PENPOINT Monima Daminabo
culpable being the members of the inner circle of power who operated with assumed air of invincibility), tolerance of corruption in the conduct of public business, insensitivity to the public weal, misguided presumptuousness and flexibility to ever changing public perception of daily realities of life.
Not a few observers are asking about the outlandish boast of some leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that it will rule Nigeria for the next unbroken 50 years. While the boast may have been driven by the banalities associated with a degenerate mindset, it captured that party’s loss of grip on the yearnings for better life by the generality of Nigerians, whether at home or in diaspora. And justifies their loss of the presidency, at least for now.
In the other vein, given its relatively short period of existence, the APC is not yet a fully established political party that is equipped to tackle the task ahead without telling structural collapse.Its main weakness remains its membership which fall into three main categories. Firstly are the traditional ‘progressives’. Second is the cross-over party from the PDP whose ‘progressives’ credentials are yet to be verified. Then come the third level of membership who joined from a neutral background at the formation of the party, given their convictions on its ‘progressives’ leanings. As right: Buhari had his voice, had his ringer on and phone charged, there were generators and power banks just in case, and there was electricity. Then imagine that in spite of all of this, the telecoms provider that Jonathan or Buhari was using went off. No network. And imagine that the network gave that wrong message of a phone being switched off or being out of network coverage. Especially that out of network coverage one. Jonathan might have thought that Buhari had fled the country or was maybe in Libya or something. It would have made Goodluck declare a state of emergency or give an illadvised speech about Buhari running away and how this implied conceding to defeat. Then Buhari would have done his own speech and, boom! We would have been at war. Whatever telecoms provider Goodluck and Buhari use, they each deserve like 500,000 of Mo Ibrahim’s dollars.
4. The person who gave Buhari’s phone number to Goodluck Jonathan
Imagine if he or she had gotten the number wrong and Goodluck called the wrong person. Imagine if, by coincidence, the person Goodluck called was a northern sounding person, who could have been construed to be Buhari, and the man said, “This is not General Buhari.” Or worse, if the man just started speaking Hausa, unable to understand what Goodluck the leader of the party Buhari needs to address himself to the challenge of building this mixed multitude into a party that can in turn facilitate the consolidation of the expectations of Nigerians, with respect to the operation of a viable democracy.
To be fair to Goodluck Jonathan, Nigerians will ever remember him as the President who promoted free, fair and credible elections, even if the process claimed his aspiration for continuity in office. It is now the lot of Buhari to facilitate the other attributes of a functional democracy in Nigeria - such as transparency and accountability in the public bureaucracy at all levels of government, rule of law, security of life and property as well as independence of the legislature and judiciary. In Nigeria’s political firmament this requires a suicide-minded patriot as the president elect has proven to be, given his military background.
Yet, in the light of the legion of demons that need to be exorcised by any reformer of the country as he has offered to be, and has been duly elected by Nigerians to serve, even Buhari needs a prompting.
And what more realistic charge to offer him than - may your road be rough?
He had come to power at a time when the nation faced challenging times, even as there is no consensus over the propriety of the style of administration then. was saying. Goodluck would have panicked and thought that already, before even being sworn in, Buhari had already begun trying to northernize the country. Goodluck would have thought that perhaps if Buhari was sworn in, he would change our lingua franca to Hausa and force all Nigerians to use it or be flogged or jailed. And this would have made him call in the service chiefs and declare a state of emergency.
That would in turn have triggered violence across the country. CNN would have had a great time reporting from yet another conflict zone, emphasizing that as predicted, Nigeria was incapable of transferring power between civilians and had descended into chaos. Their reporters would have unpacked their helmets and blue bullet proof vests with “PRESS” written in white. CNN would have been hailed for their great reporting of the mayhem and killings and perhaps even gotten awards for brave journalism. We must thank the person who gave Buhari’s phone number to Goodluck Jonathan for getting that 11-digit number right and give him at least 500,000 dollars. Because a lot can go wrong in 11 digits.
I hope that Jonathan can wisely invest the remaining 1.9 million dollars that will remain after this distribution. A lot of good can be done with 1.9 million dollars.