The Post-Mortem Of Our Choices
Permit me to congratulate the declared winner of the just concluded 2019 presidential elections, President Mohammadu Buhari (PMB) on his victory. While the elections may not have been perfect, it largely represents the will of the people, which is deemed sacrosanct.
The 2019 presidential election featured the highest number of candidates in Nigeria’s history. You do not need to be a seasoned political scientist to see the issues here. The wide array of contestants were, perhaps an effort to give us more aesthetically or substantially appealing choices to make in the presidential election with 73 candidates on the presidential ballot box of the election management body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). It was to a great extent, a two-horse race between the candidates of the All Progressive Congress (APC), President Mohammadu Buhari and that of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
PMB is also far from being perfect. Those who voted for PMB will extol his virtues. These virtues may not be in dispute but whether these virtues are absolute or relative, is another debate, for another day. These virtues are, of course in short supply amongst the political class in today’s Nigeria.
They say he has a determination to purge Nigeria of corruption. They cited those eras of relatively high levels of corruption when leaders will ask the Central Bank of Nigeria to bring out money to be shared across the table.
They lauded the implementation of the Treasury Single Account, TSA that has a comprehensive and arguably a defense-grade protection of cash flows across government.
He has shown commitment to making it important that the country grows what she eats. The country is gravitating towards food self-sufficiency, especially with the ban on rice importation, which according to reports, saves an average of $5 Million daily. There are clearly more to be done in the areas of government subsidies on tractors, mills, fertilizers and access to loans to boost production.
His success story on agriculture is not in doubt. It is part of the reasons that many families, including my beloved family are consuming only locally grown rice. They are fresh, tasty and nutritious. We also recognize that each time we consume imported rice; we are exporting jobs (that would have been created for Nigerians) to India, Thailand and other source countries.
According to government reports, agricultural products in the areas of sesame seeds, frozen shrimps and prawns, cashew nuts in shell, and crude palm kernels have significantly increased our non-oil exports.
The administration may not have managed the crop farmers-herders crisis judiciously. It is important to craft and implement policies that will protect the life and property of herdsmen and that of crop farmers at the same time. Rustling of cattle is pure criminality. On the other hand, nomadic movement of livestock is outdated, dangerous, and grotesque. It can amount to criminality if it involves trespass of land or injury or fatality.
Making sound decisions on how best to manage the situation depends on common sense and good conscience about the benefits of livestock and the consequences of open grazing. Open grazing is an artifact of the past that creates public health and safety concerns.
The Buhari-led government will also have to ensure integration and unity of the country with a fair and equitable way of appointments.
Former Vice President and Presidential candidate of the PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar or Atiku as he is fondly called, has been aspiring to be president of Nigeria for a long time.
His supporters believed he would be a president for all Nigerians and not a president to only those people who voted for him.
Some argue that Atiku was part of PDP’s 16years of impunity and corruption. To them, voting for him would amount to selective amnesia of the root causes of the problems that beset the country today or reinforcing the failures of the past.
To them, I mean the mass of the poor people, particularly in the north who think that the fight against corruption is a fight against some members of the political class who put them in their painful position of penury. It seems to make it slightly easy to forgive Buhari’s blemishes.
The other 71 contestants should be commended for offering themselves to serve their country. Although, it may look like academic exercises, it deepened the choices to be made in such a keenly contested election.
Some people were well aware of the slim chances of their candidates emerging victorious, but they were comforted in the belief that they were casting their votes to satisfy their consciences, rather than the thinking that it is a choice between the two main political parties.
They would go further to explain that choosing a candidate is a matter of principles, value and trust.
The very enlightened ones like Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka believe that both Buhari and Atiku belong to the old establishment. Soyinka endorsed the candidate of the Young Progressive Party (YPP), former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, a lawyer and a university professor, Kingsley Moghalu, as his choice for the presidential election. He said “ There is always a choice to be made outside any presumptuous orders”. He went on to say he asked Moghalu for the meaning of ‘Moghalu’. He replied , “It means: Evil Spirit, Leave us be”. It sounds like a good metaphor for the solutions to the problems of this country, as the evils of corruption and retrogression should leave Nigeria alone.
Whether those choices have ample chances of making it to the presidential villa is something we can evaluate with the benefit of hindsight. Their votes would have mattered more if they had come together to form a more formidable force to challenge the existing order of things.
Whatever the appraisal may be, elections are won and lost. The winner should be magnanimous in victory and the losers should be gracious in defeat. Both the winners and the losers should learn valuable lessons.
The incoming government of Mohammadu Buhari has a herculean task ahead of them. He has an opportunity of a lifetime to write his name on the sands of time.
He needs to unite the country and this will be demonstrated in the way and manner he handles appointments into federal positions, the distribution of projects, and the resolution of different crises. He also needs to expedite action on his fight against corruption and insurgency. He is saddled with the responsibility to reposition the economy for growth, development and employment.
The country is also in dire need of comprehensive reform in healthcare, education, law and order. It is shameful for our leaders to seek medical help abroad. It shows that they lack confidence in the healthcare system they preside over and it corroborates the African adage that says if the husband does not eat at home, he may never give his wife enough money to cook delicious food.
Nelson Mandela was always treated in a South Africa hospital. At a time when the health of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate became critical, his home was even reconfigured for him to receive the same class of intensive care at his Houghton home that he received in a Pretoria hospital.
The onus is on the president to chart a new course for this country, for our children and our children’s children, so that when the history books are written, people will remember that this is a man who did the much he could to reset Nigeria and put her on a path where peace, progress, justice and unity reign.