Posted on: 11:01 Sat, 30 Jan 2016



Fellow Nigerians, let me confirm what you
already know; I’m an absolute supporter of
President Muhammadu Buhari despite being one
of his most vociferous critics in the past.

The reasons are very simple and I shall try to
enumerate them one by one. Though I wanted a
young and vibrant President, and did present
myself once upon a time, I’ve since realised that
even the young voters can’t readily identify who
they want and what they need to do to have
him when they see one.

Two, our younger leaders have not
demonstrated their seriousness and passion for
developmental goals over and above the older
generation.
Three, President Buhari has what most people
lack and that is integrity.

Four, the former ruling party, PDP, left us with
no option as they went on a reckless binge at
the expense of the nation.

As I told two newspaper publishers earlier in the
week, my interest in President Buhari has
become a religion and indeed an article of Faith.
By fire and by force, he must succeed. For me
and my house, failure is not on our plate.

I consider myself a humble stakeholder in this
Presidency and I’m ready to give it all it takes
from my little corner. That does not require me
to be in his government. We can all contribute
our quota. I will not deny him like Peter denied
Jesus.

Many of our opponents during the last elections
are already teasing and taunting us and
threatening Buhari’s government with impending
doom and unmitigated disaster.

They are quick to write him off instead of
seeing themselves first as Nigerians and telling
the President what he should be doing that he is
not and so on.

The road ahead is long and rough and would be
tough to navigate but the people’s General must
keep marching and pushing because the world
is watching and waiting with bated breath.

Will
Buhari fail or succeed and break the jinx of
monumental failure in leadership and
governance in Nigeria? In order to make the
difference our President must take certain
steps.

I will mention a few. He should skilfully avoid
the professional power-grabbers who are
experts at misleading most leaders. As broke as
Nigeria seems at the moment we are still a
wealthy nation. Our riches are from human and
natural resources. We are a lucky country
stupendously blessed by God. The biggest
trouble is our unquenchable profligacy.

We waste too much on very few. We need to be
more visibly austere. Our 2016 budget should be
an embarrassment to a Government that
professes change. We are going to borrow
money to fund extravagant spending. As usual,
we want to maintain the status quo by
practising capitalism without capital.
President Buhari should not dismiss the harsh
criticisms of major international media
organisations as the handiwork of his enemies.

He should read, digest and consider the merits
of their anxieties over Nigeria. Some
government agents are already behaving like
the neurotic disciples of former President
Goodluck Jonathan who in their abject paranoia
abused and accused anyone who dared to say
their government was on its way to perdition.
The Buhari government must realise that the
best way to punish an enemy is by succeeding.

The Financial Times, Bloomberg and The
Economist can’t all be wrong at once. We hailed
all these publications when they wrote off the
Jonathan administration which eventually came
to pass. It is sad we are wasting scarce
resources in advertising in those journals
instead of tidying up at home and harnessing
our huge potentials.

The period of campaigning is gone and we
should stop engaging in unnecessary
propaganda. What is good would be seen by
those who have eyes and felt even by those
who have none.

There is nothing new that we’ve not done to
woo investors in the past. What we need to do
is to create a new nation and a new way of
doing things. We don’t need to sweat so much
if we do the right things. In those
circumstances we won’t see enemies where
none exist.

Let’s get on with the job, get it done and stop
the blame game.