….When Politicians Play ‘god’
….When Politicians Play ‘god’
Even before the ink with which Supreme Court Justices wrote the
2023 Presidential election judgment dried on the paper it was written,
the National Chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC),
Abdullahi Ganduje, was already dreaming of a two-term tenure of
eight years for his principal, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Like a young lad giddy with excitement after being given a lollipop,
Ganduje ‘directed’ former Vice President Atiku Abubakar,
presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and
his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi, not to contest the 2027
presidential election because according to him, Tinubu would seek a
second term and would definitely win again.
The option left for both Atiku and Obi, Ganduje said, was for the duo
to wait for another turn in 2031 to realise their presidential
aspirations.
Let me quote him verbatim: “Nigeria belongs to all of us, it is our
responsibility as patriots to pool our resources together to move the
country forward. I congratulate both Atiku and Obi for their dogged
fight in extending the frontiers of our democracy and law. This is
democracy. Tinubu’s victory is another victory for democratic rule in
the country. There is still room for both Obi and Atiku to actualise
their presidential aspiration after the second term tenure of President
Tinubu in 2031.”
An oracle, preferably Octopus Paul, who was very good at predicting
football matches during the World Cup Mundial must have told
Ganduje that both he and Tinubu would still be around by 2027.
Paul had correctly predicted the winners of each of the seven 2010
FIFA World Cup matches that the German team played against
Australia, Serbia, Ghana, England, Argentina, Spain and Uruguay – as
well as the tournament’s Netherlands vs. Spain final.
Do not get me wrong, I am not wishing the duo dead, but for Ganduje
to play God on a matter he has no control over is arrant nonsense.
Recall that the former Chairman of the PDP, Chief Vincent Ogbulafor
boasted the same way, that the then ruling PDP would rule Nigeria for
60 years, and we all saw how that prediction went south. Ganduje is
not God, and politicians must remember that they can never play God.
Even in Islam, the faith Ganduje professes, it is wrong for him to
project about what will happen tomorrow, not to talk of the next four
years, without a qualifier – if God Wishes.
American Minister, theologian and author, James Freeman Clarke,
who was born in April 4, 1810 and died June 8, 1888, had noted that
while politicians think of the next election, statesmen think of the next
generation. It is not rocket science for one to decipher where the likes
of Ganduje belongs in his political scheming.
While Ganduje is already adding another four years to the mandate
given to his boss by Nigerians and by extension the apex court
following his victory in the February 25, 2023 polls, Tinubu’s first
reaction when aides rushed to his office in Aso Rock to greet him
after the Supreme Court judgement was to tell them that their jobs are
now secured. That statement alone shows the thinking of a man who
knows that victory could have gone either way, and having just
escaped a bitterly fought contest, was more contrite in victory.
In his victory speech which he personally signed, Tinubu actually
recognised the role played by Atiku and Obi in deepening our
democracy and invited the duo to team up with him in rescuing the
country from imminent collapse. Or what remains in a country where
more than 80 per cent of its people can no longer afford to eat three
square meals in a day? Of what benefit are leaders whose citizens
suffer want and depredation? Where is the joy in presiding over a
country a section of which is embittered and are looking for ways of
existing the union? The likes of Ganduje is one of the reasons many
of our youths no longer have hope on our soil and are desperate to
leave Nigeria for greener pastures.
Should we remind Ganduje that the Supreme Court never ruled on
whether Tinubu forged the certificate he presented to the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC) from the Chicago State
University? What the seven-man Justices did was to let Atiku
Abubakar know that he wasted more than a year before approaching
the Chicago State University and the Court in the United States of
America before getting the evidence with which he could have nailed
Tinubu. If those ‘evidences’ had been tendered and pleaded at the
Court of Appeal, perhaps, we would have been singing a different
song today.
Now that the Apex Court has ruled in his favour, it is time for the
President to take a breather and reflect on his life’s journey. He has
dreamt of becoming the number one citizen of this great country since
the day he was sworn -in as the Governor of Lagos State in 1999. God
has crowned him and his wish has become a reality. He has the
mandate of Nigerians for the next four years and should make good
his promise of renewed hope for the people. One way he can do that is
by thinking and looking beyond his ‘Lagos Boys’ in finding lasting
solutions to some of the problems plaguing the nation.
Nigeria is far, far bigger than Lagos State. The economic indices and
dynamics of those periods are not what is at play now. He should
think outside the box and look for capable hands across Nigeria in his
quest for the transformation of the country.
Most of his appointments since he assumed office tends to favour
only his old team from Lagos; the Finance Minister, Wale Edun and
the Governor of the Central Bank, Yemi Cardoso are two of his aides
in Lagos now holding very critical positions at the Federal level,
among several others. Fine, if he says that he has worked with them in
the past and that he has implicit confidence in their capacity, but there
are others who are equally intelligent that could be of added value to
his administration. It is time for him to fish them out and bring them
on board.
His government clocked five months in office yesterday, but the
standards of living of average Nigerians have worsened since he took
over. This is due to the removal of fuel subsidy and the unification of
the dual exchange rate regime of the naira in the forex market. In spite
of the unification, the gap between the official exchange rate and the
black-market rate keeps widening. When he came on board, the naira
exchanged for N760/$. It became progressively worse and reached
N1,310/$ before the Supreme Court judgment, which seems to inject
some confidence into the market, making the naira to quickly regain
some strength.
Will it last or will it be just a flash in the pan? Many Nigerians are
now speculators, buying and hoarding dollars, believing that it would
continue to rise so that they can sell at a premium. I wish them luck.
But they should remember that they are also contributing to the
economic downfall of the country for which we are all going to reap
the reward.
If we are not producing goods that could earn us more dollars, the
value of the naira will continue to depreciate. If we do not refine our
own fuel in Nigeria, we would continue to use scarce dollars earned
from crude oil sale for the importation of refined petroleum products
into the country. Once we put our act together in the downstream
sector of the petroleum industry, and the moribund refineries are put
back on stream, these should give us some leeway in getting dollars to
fund other things.
Again, hawking dollars on the streets without any form of regulations
is akin to disaster. There is nowhere in the world that you will get
forex without the buyer providing some form of identification. We
need to regulate and put some sanity in place in Nigeria in this regard.
Most Nigerians are aware of those issues that brought the nation to its
knees and we are also not short of solutions that could get us out of
our present quagmire, but whether our political leaders have the will
to take tough decisions remain the bane of the country.
President Tinubu has said that those two decisions had to be taken and
that there would be light at the end of the tunnel. Some of his
compatriots have hope that he would get things done and turn the
fortune of the country around in a very short time. He should do all
within his power not to disappoint them.
It is when he delivers that Nigerians would troop out in large numbers
to campaign for him again and gift him a second term tenure if he so
desires and if God spares his life beyond 2027. Even if Atiku and Obi
decide and rightfully too, to still contest in four years’ time, Nigerians
may then ask them to wait for another four years to give Tinubu a
second term tenure.
It is not for the Gandujes of this world and other Abobakus to shut out
others from the contest. Deliver on your promise this time around,
improve the standards of living of Nigerians, and sit back and watch
whether another four-year tenure won’t be added onto thee. I wish
Tinubu well in his mission at turning the fortunes of Nigerians around
for the better.
