Keshi for President 2014!
Not many people heard the news. It is awkward for a president to resign on a church pulpit. Fresh from Davos, President Jones endorsed his successor Stephen Keshi showcasing one Naija achiever whose official actions unite us more than he could. Keshi’s successes are the analgesic that heals national tension, enhances national cohesion and sends […]
Not many people heard the news. It is awkward for a president to resign on a church pulpit. Fresh from Davos, President Jones endorsed his successor Stephen Keshi showcasing one Naija achiever whose official actions unite us more than he could. Keshi’s successes are the analgesic that heals national tension, enhances national cohesion and sends ethno-religious jingoists on national siesta.
So what, he is not a card carrying member of any party. If we could draft a prisoner into Hassle Rock, why not an achiever? When a leader eulogises the serial achievement of a younger man, it is time to invoke the famous doctrine of necessity. This should be the demands of the opposition and its Janus-faced cross-carpeters, not a shutdown of an impactless budget. The Goshen Declaration has a heavier weight than Yar’adua’s BBC broadcast.
Endorsing Keshi, President Jones said “It was as if Nigeria was to be demolished, but all of a sudden, the young men came very strong and we won. That is how it will be with the story of this country. With your prayers and commitment, we will get to the destination; the promised land.” No-one knows President Jones’ Promised Land, and he has failed to show us the roadmap there. We didn’t pray Mr Shoeless Joe into office; why must we pray him to do what he promised. Keshi did not ask for our prayers, he works to his bones for it.
Adopting the Goshen Declaration as resignation would save this nation another electoral charade and the pain that comes with it. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the Keshi analogy is very apt. According to those who watch football, Stephen Okechukwu Keshi would do better as President than shoeless Joe. At 51 year old Keshi has demonstrated a valued virtue that our president is incapable of learning for all his years gunning on lady luck. Keshi is one of two Africans to have won the Africa Cup of Nations both as player and coach.
Apart from being a good player, Keshi studied coaching and has proved his mettle at home and abroad. He turned the bad luck of the Togolese around, was sacked from Mali (yes) but has given the Midas touch to a moribund national team. Only last week, Keshi brought the national team back from the valley of despondency into the alley of success. But how has Naija rewarded its achiever, like others before and with him? By owing him seven months’ salary and chiding him for allegedly leaking his suffering to the media. Why pay a minister who does nothing and owe a coach who delivers? Why pay a president who promises and hides under God to break his own promise? It is time to change gear.
We begged Keshi to return from resignation and he keeps winning, we pay the president to deliver and he makes excuses. In a country that has militants from the world’s most volatile religions, our president goes nowhere else but churches to make provocative pronouncements that pitch people against each other. In volatile Kano, both he and his wife have been quoted as saying it was Christians that voted him into office.
Our president has been local government chairman, deputy governor, and governor, vice president, acting president and president with scant record or any achievement to show for his experience. Our president makes promises that he does not keep – promises such as delivering on electricity while unleashing unprecedented darkness. Promises that he would not contest when he knows he would. Our president says that he would run one term only while digging his feet in. This president has no interest of the common man at heart. This president has polarized this nation that gave him so much goodwill than any president including three of the most evil regimes ever recorded – Babangida, Abacha and Obasanjo. Today, people would rather have any of these evil regimes than keep this one.
A phantom electoral time-table has just been released to return the Party of Desperate People to power or burn down our nation. Detractors predicted our disintegration and this president and his party are running towards it. Keshi does not have a Facebook page or a Twitter handle, to make fake promises, yet he delivers and makes majority of people happy. Let us unanimously pay Keshi his arrears, give him a quarter of the perks granted President Jones in the 2014 budget and watch him turn our nation turn around. Kick out the charade and crown the achiever. Better a silent achiever than a garrulous failure.