Sir, when Nigerians voted for you in their millions last year, it was based on their aspiration that you would not only give instructions about where Nigerians should “go”; it was equally based on the hope that you would, in the manner of great leaders known to us in history, say “let’s go”.
Sir, when Nigerians voted for ‘change’ not ‘transformation’ in 2023, it was with the aspiration that you and your party would not only inspire ‘change’ but that members of your party would be ready for ‘change’.
Sir, most Nigerians voted for you last year partly because they saw in you someone who represented what Nigeria should be and what Nigerians could be. They remembered, with nostalgia, how you turned the fortune of Lagos around. They adopted the slogan of “emilokan” (it’s now my turn!) on the assumption that you have indeed paid your dues on the political terrain of this nation and that based on the then available metrics you were eminently qualified for the exalted office of the Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
In other words, Nigerians needed a patriarch who would be like a Prince; they yearned for a Prince who would take them on to the golden road of Samarkand. You eventually stepped out and demanded to be trusted with that office. Then you became the President.
Nigerians voted for you based on the conviction that you would not only do things right but also that you would do the right things. My compatriots were convinced that with you at the ‘cockpit’, this “airplane” (i.e Nigeria) would not be on auto-mode -that you would always do the right things at the right time.
Sir! Nigerians voted for you in 2023 based on your pedigree not because of the assemblage of characters with whom you have had to travel that path. Nigerians wanted a leader who would be a dealer in hope; they thought you were.
Nigerians wanted a leader in whose inner room there would be no shenanigans and iniquities; they thought you could be. Nigerians yearned for a government in which nepotism and tokenism would be anathemized; in your carriage and candour they invested their aspirations.
Let me remind you Sir: when Nigerians voted you into power, your victory was reminiscent of the emergence of Prophet Musa in Egypt among the Jews. For sundry reasons including their obduracy and predilection for recalcitrant behaviours, the Jews came under the jackboots of Pharaoh. He oppressed and exploited them. He ran and ruined the land of Egypt.
Just before you emerged again at the centre of this ‘gravity’, we were under the jackboots of our own Pharaohs too. Yes Pharaohs; not just one Pharaoh. I use the word Pharaoh as a metaphor- a metaphor for iniquity and profanity; a metaphor for rulers who became dealers in mediocrity and infamy.
The Almighty describes them in Quran 27 verse 34 as the Muluk; I translate that not literally into kings but into fascists; the Almighty refers to them as destroyers of cities, I gesture to them as slave-drivers of the nobles and the notables!
Just before you came, Mr President Sir, that group had turned this land to a hungry land; a land that was, in line with Frantz Fanon’s argument in his classic, Black Skin White Masks, “hungry for bread, for water and for light”. Just before you came, this land had become like Makkah in the 7th century – waiting for the emergence of its own “Muhammad”.
In Nigeria today which is fast becoming like the Makkah of Prophet Muhammad, life is simply becoming too hard for ordinary Nigerians to live in. In this ‘Makkah’ known as Nigeria, life is becoming unlivable; corruption has become a religion; churches and mosques have become cathedrals of the faithless, where Satan had seized the pulpit, where denizens now sing the praise of Lucifer.
Eventually you came. Sir! Eventually, you emerged. You emerged as the saviour, the liberator, the guardian-angel. It was your destiny, so you claimed, to emerge at that moment when Nigeria sat on the precipice. It appeared to be your destiny, so you thought, to emerge when this nation sat on the cliff.
You emerged to assist this nation effect a change from a ‘body’ in whose language corruption festers and ulcerate to that whose appearance would be instructive of a new national agenda the touchstone of which would be abhorrence of payola and the sovereignty of discipline and integrity. It is this antecedent that birthed ‘the season of change’; it is from this ‘womb’ of anomie and hopelessness that your emergence began to instill hope in the hearts of millions of Nigerian citizens.
They imagined the dawn of prosperity in electing you. Nigerians knew that a nation with no quality leadership is a poor nation; a poor nation is that whose culture inspires not the emergence of quality leadership but of mediocre.
However, as we marked the 64th independence anniversary of our nation, it is indubitable that what we have achieved as a nation since 1960 are gravely inferior to what we should have achieved; they are painfully second-rate to what we could have achieved.
Your task, ‘Mr President Sir’, is therefore tailored-made- this land is hungry for bread, for water and for light. There are millions living down-there in the abyss of hopelessness; there are millions out there who are frustrated. It is your duty to instill hope in them. Each time your children bask in plum and luxury, remember, Sir that there are millions of Nigerians who can hardly put a slice of bread in their dry and anhydrous mouths!
