How to show you love the President (and by Extension, Nigeria)
We will be talking about love. Because really, there is no greater thing that one can do but be in love and show this love through deeds and words. In one of the holy books it is written: The one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love the God whom he has not seen. I know the President is more than just our brother but this applies perfectly.
The president is perfect and can do no wrong. He is beyond reproach and anyone who tries to cast aspersions on his good name must be our enemy. The constitution may call him the commander in chief of the armed forces and make the buck stop at his table however, if it is a bad buck, we must intercept it and stop it from reaching his good and clean table. Because he does not deserve to be associated with those who spoil his name even if those people are his friends.
To show you love the president carefully analyze every bad policy, gaffe, embarrassment and impropriety of government to make sure that you find the exact person responsible. It does not matter that political appointees work for the president and that for as long as they work for him this is a vote of confidence. Sometimes, someone you are confident in can be involved in wrongdoing that has nothing to do with you.
To show you love the president do not distract him with pressure to investigate a certain minister who is said to have financed a large part of the campaigns. These are mere rumors. Dangerous rumors even. He might have been a very good and frugal politician who knew how to save. Also his wife might have been running a huge poultry farm like that of our former president and this may have made them very rich - rich enough to contribute a lot of money to the presidential campaign. And really this is none of your business. Love does not keep account of wrong. In fact even if this rumored minister is corrupt, it is not the president who is corrupt and he has no responsibility in this.
To show you love the president distance him from his appointees who have been caught stealing money. Even if those appointees work closely with him. Sometimes in your office you will have a secretary who is doing crime on the weekend to augment his or her income. Would it be fair to blame you for this secretary? If your secretary chooses to come to Abuja on the weekend to be a sex worker is that your fault? Then there it should be no different for the president’s secretary. I am not saying the president’s secretary is a sex worker or a grass cutter or anything like that. I am just saying that we must love the president to have confidence in those in whom he has confidence. In fact, let us assume (without conceding) that the president has a secretary who is a thief on the weekends, our love for the president would make us shield the president for any blame. The worst case scenario for those who love the president is that they should be upset at the presidents secretary for making the president look bad. Because you can have thieves led by a man of integrity. But like I said, none of this is the case.
To show you love the president you must not blame him for the violence that occurs when the army kills unarmed civilians whether they are Shiites or Biafra protesters. We know he is nominally the commander in chief of the armed forces, however he is not the commander in chief of the guns that individual soldiers hold. If they go out and kill people while the president is talking to his wife about his daughter’s not-so-royal wedding, how is this the presidents fault? And shouldn’t we ask those dead people what they did to provoke soldiers in the first place? We all know you should not provoke soldiers. Even those Amnesty International people who write about human rights and all know this. Love for the president will make us protect him from any allegation.
Love for the president is love for Nigeria. And if the economy is doing bad in spite of all of his integrity we must trace the root of the problem: the last president. If there is inflation, we must direct the blame at the last president whose poor handling of our commonwealth led to this crisis. Some times in spite of your best efforts, you cannot fix a broken mirror. But you can still appreciate a broken mirror.
Love for our president will make us not remind him of his campaign promises because we know that his party was responsible for those promises not him. He is not God that can take all our problems away. He is our president, who can do no wrong, who sometimes may have corrupt people lurking around his office, who may have relatives that whisper in his ear, but who will not let any of these things affect his integrity.
We do all these because if we have not loved the president whom we can see, how can we claim to love God whom we cannot see?