Patriotic Buhari won’t name a successor

T he best president Naija ever had, His Excellency, General Muhammadu Buhari never ceases to increase the mileage of our love for him. Unlike some letter writers, this president won’t be naming a successor. I know some are disappointed. Only a few of us privy to the workings of the inner circle know why. Call […]

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he best president Naija ever had, His Excellency, General Muhammadu Buhari never ceases to increase the mileage of our love for him. Unlike some letter writers, this president won’t be naming a successor. I know some are disappointed. Only a few of us privy to the workings of the inner circle know why. Call us a cabal; we accept the label because it makes us feel better than the Joneses.

There are many reasons some of which has been adumbrated by Mr. President. The one I know modesty did not allow him to mention is the most important of these reasons – this Mr. President is irreplaceable. Our country is very lucky to have a man of this pedigree as president. Things could have been worse. Nobody has run a country with such incredible expertise like Sai Baba although wailers never believe in him.

Only last week, the United Nations claimed that Naija’s foreign investment has dipped by 43%. Fake news like this is why President Dumb does not take the guys in New York seriously. Who told them our economy needs foreign investment? What is Dangote’s job that we should be bothered by foreign investment? What do these armchair pollsters know about the economy anyway? You don’t get to judge how a nation’s foreign investment is doing by sitting down in air-conditioned offices.

These tie-wearing stiff-necked guys have no idea that if we want all the money in the American Foreign Reserve, we know how to go about it. Ask the incredibly shrewd Oluwo of Iwoland, Oba Abdulrasheed Akanbi, who is already thinking ahead of these clowns. Oba Akanbi has launched a surreptitious but most patriotically aggressive campaign for foreign monetary flow to the country.

The Iwo monarch is not so daft as not to know that foreign investments are denominated in dollars. He wants native scientists to develop egbe, a trusted Yoruba magic that could make the wearer appear and reappear anywhere like Houdini. Armed with that magic, Oba Akanbi wants the wearer to launch a sting operation on the American foreign reserve without changing a lock or setting off the alarm and bring back the entire greenback there.

It is not often that you wake up and find a sassy Oba provide the remedy for a nagging national problem. Not that I believe that our foreign investment has dipped. I’ll take Garba Shehu or Femi Adesina’s word over anyone holed up in an office in New York City. Garba and Femi are the oracles, until Alhaji Lai returns to Radio House next week. I don’t believe that Naija’s economy would ever dip as long as Niger-Delta militants are taken care of and Trump keeps the Iran war rhetoric going. America’s belligerence is Naija’s gain.

We have just nominated 43 ministerial candidates judging by the 36 tribes of the nation. These are the best that any government could lay their hands on. Most of them have global records of incredibly poor performance, including in areas germane to the growth of foreign investment, one of which is education. Their investment in that sector has increased almajiri and provided recruits to any insurgency group hiring villains. What more, it pays huge dividends.

The other is power! Everybody with data would have seen the smile on Sai Baba’s face after signing a recent contract to extend the beauty of darkness that’s needed to develop the blueprints of development. Millennials now obsessed with gadgets that take immediate pictures know nothing about developing negatives. According to the news, the new power contract would generate 11,000 megawatts by the magic year 2023.

By the way, one of the first great acts of presidential actions of our re-minted president was to approve a new presidential portrait. No publication has an excuse for using any of those unstaged pictures with poses that embarrass Mr. President and the international league of patriots.

One reason I know our economy is as robust as a tropical storm is that Mr. President has just received the approval of 43 ministers. As everyone knows, ministers have the attribute of that London club – they never work or walk alone. Some need ministers of state in case the state needs them. It costs money to pay them and we all know that Naija does not borrow except the repayment terms absolves the borrowers of culpability and transfers the compound interest to our children and great grandchildren.

Ministers need personal staff and in today’s world, it means APC stalwarts. This need for expats whose expertise is not needed provides jobs for the boys, including journalists. Those who say a journalist’s reward is brown envelope are ignorant of this. Stuff like this reduces unemployment, assuming there is still unemployment in the nation after life-transforming programmes like Easy-Moni, sorry I meant Trader-Moni etc etc.

Now, our democracy is blessed with a 9th Assembly that is government compliant. The ministerial screening went well. Wailers lamented the non-inclusion of security vetting. Which security outfit could vet people personally known to Saint Buhari? Was there no vetting when Adeosun and Adebayo skipped mandatory NYSC?

In this symbiotic relationship between the executhief and the legislathief arm, robust results are expected. The legislathief arm has shared the irrational cake and every member has gone home as chairman or member of one committee or the other. They never fail to employ special advisers, special assistants and all those who oil the wheels of indolence. The way things are going, one wouldn’t be surprised if we have to hire workers from Benin and Niger Republic except that most of them don’t speak English. Ghanaians are out, because Ghana must go.