100 days of sanity
Has Buhari been a good president in 100 days? I think so. Everything considered, the president has demonstrated that he understands the enormity of the task at hand and he has also shown that he has the capacity to weather the storm. We have over the years made a fetish of assessing every government at the 100-day mark. Some politicians with an eye for drama actually draw up elaborate programmes to mark their first 100 days in office, complete with a glossy publication detailing the “unprecedented achievements” of the 100-day-old administration. We have been spared that farce this time because Buhari has not allowed shadow take precedence over substance. We all knew that things were bad on all fronts, but it was difficult to imagine how bad the situation with our economy had become, and how comprehensively endemic corruption had become almost to the level of being the essence of governance itself. Buhari chose to fully understand the grimy details, identify the modus operandi, strategise on how to block the many leaking channels and forensically check out those he wanted to appoint to senior positions. In the last 100 days, civil servants have rediscovered their relevance in governance as the president dealt directly with Permanent Secretaries in the absence of ministers. Government work has not stopped. It is better to get it right than to rush to make appointments the appointer may later regret. But we can talk of a Buhari style nevertheless.
The style makes the man. Everything that Buhari has done since he was sworn in last May points to the fact that he will not succumb to blackmail in the war against corruption. He is his own man. He may not be easily excitable, but he is clinically shrewd. Stealing is now corruption! The last 100 days have shown how desperate yesterday’s looters could be. Some have hired a permanent mob of mudslingers to discredit the anti-corruption drive. Others have heavily invested in the mass media with the hope of using media power to negotiate a face saver. The opposition PDP continues to blunder from one ridiculous allegation to the other, casting aspersions on the president’s and VP’s open declaration of assets. For a party under whose watch Nigeria kissed the economic canvass courtesy of repeated uppercuts delivered by serial looters, the last 100 days in the harmattan of opposition politics must be really traumatising. Now, some other public officers and legislators have also opted for open declaration of assets. It may be a tiny gesture, but that is how great things start. People like ex-Senator Okunrounmu recently said that voting Buhari was a great mistake Nigerians are bound to regret in future. You have to excuse the ex-senator.
President Jonathan excavated him from political obsolescence and made him one of the architects of the National Conference. He fancies himself a ‘Yoruba leader’. Pity. The South West of Nigeria is too sophisticated to have such dealers as leaders. But make no mistake about our resolve to assert our ownership of the Change agenda espoused by President Buhari and his party. Going forward, we are going to hold Buhari to his party’s promises as contained in the APC Manifesto. As we await the ministerial list and other appointments, Nigerians are looking forward to a balanced set of appointments in terms of geographical representation. Many people who are ordinarily supportive of the president have expressed reservations about the piecemeal release of appointments which seem to favour the North. It’s the usual North versus South sterile arguments all over again. Even when you advise such people to wait until the full complement of appointments are made before passing judgement on the president, they still insist that each tranche of appointments has to be truly federal in character. They argue that instead of announcing the appointment of seven Northerners in a list of nine, why doesn’t the president release 18 appointments at a go with nine going to the North and South respectively; or, better still, make three appointments from each of the six geopolitical zones? *ONU & OTHER ‘USUAL SUSPECTS’* Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu’s name continues to make the rounds as one of those earmarked to handle an important ministry. He carries the burden that solid politicians always have to bear - that of being mentioned in every gossip, every list, every projected team. Having been a state governor, Chairman of the All Nigeria People’s Congress (one of the four main political parties that formed the APC) and one of the party’s most respected leaders from the Eastern flank, it is not surprising that his name keeps popping up. Another name that I keep hearing is that of Kingsley Moghalu, a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria whose seminal work, “Emerging Africa” is making waves in economic and development circles round the world. Moghalu argues for a permanent economic transformation through entrepreneurial capitalism, knowledge and a new mindset that will deliver jobs, instead of the corrupt crony governments that provide jobs for only the party boys. If I was president, I wouldn’t ignore those two. Nigerian politics being a civil-war-by-other-means that it is, once a name pops up as a possible minister or parastatal head, the tar industry goes operation, activated by political opponents who reckon that the only way they can reach their individual goals is to step over the political graves of their betters.
They did it to Kayode Fayemi, Babatunde Fasola, Chibuike Amaechi, to mention but three. The president has to sift through tons of petitions to do due diligence on each prospect. My take is that being a ‘usual suspect’ in the ministerial or other appointive roles could be a measure of the credibility of the candidate. President Buhari may not have scored highly in the South-East and South-South in the last elections but he surely knows more than anybody else that without the Onus, the Okorochas, the Ngiges, the Attahs, the Momohs, among others, APC would have been less national than it is now. And the South-West? I guess it’s Buhari’s turn to keep faith with those who had kept faith with him against all odds. So far, it’s been 100 days of sanity. Buhari has promised fairness all round. I believe him. His full list of appointments will either bear me out or alienate me.