judgment and to the best of his ability to perceive, process thoughts, and draw out conclusions. He’s therefore entitled to his personal opinion. However, it is important to state what leadership failure means to Nigerians.
To start with, it means the inability of their leaders to fulfill its major objective of securing their lives and property, leaving them to their fate in the hands of terrorists, bandits, and kidnappers with the atmosphere of fear created in every nook and cranny of the country. Failure also means to Nigeria the inability for them to be appointed into leadership positions and job openings on the basis of merits.
It means also to them the inability to enjoy their fundamental human rights of association, freedom of expression, and the right to interrogate the activities of their leaders without arbitrary arrests and detention. Failure also means to them the inability to feed themselves and enjoy a reliable power supply. It also means to them the inability to afford data and enjoy reliable internet connections.
Failure also as epitomized by the Buhari-led government under the umbrella of the All Progressive Congress (APC) party is to have a country that groans and suffers under the heavy burdens of indebtedness bequeathed to them after 8 years of failed promises. It also means to them the killings of the youths, who supposedly are the leaders of tomorrow, with impunity; a good example was the Lekki killings of the unarmed End SARS protestors on October 20, 2020.
The list can go on and on, but the truth remains that the youths and the good citizens of Nigeria need no seer to know if they’re perceptive enough that the several years spent so far by the present administration of Muhammadu Buhari is an accidental failure, a situation, experience, and spectacle that should be resisted in the future and not allowed to happen again. What else is it that is hidden that the President has not brought to light in his interview about the hopelessness that the country is plunged into?
One thing that is helpful is to guide the future of Nigeria against the activities of the marauders and people with inordinate ambitions as we have today. There is no exaggerating the fact that the bane of a just, egalitarian, and prosperous society is the lack of visionary leaders.
Muhammadu Buhari, according to him, has given his best to Nigeria, and that makes sense looking at it from the truth behind the scenes that you cannot give what you don’t have. He has given all his best, and his best only amounts to the entrenchment of insecurity, nepotism, disunity, discontentment, agitations, and incessant killings of Nigerians with impunity.
Going forward, the youths should stand for the cause that sparked the fire of the End SARS protests and many more worthwhile causes. They should rekindle the fire that is in them, which made them burn for the whole world to see, and realize that going back into their shells or hideouts will not help them, in particular, and the country, in general. It may take some time, but they should consider investing their energies in educating their fellow Nigerians about the kind of leadership that is needed and from the areas that such should be expected.
Realizing that agitations for self-determination are on-going, and that once the mind is stretched in respect of a given idea, it cannot return back to its original size, enlightenment and educating people beginning from their homes is key to revolution, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant. It is not enough to be educated. It is more important to educate, and the truly educated never graduate.
Without the achievement of self-determination by the aggrieved ethnic groups in Nigeria for now, the next step and viable alternative that guarantees progress and stability for Nigeria is restructuring. It does not matter what the credentials of all the political aspirants in both the APC and PDP parties look like, the 1999 Constitution on which all political activities are premised is faulty and a scam, and if the foundation be destroyed, there is nothing that the righteous can do.
Without the needful being done and seen to be done, the future of this great country Nigeria is bleak. Show is not substance.
Samuel ‘Tunji Adeyanju
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