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Those who allege that President Muhammadu Buhari is slow are right, viewing it with the lens of the People’s Democratic Party’s demolition squad of the last 16 years.
Buhari is really slow not to tread the destructive route that has made Nigeria a piteous spectacle.
How do we calibrate political speed? Let us use the PDP’s example from former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s reign to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s rule.
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Four years after Obasanjo climbed the seat of power, it became difficult to recognise Nigeria because of deteriorating physical public infrastructure, political killings (including the assassination of the Attorney-General), high cost of living and falling standard of life. In this same period prices of goods generally rocketed through the roof. And a few were affluent. The following four years were worse because he speedily auctioned Nigeria’s property of any kind for a song without legal backing. That was admirably a great speed to hell. Then came the following eight years, six of which witnessed madness at a velocity faster than that of a space ship. Impunity rose beyond recognition to be taken as normal and the treasury was laid waste under Jonathan.
If the non-appointment of ministers determines a slow speed, only those not versed in philosophy and real politics will come to that conclusion. Nigerians want that snail speed to prosperity. Those who know government at some higher levels would appreciate the laying of a sound foundation before erecting edifices.
My job as a young man in the junior civil service in the colonial days opened my eyes to discipline and management. I was trained in labour relations. No discipline, no system. Man is the main foundation upon which every system must be built. So every leader needs the right set of people to operate a plan.
Buhari has resisted indecent haste in choosing his team because no success could be achieved in the trial and error regime, which had characterised all the institutions of Nigeria in the last 16 years owing to placing square pegs in round holes.
One is amused to hear people talk of speed in a society that was completely wrecked by the recklessness of the last administration. It is said that it is easier to destroy than to build. Are these commentators expecting Buhari to build on sandy soil instead of on the rock? To operate with the demolition speed and style of the PDP would have been a disservice to Nigeria by Buhari and also to those scores of millions of Nigerians expecting delivery from the pit to which they were dumped by that PDP’s misrule.
This society has been so disorganised that logic has taken flight in the comments and judgement of otherwise rational thinkers.
We wrote a constitution that spells separation of powers to ensure checks and balances and avoid the dictatorship of any of the estates of the realm.
And we are asking one of them to prevail on another to shield a felon and institute lawlessness. They want Buhari to intervene in the dispensation of justice? This writer will not comment on the merit or demerit of the case of the Senate President before the Code of Conduct Tribunal because it will be sub judice. The tribunal is a court and if you respect the judiciary, there will be need not to treat it with contempt by holding court at home. Those senators who wrote that their leader be absolved acted in contempt of the tribunal and are liable to be purged of the guilt. Do they know that they have no immunity and that they stand being stripped individually or collectively of their membership of the hallowed chamber? The constitution is not oblivious of the possibility of collective violations by such members that could threaten stability and as such has provided an adequate sanction which the President could impose as it is deemed fit to save Nigeria…
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