I have suggested earlier that it was time for president Buhari to go home and get a deserved rest after his years of service to Nigeria.

When your slogan is change, you must be ready to lead by exemplary changes. The government headed by Mr. Buhari failed to set good examples.

The Change Begins With The APC-Buhari Mandate

By Adeola Aderounmu

In October 2016, in what appears to be my message for Nigeria’s independent anniversary celebration, I suggested that it was time for president Buhari to go home and get a deserved rest after his years of service to Nigeria. He seems to be eager to continue with his journey as one of the worst presidents ever in the history of Nigeria.

On the strength of performance and in the frame of time spent, the Buhari-led government has invariably overtaken Jonathan-led government as the most clueless regime ever. No amount of blame-game can erase the abysmal performance of the APC-Buhari regime in the past 1½ years. No amount of playing or  dancing to the gallery can change this historical fact. No sugar-coating or anti-wailing slogan can overshadow the realities of how we live, what we see, feel and experience.

As a way of reminder, everybody knew the problem with Nigeria before the change slogan was used as a catalyst for regime change. But so far, there is no change and government and governance in Nigeria remain business as usual.

In a rare admission for its non-performance, the APC-Buhari mandate came up with a new slogan tagged ”Change Begins With Me”. The failed government want the people to perform a miracle that could turn around perception of the government.

In Nigeria, it is too late to start trying to change the system using the downtrodden as a platform. For the downtrodden, theirs is already a life of survival, mostly from hand to mouth. They have been deprieved of proper governance for more than 50 years! They are hungry, angry and faced with increasing hopelessness with each passing day of the APC-Buhari mandate.

Nigeria is in a peculiar mess. Change, under the present circumstances in Nigeria, can never begin with the ordinary people. Forget it! It was the government that promised a change and it has failed to deliver. Change in Nigeria must begin at the top.

The first change required in Nigeria is the introduction of fresh minds into the APC change machinery. Nigeria must adopt the standard global approach to the mechanism of change. When people including politicians failed, or know they are going to fail, the standard is that they admit and step aside. Nigeria for long has pretended to be immune to this global standard. Now the results are almost irreparable.

If a ruler is stubborn or obstinate, there is no theory that shows that such traits will transform into prosperity. Nigeria and APC under Buhari’s rulership will never make it. That ability to lead and steer Nigeria to greatness is not going to happen under a trial-and-error type of government for which APC-Buhari mandate has become a specialist.

What some of us saw in the early days on the Buhari-APC mandate is becoming clearer to several other people now. The wailers club has expanded massively. Even the secret, silent and speechless wailers club is overwhelmingly full. Silence, we must never forget can speak volume itself.

What went wrong with the APC-Buhari mandate?

The government has made and continues to make several mistakes. When your slogan is change, you must be ready to lead by exemplary changes. The government headed by Mr. Buhari failed to set good examples.

After wasting several months doing nothing, the government assembled a team of known looters and criminals and presented them as proponents of change. Indeed, everything went wrong before then because it was this team of looters that brought Mr. Buhari to power. It was wishful thinking that we the people thought Buhari will assemble a fresh team. We too, miscalculated!

The APC-Buhari government is daring and provocative. It’s asking the people to change when the presidency, the executive and the NASS is oozing with corruption and parade of looters.

In a previous essay l asked how the EFCC got the information, facts and evidence that are used in prosecuting members of the oppositions whereas we the people were asked to provide the evidence that could be used to prosecute members of the ruling party.

As we write and read, more PDP members are crossing over to APC to avoid prosecution from the hands of law-enforcement agencies. Dictatorial tendencies abound pushing the country to a familiar path of tyranny.

The lies and errors of APC-Buhari mandate are numerous and instrumental to the failure of the mandate. This government is totally hopeless and it will not make it. The Yes-today No-tomorrow concept of governance is a means to aggravating the economic woes.

How can change begin with the man or the people on the streets when the politicians continue to accumulate wealth in an uncontrollable manner? They continue to steal, loot and share the national wealth while the majority of the population live in abject poverty. Rather than cut their demonic acquisitions and primitive accumulations, they want to sell national assets and they want to borrow to culture their insatiations. Greedy lots!

We complained about the greedy pensions that active and obsolete politicians apportion to themselves whilst our parents who served government in public services continue to be deprived of their pensions. Yet the other day one man who called himself comrade Adams left the governor’s office and he and his deputy had multi-billion naira housing and emoluments waiting for them.

There are so many anomalies that invalidate the change begins with me slogan. Politicians remain greedy and criminally inclined. There is no limit to the categorisation of criminals in the Nigerian political space. There are more than 65 shades of criminals in Nigerian politics. They all get away.

Perhaps Nigerians need to analyze the significance of the change begins with me slogan. In my view, the slogan is bifocal or double-edged.

First, it means Nigeria’s president Mr. Buhari must accept that the change begins with him personally. Therefore he needs to do something phenomenal, accept his weaknesses and begin a process to hand over the APC machinery to brilliant and vibrant minds in the APC fold. Whilst we continue to find all the approaches that will move Nigeria forward, the country does not have the luxury of time for a non-productive president or presidency.

Before he takes a bow, Mr. Buhari should never leave behind the likes of his useless minister for sports. That man is a disgrace to Africa as a whole. If there are others like him, that are easily identifiable as morons, they need to leave together.

Change begins when the one at the top set good examples and meet the followers half-way as everyone shares a common goal of the good of all.

Secondly, l see the slogan change begins with me as a call for a social revolution. If anyone continues to live under the illusion that Nigerian politicians alone will fix Nigeria’s problems, that person is OHO (On his/her own).

Indeed the change begins when Nigerians collectively agree that enough is enough. It begins when thay take their destinies in their hands. It begins when they chase and bring to justice all the criminal politicians, and criminal public and private citizens who have destroyed the country socially and economically. Nigerians must continue to act proactively, ask questions and form pressure groups to influence political changes. The lessons of history are clear: where there is no rage, there is no change.

Change in Nigeria will begin when the present unitary political structure that spreads poverty and hopelessness like wild fires is demolished.

The politicians don’t want the political or social changes because in the prevailing political structure, the winner takes it all. The politicians’ hold on the country’s wealth have made everyone lazy mentally. The political edge gives the elites the mechanism to control the people’s psyche and emotions.

They send the people to church and mosque and even on tax-funded pilgrimages to pray as they continue to breed fat and the people continue to suffer and smile in the presence of all the foreign gods.

Change will begin in Nigeria when the system of government is returned to the regions and when justice, selflessness and genuine service become the keywords in public and private offices across all the nations embedded within the geographical space called Nigeria. Justice itself is never served on a platter of gold.

 

aderounmu@gmail.com