A Dilemma for Optimists

by gunmen of curious identity ought to keep Mr. Buhari and his security chiefs awake at night.

By a curious sense of priority, President Buhari has visited more foreign capitals than state capitals in Nigeria. While these trips may be necessitated by the president’s personal definition of national interest, it is hard to defend the preference for foreign trips over touching base with fellow Nigerians whose votes earned him the tenancy of Aso Rock. Even more worrisome is the fact that three years after assuming the presidency, the Buhari administration has not found it necessary to review Nigeria’s foreign policy let alone outline a new foreign policy to contextualize the president’s numerous foreign visits.

Arguably, a good number of the foreign trips undertaken by the president could have been performed by his foreign minister. Yet, there are fresh imperatives in the new world on which Nigeria ought to provide leadership and direction, which should fuel a new foreign policy. There is a new Trans-Mediterranean slave trade with mostly Nigerians on sale; there is human trafficking again richly supplied by Nigeria; there are new trends in Africa’s trade with the world and among African countries; there is terrorism and there is global youth employment and empowerment etc.

In the hands of a more reflective and creative party and government, the APC’s ‘Change’ mantra ought to power a total turnaround of Nigeria’s leadership and politics. The irony however is that President Buhari is not in tune with the changes that have occurred in the nation. The nation itself has vastly changed; its demographics have changed with the youth now in majority; the perceptions of the people have changed just like the indices of our nationalism have vastly been altered. Most of all, the profile of leadership that the people now expect, going forward, has changed.

To have remained frozen in an untenable past is perhaps President Buhari’s greatest disservice to both his own legacy and the Nigerian nation.