Honouring Buhari and Osinbajo
Two weeks ago, we saw on national television an active and visibly compassionate Chief of Air Staff attending the funeral of three officers who had perished in the Dornier air crash in Kaduna. Minutes later, an active and fit Chief of Army Staff was seen leading his men in an exercise drill. I cannot remember the last time I saw this happen in this country, so my surprise and joy were uncontainable.
We have finally come into an era, where we know we have a real government; a government who appoints the right people who share its ethos, but most importantly a government who is focused on getting the job done. Every official whom President Buhari has appointed knows without being told that they must follow the big three ethics - hard work, zero tolerance for corruption, and absolute discipline.
It is also pretty clear to all Nigerians by now that change has come and everyone is in a reasonable state of alertness. This, I believe, is the first step in the right direction in the short term, but my concern is whether we will eventually be attuned to the government’s style of honesty, integrity and fair play.
The challenge I perceive is that of the government having problems with us, the people, and not we, the people, having problems with the government. I fear that our ingrained comfort with corruption and indiscipline, though forcibly latent, now will fester and manifest to make us a difficult people to govern. Though of no fault of ours, Nigerians since the Babangida era (since 1984) have been products of corruption and dishonest. We were raised since then by governments who nurtured us in an environment devoid of integrity. We were fed dishonesty, our first solids were double standards, our first education was how to steal and get away with it, and our role models were selfish greedy government officials. Now that we have been adopted by new parents, who are trying to change us for the better to be better citizens, the question is are we ready to have a better leader ?
The first step, surely, must be to stop sympathising with, and disassociate ourselves from those of us who matured into hard core respectable thieves. The articles in newspapers must stop, about how the person who stole billions was unfairly treated, and the television debates about how this person who stole millions of dollars was unfairly tried. Justice is Justice, and we have to start from somewhere, and indeed it is this very manner of validating dishonest people that has brought us into this mess in the first place. Everyone knows for a fact that billions of dollars were stolen in the last three decades, but we continue undermining the government’s efforts to try the culprits and thus encourage even the worst offender to fight back.
If this government is going to achieve half its dreams, we are going to have to aid them by providing the enabling environment for them to do so. Let them jail whoever stole money; let them retrieve properties; let them sack whoever they want to sack; let them adjust unrealistic salaries; let them appoint who they deem fit; and let’s allow them do what they have to do. It would seem we are reluctant to leave our comfort zone where dishonesty thrives, laws are meaningless, corrupt practices doing business as usual, evading laws and indiscipline are the order of the day.
We have just recently been blessed with two hardworking God-fearing inspirational caring leaders. The greatest honour we can award President It is also pretty clear to all Nigerians by now that change has come and everyone is in a reasonable state of alertness. This, I believe, is the first step in the right direction in the short term, but my concern is whether we will eventually be attuned to the government’s style of honesty, integrity and
fair play Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo is to be the kind of people they are, to be honest and forthright, to support them, encourage them and validate them at all levels and in all situations. Let us be the kind of people we know they wish us to be, and not the kind of people they regret suffering for. Indeed, we are a wretched ungrateful people who are hard to please and, perhaps, this is why we have had the terrible governments we have had in the last years.
In a communique issued by Dr Cosmas Ilechukwu at a session of the Association of Peace Ambassadors and MDG Ambassadors in Abuja in 2012, Dr Cosmas encapsulated all of my thoughts on this issue in his statement “The problem of Nigeria is not in structures and systems,but in Nigerians. We are religious but not spiritual, we are manipulative and not hardworking, we are smart but dishonest, we love to wield power but not to be accountable, we love wealth but reject morality, we promote nepotism and disdain merit, we are inveterate ego trippers and contemptuous of humility, and we thrive on chaos and fearful of orderliness. I highly recommend that communiqué, titled “Agents of Change “as a valuable read for all well-meaning Nigerians (it is available on the Internet).
What we need now as Nigerians is a re-orientation of our core values and attitudes. We are badly in need of rehabilitation and the government needs to orientate us so that we can relate to them better . The National Orientation Agency (NOA) needs to come up with immediate campaigns to instill and promote core values of honesty and discipline. Understandably, agencies like NOA have been unable to pursue their mandates or indeed remain relevant in the last few years, due to the hurricane of corruption which has made its existence virtually meaningless, such that many forget it even exists .
The National Orientation Agency has in its handbook as its aim, saying it’s mission is directed towards ensuring discipline, dignity of labour, social justice, religious tolerance, self-reliance, patriotism, integrit, accountability, loyalty commitment and dedication to the nation-state. Again in his document, Dr Cosmas Ilechukwu has detailed blueprints on how to achieve this transformation, including how traditional and educational institutions would be involved. The views of Dr Cosmas are also largely mirrored in The vision 2010 blueprint created during the Abacha regime, and together just about everything needed to set about the much needed radical change needed in our mindset. We have leaders with a vision who are ready to galvanise us to create the country of our dreams, the rest is up to us.