Ahmed Yahaya – Joe
May 29, 2021 has come and gone. Second and final term half-time over. Manager clueless. Strikers worn out. Mid fielders exhausted. Goalkeeper comatose. Transfer window closed. Fans now wailers!
Mr. President came into office amidst the embers of over-expectation he had helped stoke during his 12 years in opposition.
So, nostalgia and euphoria escorted him to the Villa. Soon despondency took over and the masquerade that promised eggs started delivering scorpions. Meanwhile, the Presidential Air Fleet are still not being scrapped and its aircraft collapsed into a national carrier. Didn’t Shugaba say fuel subsidy never existed?
Femi Adesina. The man with the hardest job in Abuja. Thank you for the catalogue of the modest achievements recorded in the last six years. Very commendable. But when your phone stops ringing in 2023 don’t imagine it is bad network. Ask Reuben Abati before you who was even tempted to take his handset for repairs when the calls stopped coming in.
Why would your phone go silent at full-time? It is because in 2015 our nation was number 12 in Africa on the Food Security Index. We are currently placed 23rd in the 2021 rankings. Besides you listed D’Tigress, Nigeria’s National Female Basketball Team as having won the 2017 African Women’s Championship Cup and the only female African Team to qualify for participation in the 2020 Summer Olympic Games that did not hold in Tokyo, Japan. Congratulations but was that feat a campaign promise?
Kind of reminds me of onetime governor, Ali Modu Sheriff that famously listed the opening shop of Mr. Biggs in Maiduguri as part of the “dividends of democracy” he was providing the good people of Borno.
In 2015, I not only voted for GMB but urged many others to do same. I helped in dressing him up with messianic regalia. Now, I am not the only Nigerian afflicted with buyer’s remorse. Regardless, I remember with fondness as military Head of state he was so much a phenomenon that I even pasted the sticker of his good self wearing that trademark black beret stating “This generation of Nigerians, and indeed future generations, have no country other than Nigeria. We shall remain here and salvage it together” on my T-Square.
What happened to my erstwhile hero worship? As they say; “Be careful about what you pray for. You might get it and not like it.” That notwithstanding I have nothing against the man. I blame myself instead for relying on wishful thinking. I am however of unmindful that as Nigerians we have a penchant for over excoriating and grossly under appreciating our leaders.
“Après moi, le déluge” means – After me, the flood. It is a French expression attributed to Louis XV, King of France from 1715 to 1774. Louis never bothered about the future of France after him. He did not put in place an exit strategy of orderly succession to secure his legacy.
What are the qualities expected of PMB’s successor?
“Nigerian leaders almost always arrive their duty posts more by accident (and luck) than any conscious dream nurtured by ideas or ideals. Yet to develop as a nation, we must begin to imbibe a culture by which those who aspire to lead our people are subjected to a rigorous process of public debates that will assess their suitability on objective criteria, rather than the religion they practice or where they come from. They would also need to be tested and scrutinized rather than rely on their body language.”
– Olusegun Adeniyi in page 203 of Against the Run of Play: How an Incumbent President was Defeated in Nigeria (2017)
