By Osita Okechukwu
President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, our dear president, whom one could without being immodest name a miracle man, adds another year to his glorious years on earth today. For this, one joins millions in thanking Almighty God. Few Nigerians will query why one is glorifying God on this auspicious day, when they remember the miraculous recovery of Mr President from an ailment, which had no name. And Mr President himself admitted that he had never had such ailment.
To be honest, in the midst of those troubling sick months, we were worried to the marrow and it was as if Nigeria was sick. And Nigerians were united in prayer. The recovery of Mr President has demonstrated that nothing is impossible in the hands of God. For this, one rededicates one’s faith in the Almighty God and glorifies His name.
One celebrates this day when one recalls with nostalgia how the story of Buhari’s presidency unfolded in our very eyes as a mirage, an impossible journey and a fool’s paradise. Many did not believe he would ever win the presidential election under civil rule, except the late Rt. Hon. Chuba Wilberforce Okadigbo and few of us.
In order not to sound as a broken record, let us once more narrate how Okadigbo sometime in 2002 postulated or rather predicted accurately Buhari’s emergence as president. He added that Buhari would lay a solid foundation for critical social and physical infrastructure in Nigeria, and would raise the bar of anti-graft war based on his antecedent as an incorrigible person.
When one takes a cursory glance on Buhari’s multifaceted infrastructural projects on the ground and on the cards, ranging from standard gauge railways, Mambilla Power Plant, Enugu Coal project, Ondo bitumen, agrarian revolution, water projects to fixing of federal roads, one views a better Nigeria. It kind of vindicates the position of Okadigbo.
As we celebrate Buhari today, it is important to state that one is aware of the hunger, poverty and gross unemployment in the land. Mr President in both private and public discussions is also bothered about the hardship daily confronting our citizenry. The good thing is that his miraculous recovery seems to have further energised his passionate drive to fix the country and get us of recession.
This was exemplified when some of us cautioned him over the bailout funds and Paris Club refund to state governments, which is spilling over a trillion naira. Our argument was that in the public domain, Nigerians would appreciate Mr President more if he uses N1 trillion to fix 2,000 federal roads than dole it out to state the governments, some of whom might not use the mines for the intendment. His answer was that he bleeds whenever he is informed of workers and pensioners being owed months of arrears of salary.
It was because of his passionate concern that early enough, he made up his mind to source funds from all manner of sources – Eurobond, Sukuk, Chinese Eximbank, Africa Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank etc; in order to fix our dilapidated infrastructure. With the solid foundation being laid, one begins to see a future prosperous and progressive Nigeria. This means that Okadigbo’s prophesy is at work.
To recap how this great prophesy of Okadigbo came about, after his impeachment as Senate President, Okadigbo asserted that a great political event had happened. With eyes popped out, we listened to his lecture type of sermon. He first asked us, did any of you read today’s newspapers? Yes was the chorus, for most of the time we acted like students in a classroom of the great Okadigbo.
We failed the question of pointing out the exact major news item of the day he was referring to. Okadigbo in his usual candour, graciously cleared his throat and started with his routine old thesis that the then president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, his Achilles heel, was constructing a one party state, which he intoned was very dangerous, unconstitutional and might breed dictatorship. He said: “Left for Obasanjo, he would want to amend the Constitution and extend his rule (this was before the third term imbroglio). I am surprised that none of you took note of General Muhammadu Buhari’s entry into the murky waters of Nigerian politics.” We claimed we read it, but why is his entry a major news, in the musical chair of our brand of politics?
Okadigbo’s answer was very emphatic. “Buhari will define politics in the years ahead. Nigeria is lucky to have him, quote me. We are lucky he didn’t join the PDP. The battle line is drawn. It’s going to be a marathon race,” he quipped. He went on to state that the stage was set for deconstructing the one party state being weaved by Obasanjo.
Buhari had joined the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) when Okadigbo stated what appeared to be prophetic. Okadigbo was later nominated the vice presidential candidate in what became the Buhari/Okadigbo ticket. The outcome of the election and the judgment of the tribunal up to the Supreme Court are public knowledge and need not to be repeated here. For President Buhari, it was rough route to victory as the 2007 and 2011 presidential elections also ended in controversies.
In the 2015 presidential election, Buhari won and former president, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, graciously conceded defeat and congratulated the winner, which Mr. President appreciated at the inauguration and still appreciates as occasion demands.
Since assumption of office on May 29, 2015, President Buhari has, in measured steps, begun the construction of a progressive and prosperous Nigeria as predicted. In this exercise, some are skeptical because his pace for them is too slow. For this, the President has said, slow and steady wins the race. It is not peculiar to Nigerians; a lot of people assume that democracy must deliver quick results especially in political systems like ours where the people’s hope was serially dashed and the state atrophied.
Incidentally, the President has passed the trajectory of fierce battle between the neo-liberals and statist economic schools. Before his overthrow as military Head of State in 1985, he rebuffed the entreaties of the neo-liberals, hence he rejected the adoption of the World/IMF conditionalities. Among the components of the conditionalities were the removal of subsidy in fuel and fertilizer, devaluation of the naira, privatisation of state owned enterprises, et al.
In sum, one prays for more years for Mr President, so as to consolidate this laudable programme of sanitising the system and laying the solid foundation for an industrial society. This is why it is crucial for Nigerians to vote for him in the future, if he declares interest, as those who are clamouring to displace him are more or less self-serving.
Mr Okechukwu is the DG, Voice of Nigeria
