Flipping through newspaper headlines this morning as I prepared to pen down this article, I read one of the headlines that said, “[President] Tinubu has said the right things so far, it’s now time to act.”
Those same thoughts have crossed my mind, except that it wasn’t entirely correct to make those claims. This is taking into account, the fact that the president had signed about two bills and made only a few appointments.
For crying out loud, he had been receiving visitors and making some landmark pronouncements. Those were all part of the presidential drill.
For me, it is in the face of negative vibes coming from elements like Nasir el-Rufai, former governor of Kaduna state and the returned Speaker of Lagos House of Assembly, Hon. Mudashiru Obasa that I call, without mincing words, that President Bola Ahmad Tinubu should walk his talk about national unity by immediately setting Nnamdi Kanu free!
I make this call not because I am a fan of his. I also do not subscribe or endorse his approach to nationalist agitation, especially taking into account the insults and obscene words spewed against the nation and the values that unite us. Not the least is my abhorrence for the senseless loss of lives which his venomous diatribe has caused the nation, especially the same people of the South East that he claims to be fighting for.
To put it as it is, it would not be out of place to assert that Nnamdi Kanu is a blight on Nigeria’s global image. But are we going to throw the baby away with the bath water? Or cut-off the head because it aches?
Certainly, such manner of deciding on a vexed national issue does not speak well of our dexterity in statecraft or national etiquette. Just recently, it was alleged that the petroleum subsidy regime had been corrupted. We all cried: withdraw it! Cancel it! End it! That’s not how serious people build their countries. Nation building is serious business that requires putting in the hard work. Not the most convenient way out.
On the Nnamdi Kanu issue, a court of competent jurisdiction had made a judgement discharging and acquitting him. For that reason alone, setting him free is merely fait accompli. Doing so, sets President Bola Ahmad Tinubu apart from the others as a statesman rather than merely being a politician for whom winning the next election is all that matters.
Tinubu is a true democrat and a respecter of the rule of law who fought hard to enthrone the current era of sustained democratic rule. His antecedents speak volumes in this regard. It was therefore, especially for this reason that I listened to his Democracy Day address with bated breath, hoping to hear something so fundamental to tackle the current impasse in parts of the country where the people feel excluded from the governance of their fatherland. It didn’t happen.
For the avoidance of doubt, keeping Mr. Kanu in jail against the judgement of the court is counter-productive and amounts to self-help.
May be it should be made clear, for the avoidance of doubt, that Nnamdi Kanu is not the problem of Nigeria. He is not the reason for the unrest in the South East. Every honest observer should be able to admit without much persuasion that Mr. Kanu is a mere symptom of a deep-seated national malaise rather than the cause of it.
Otherwise, why did Sunday Igboho happen? Why did we have the Niger Delta uprising? Why was there a massive resurgence of separatist agitations nationwide during the second term of the ill-mannered President Muhammadu eight years of mal-administration?
To be honest, the past eight years had been an excruciating experience for many Nigerians, especially the minority tribes of the Middle Belt and even the Hausa and Igbo, two of the nation’s three major tribes. Those years were like a moment of textbook experiment in exclusionist governance.
At the risk of repeating the obvious, suffice it to mention here how Nigeria as a country went through some of the most hellish sufferings otherwise free citizens could be subjected to in their own country.
For many, his reign remains a very ugly past that it would be in the best interest of the country if the sleeping dog could just be allowed to rest. If for nothing, many Nigerians are still living out the pain of the past eight years and the wounds are yet to heal.
Just so that whatever little efforts the current administration of President Bola Ahmad Tinubu makes can best be appreciated, it may suffice to summarize eight years of Buhari as possibly the most divisive era in the post-independence history of Nigeria, when the fault lines of the Nigerian nation were made most manifest. Under Buhari, the country witnessed unprecedented weaponisation of its national identities along religious, ethnic, tribal and geographical lines.
Insecurity heightened
While the country gathered its bits and pieces shattered during close to a decade of resource control struggle by Niger Delta youth, Boko Haram terrorists launched out from the North Eastern fringes of the country, killing, maiming and raping while taking school children hostage for ransom. This sheer state of anomie was further compounded by the wanton destruction of lives and property by arm-bearing cattle herders who massacred local farmers and set the farms, produce and homesteads ablaze.
At the last count, over 63,111 Nigerians were needlessly killed, while over 3.6million remain in temporary shelters as internally displaced persons. Even though this heightened state of insecurity predated the Buhari era, he failed to justify public confidence in his military background as basis for electing him twice as president.
After eight years (2015-2023), President Buhari handed over a financially broke country to his successor, leaving behind a distraught populace and public debt in excess of N77trillion.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has also inherited a nation divided along ethnic lines where President Buhari’s governance style constituted a major impetus to the feeling of alienation. As a result, some of the ethnicities that felt excluded sought self-actualization. This feeling escalated hitherto, mild centrifugal forces that are still manifest.
Coupled with the acute state of misery that was occasioned by poor economic governance and the fantastically corrupt Buhari regime, the people need urgent measures to heal their pain.
Addressing the South East Neglect
For the people of the South East especially, the most neglected of the troika, government needs to address their grievances and grant them the opportunity to heal. The powers that be should take deliberate steps to aid their proper integration into Nigeria.
Just like that? Not so easy, I hear some as saying. But why not?
What makes the Biafran situation to be different from the Niger Delta case or the case of the people of North East? Absolutely nothing. President Bola Ahmad Tinubu should not therefore, allow this opportunity to fritter away like his immediate predecessor would do. After all, like the rest of us, Nd’Igbo too, desire a pleasant surprise!
To be pleasantly surprised is good. Good things they say happen to those who wait. Therefore, the hallmark of good leadership is being able to pleasantly take your people by surprise and make them happy.
Our immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari, even though a military general was not gifted in the art of springing sweet surprises. He was this somber, taciturn killer joy of a grandpa. I recall his days as Head of State between 1984 and 1985. Whenever he was on TV to address the nation, most of what you would hear were, ‘blah, blah, cancelled, postponed, scrapped or abolished’.
It was during one of such TV appearances that he announced the abolition of subsidy on students’ feeding in Nigerian universities. You can only imagine the demoralizing impact of that change of policy on some of us, indigent students.
Even during this last coming too, President Buhari exhibited the same lack of charm and charisma. Notoriously referred to as “Baba Go-slow”, the former President was taciturn and preferred to be second-guessed. Many close to him merely had to labour to read his mind by observing his body-language.
Nigerians are very outspoken people. We are loud, positive minded assertive individuals who love to relate and have each other’s’ back.
Our brand-new President Bola Ahmad Tinubu, the Jagaban Borgu truly reflects who we are. He is bold, courageous and audacious. He is fun-loving and like the Yoruba that he is, finds it quite easy to rock a few dance steps on the impromptu. Going by the multitude that mill around him, Tinubu is the nectar that attracts the colony of bees.
Leaders should be people who like to do good. Individuals who love their people. A leader should be someone who operates based on the primary spiritual law of doing onto others as you would wish to be done to. Like the late Elder Statesman and Dan Masanin Kano, Alhaji (Dr.) Maitama Sule would pray, “I keep praying that we may have good leaders. Leaders not rulers. May God grant that we may have rulers who have the fear of God.”
In the views of many, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is such a leader who has compassion for the people he leads.
