By Tunde Abatan, tunde2013abatan@gmail.com,08165660217
By his demeanor,speech and pronouncements, President Muhammadu Buhari is tired. He is tired both in spirit and in the physical. He is also tired of the way he has handled the office he asked for and was eventually entrusted to his hands by the then hopeful citizens in 2015.
But almost the entirety of the citizenry are convinced, that after spending seven years in power, Buhari is far from accomplishing the goals for which they voted him into power . The exemption is that if those goals and expectations of the citizenry are different from what he promised and on which he was elected after four attempts to be elected as a democratically elected President..
For the citizenry,they have soon come to realize that the Muhammadu Buhari they saw between 1984 and 1985 is far different from the one now in the saddle.
His pronouncement during the Channels Television interview nevertheless is a direct confirmation of what former President Olusegun Obasanjo said few weeks back that Buhari has probably given his all and that nothing new can come out of the infantry general in his remaining days in office.
By saying that he is tired and eager to return to his Cows and quite life in Daura ,like his former colleagues and age mates who are savouring their retirement,he is telling Nigerians that their country is already in a roller coaster and that no matter what,nothing new could come out from him different from his tardiness in solving the nations myriad of problems which has been assumed geometric proportions since his assumption of office seven years ago.
The people are paying the price for their little knowledge of the capacity of the man they elected to solve their problem.
The citizenry from North to South are almost echoing the Yoruba adage which says,’ if you can’t improve my lot,return me to how you met me’ meaning (Orisa bi o ko le gbemi, semi bi o se ba mi) .
Hence,his now familiar and periodic threats,motions and declarations which his minders are programmed to issue are movement without motion to end insurgency, banditry,weak and collapsing economy and mounting insecurity all over the country .
They are now all a confirmation that you cannot give what you don’t have. And this is prove that Nigerians who trooped out to elect him in 2015 made a serious error of judgement.
President Buhari is also by the declaration on the Channels interview showed that in spite of the appointment of a Chief Economic Adviser in person of Dr Doyin Salami formerly a member of the Presidential Economic Council,PAC,he is merely making an attempt at window dressing since the appointee had all along been in the nations economic think tank.
He is actually telling citizens that they should not expect a relief in whatever form from the draconic economic policies which has produced more hungry and angry citizens across the length and breadth of Nigeria.
It is not debatable that his policies has produced and multiplied citizens who have lost relatives to blood sucking demons in ethno-religious garments to walking corpses ready to collapse just with a push.
On insecurity,his inaction on definitive policies to wipe out the demon of Boko Haram and other vices have redefined Nigerias love for countryside.
Buharis resignation to terrorism and it’s product is a signal that hapless citizens had to be content with getting holed- up in any part of the country where they live, as both the highway and interstate routes have been taken over by terrorists.
It also means that citizens whose loved ones are abducted will have to continue to negotiate with their captives either directly or indirectly since security agencies have reached their optimum .
It is quite obvious that citizens and hapless farmers and traders in at least seven local communities in Sokoto and some in Niger state and other parts of the North had to contend with paying taxes to non -state actors like terrorists who have set up parallel government to oil their campaign.
It is apparent that this alternate government will remain so for the next seventeen months.
Perhaps, Governor Aminu Masari of Katsina, Buharis home state, read the Presidents mind early when he declared a week to President Buharis resignation to Nigerias problems, that he has no choice than to arm his helpless citizens to defend themselves against activities of terrorists who have turned night into day for citizens whose live have become increainghly short and brutish.To Masaris action,we should expect armed groups in other states of the country who will follow Masaris footstep and thus test the Presidents will.
For the over 9000 nurses and medical workers who left Nigeria for greener pastures in Europe in the last seven months ,the President is saying that their decision to desert their country which have spent millions to train them is justified and timely if they must survive.
As for the members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU- who has threatened to down tools due to go governments refusal to honour the agreement they put own pen to paper to sign,their decision to embark on another strike would be fruitless as no change in government attitude and policies would occur .
It is as good as saying that nothing good can come out of governments penchant for not honouring it’s words,they had to decide whether they will keep their peanuts until the next 18 months when hopefully another listening President or regime will climb the saddle and probably open a new vista for negotiations.
This itself is dependent on whether President Buharis is succeeded by somebody more competent than him taken into consideration history of Nigerias steady decline of leadership since independence.
As for the Police, Buhari has shown clearly in words and actions that nothing new can come in form of state police which even his reluctant power block has now supported and clamouring for occasioned by rising insecurity and apparent incapability of the police system to tame.
On its own, the National Assembly should be content with spewing out more rhetorics and producing Bills they couldn’t get the President to sign since he has successfully arm twisted and compromised them at inception. He will further spew invenctives on their face should they insist on legislations which run counter to Buharis rigid and unrealistic mindset.
The NASS for now is boxed to it’s own corner.
For the ruling political party,the All People’s Congress, APC,the different tendencies in the party either bow to his autocratic stance to ram down his style of national convention on their throat or take the bold step of leaving the party they nurtured over the years to build.
Whichever way it, goes,Buhari is bent on having his way on how he runs the government in the next seventeen months and only the bold and assertive party members can arrest the ship which is ultimately set to hit the rocks with enough collateral damage to the party and by extension the polity.
For the self determination ethnic groups all over the country,hopes of restructuring the polity before the election is as dimmed as asking Buhari to change his provincial and neposistic attitude which has driven the country down the hill.
For the rest of Nigerians,interesting and dangerous times are indeed ahead of them between now and May 29,2023.
