I published an article about four years ago where I warned that President Muhammadu Buhari might not end up as a visionary leader. If you go back into that article today, you will conclude that I had become a prophet or philosopher who sees tomorrow or crystal ball roller, who predicts what will happen in years to come.
Looking at the confusion that has engulfed Nigeria during Buhari’s latter reign, one is befuddled and you want to look back at how former military President, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida missed a golden opportunity to become a global hero in 1993 when he annulled the June 12 election in that year. Today, Babangida is languishing in the dungeon meant for people like Arthur Nzeribe, Justice Ikpeme and others. He would have been in a pantheon meant for the greats and heroes. But he missed it.
One would have expected President Buhari to learn from Babangida’s pitfall and tread cautiously with his latter day policies that are capable of casting a blanket of dark cloud over all he had achieved in the last seven years and nine months.
The recent naira redesign and its attendant hardship couple with fuel scarcity are two policies emanating from the pit of hell. It is sad that Mr President will allow the Central Bank governor and his team of technocrats to derail him from his goal with any policy that brings negative impacts on the people such as changing the colour of the currency.
It’s therefore laughable that what we are seeing everywhere in Nigeria today is a show of shame and poor policy implementation strategy by Godwin Emefiele and his team, coercing the citizens to compromise their fundamental human rights by fixing a particular date to render their hard earned money worthless in a currency swap deal which they haven’t shown capacity to redeem..
Our President needed to be reminded that governments all over the world make policies to ameliorate the precarious situation of the citizens. But this senseless Emefiele’s monetary policy has inflicted pains and suffering on the citizens. Many are now wondering that there must have been a clandestine arrangement to destabilize Nigeria , cause large scale pandemoniun that may truncate our democracy.
Babangida actually did so well in opening up opportunities and creating lots of jobs for our teeming youths which in a way led to the development of this country even though he was very wasteful with his endless transitions programmes that gulped billions upon billions of naira.
In spite of his shortcomings, IBB was loved and he should have ended up as a military head of State with some democratic ambience around him. Unfortunately this man ended up destroying all his legacy by annulling the most peaceful elections won by the late Bashorun MKO Abiola.
How could a man toiled so hard to build a skyscraper and eventually used his hand to destroy it? That was the pitiable story of IBB. And that is what President Buhari must avoid.
The annulment destroyed what he laboured for while in the public office. He did not end well in office and till date, the ghost of June 12 is still hunting him.
Today, we might be faced with similar situations. How can a leader that came into power after so many years of struggles with just three months to his exit and general elections around the corner, come up with a draconian and unfriendly policy that will strangulate the people and crippled their means of livelihood? And you expects the people not to react? No way!
All over the country today, banks are being destroyed, people are walking naked to the banking halls in order to retrieve their money . Have we paused a little to know the economic consequences of this ill-timed and poorly thought out policy and it’s rag tagged implementation? Now, people pay as much as N1,500 on every N10,000 they collect from the PoS.
This Emefiele policy is military fashioned, lawless and obnoxious. The policy, in my opinion, was intended to scuttle the general elections. The earlier canvassed intentions of discouraging vote buying and fighting corruption were all cock and bull stories.
Mr President, one of the biggest challenges of your government is procrastination. Time is of essence in business and in the life of any nation. The cabal in Aso Rock, if really there is anything like that, will not be able to help you because it’s your name that is involved and you have a date with history.
It’s too late for you to fight any corruption now more than you have done. You have done your best because governance is a continuum. Whoever takes over will continue from where you stop.
This is the time for you to start preparing your handover note and document what you have achieved in eight years for posterity to judge you.
It’s the time for you to end well in office like Abraham Lincoln of United States of America, Lee Kuan Yeu of Singapore, Dr Nelson Mandela of South Africa and Chief Obafemi Awolowo of Nigeria.
It will be very sad, if you fail to reverse this lawless policy meant to inflict pains on Nigerians which may remind one that you have forgotten that we are in democracy and not military regime when you changed the currency in 1984 overnight.
Mr President, you can’t love Nigeria more than Nigerians? Reverse this lawless and obnoxious policy now if you want to end well like great leaders or you may wish to sustain the policy and end up like IBB.
. Otunba Sola Olatunji, Chairman, Ikale Heritage Development Association, writes from Lagos.
