Buhari: shape of things to come

It is interesting to watch the unfolding process of transition from President Goodluck Jonathan to President-elect Muhammadu Buhari in just a few weeks. The man on the driver’s seat is of course President Goodluck Jonathan commendably till date, proving a statesman with his pronouncements of commendation on the President-elect, and in patriotic fashion, drumming up […]

It is interesting to watch the unfolding process of transition from President Goodluck Jonathan to President-elect Muhammadu Buhari in just a few weeks. The man on the driver’s seat is of course President Goodluck Jonathan commendably till date, proving a statesman with his pronouncements of commendation on the President-elect, and in patriotic fashion, drumming up support for his successor. It is an all too new Goodluck Jonathan, saying the right things at the right time, and standing out. Not any longer is he the one used to making surprising takes on even sensitive matters of state, much to the anger of the citizenry. May be because the cacophony of those sly tongues that attracted hate instead of love from the citizenry for the different Jonathan that we now know, has died down in the defeat of the PDP. The endless encomia on President Jonathan from world leaders are most deserving. Proved, so truly, is the scripture of death and life being in “the power of the tongue. Defeated in the election, Jonathan would have been recorded as a villainous ruler of the country’s worst times. Yet with few kind and sincere words, he has been propelled into today’s well sung hero of the nation, at decidedly a turning point in its march towards maturity.
Owed to President Jonathan is a new atmosphere of mutual respect of regional, ethnic and religious cleavages – respect that will ensure that the highly pitched pre-election sentiments are smothered gradually in hope that they may even be extinguished. Attestation to this is the immediate rebuke our friends in the Niger Delta got when some of them passed a resolution to once again return to the restive creeks. Ditto the spontaneous condemnation by, mostly the Yoruba, of the Oba of Lagos for his recent rant that conjured images of ethnic cleansing in hope of arm-twisting non-Yoruba Lagos residents to vote for his preferred candidate in the forthcoming gubernatorial election. This seeming turn around that is owed to President Jonathan’s masterstroke concession of defeat to Muhammadu Buhari is a change factor of significant proportion in the Nigerian political narrative.
When asked immediately after the elections how he felt about his remarkable victory at the polls, an elated Buhari answered in just one word – fulfilled. He was magnanimous in victory and was expectedly charitable to President Jonathan to whom he returned duly owed compliments. But few words have come from him since the well composed acceptance speech in which he appreciated the economic challenges he would inherit but reasoned that if haemorrhages owing to corruption were checked effectively, impact would be felt. He would address corruption, insecurity and the economy. In the ongoing manoeuvres around the President-elect, it is difficult to tell what Muhammadu Buhari’s approach to the national predicament would be. Much would depend on the relationship that evolves with APC dominated National Assembly especially given institutionalised corrupt cultures of gratification in cash for bills, other constitutional overtures, and particularly the restive issues of criminally bogus emoluments, allowances, and constituency project financing. We are at a point when the committee to fashion out the nature of the transition. It is here that the cabinet is usualy initiated, and understandably, there is no rush to constitute it given the still tough election of Governors and State legislators. It is a very critical stage that requires that we pray for the nation and wish the new rulers well. The destiny of millions is tied to the action of the power brokers in the coming weeks.
If INEC Chairman Attahiru Jega came out with flying colours from his handling of the Presidential elections, his lieutenants in the States could burn all the accolade should their handling next week of the Governorship and State Assemblies be anything different and worse. It is therefore not yet Uhuru for the stoic professor even as he has greatly endeared himself to the nation by his success with the first exercise of the polls. Then also, the All Progressives Congress would do well to learn from the PDP experience and resist the temptation to force an all APC Governorship victory this weekend. This was largely responsible for the crisis that engulfed the Jonathan Presidency and the ruling party as the President tried to harpoon and rein in his too many Governors in fruitless effort to control them for the lost second term.
Politicians are themselves not helping matters. Unashamedly they appear to be scrambling over one another to clamber aboard the new central ruling party by every available means, in reaction to the Buhari win. Certainly the US and the UK who we confess to be copying must be laughing at how very bad copyists we are. Lamentable is the absence of ideological or even principled leaning of the political class, as is revealed by the gale of defections currently on going.
Is the Buhari Presidency going to be business as usual as to accommodate such men of low political virtue in a new dispensation? Is the President going to determine a lean regime with few Ministers and ensure that all and sundry are impacted upon by good governance and social justice, or is he going to operate a bogus regional representation that in the end makes the executive top heavy and sadly compromised by the desire to satisfy primordial sentiments. One can see these and a few more issues as major determinants of the nature of the Buhari Presidency, which the soon to come future will reveal to an anxious nation.