May 29: Buhari The ONLY Change

Buhari

 

Not since Nelson Mandela helped to free South Africa from the stranglehold of apartheid has the fate of a nation been placed on the shoulders of one man. Nigerians will on May 29, witness the inauguration of a new administration and in which the fate and future of Nigeria rest squarely on what the incoming President, Muhammadu Buhari does or fail to do in the next four years.

Nigerians on March 28 voted for change on the surface but deep down what they voted for was for Buhari who they believed has the necessary integrity to take the country from where it is to the next level of development where corruption would be minimal if not totally eradicated. They believed that he has the integrity and political will to assembly the best team that would help him run the country on the basis of fairness, equity, and good governance. They expected him to deal ruthlessly with those that pilfered and or are pilfering with the nation’s treasury under his leadership.

Sadly, Buhari is the only change we may see from Friday, as the crowd milling around him and that helped him to power were no different from those who have been running the country in the last 16 years. In all it means that Buhari is the only change and he must have to take hard and unpalatable decisions from Friday that even those who brought him to power would notice like Napoleon that China is a sleeping lion. Speaking of China, Napoleon once warned saying “Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world.”  Buhari would have to take hard decisions that those who brought him to power would wish that they should have left him to be tending his farms in Daura, while the rest of downtrodden Nigerians on the other hand would be rejoicing.

If you are still in doubt that Buhari is the only change, then take a cursory look at these names; former vice president Atiku Abubakar, former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, governor of Rivers State, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, governor of Kano State, Rabiu Kwankwaso, former governor of Kwara State, Senator Bukola Saraki, governor-elect Malam Nasiru El-Rufai, former governor of Benue State, Senator George Akume, all the APC governors-elect in the whole of the north with the exception of Jigawa State, Imo State governor Rochas Okorocha, those shaping the policy framework of APC, former governor of Ekiti State, Dr Femi Fayemi and his deputy and former minister of Sport, Alhaji Bolaji Abdullahi and the list is endless.

Can you in all honesty believe that these people can drive the change the country needs? It means that the ordinary Nigerians may in the end be the ones that would help Buhari to bring the necessary change. This is obvious. If Buhari is to bring the much needed transparency in resource allocation they would resist him. Many of the aforementioned politicians are the people that control the mainstream media that paved the way for Buhari’s emergence despite the media muscle of the federal government. “The Oyibo that made pencil, also made erasure” is a popular saying in Nigeria. Some of these guys used their media prowess to make Buhari and can also unmake him. But he must cut their access to states and national tills and also bring those of them who stole public money in the past 16 years to book to demonstrate that change has come.

Does Buhari has the political will to drive the change Nigeria needs? I believe he does. Are Nigerians ready to stand by him? They better be, unless if they are ready to exchange Al ‘Scar Face’ Capone for Charles ‘The Lucky’ Luciano. In that case they are not ready for change.