OH Muhammadu Buhari! Now, the challenge of change

vanguardngr.com

Cultivated chaos!    That is what Nigeria is today.   

And that is what Muhammadu Buhari, President and Commander-in-Chief, has inherited.    What would definitely compound Buhari’s problem are the number of things he cannot change.  As at the time he was being sworn-in, last Friday, all he had were, 1461days to run his first term – one of the four years is a leap year.    He cannot change that. 

The Nigerian Constitution says every state is entitled to one minister; Buhari cannot change that even though changing it would reduce the waste associated with the cost of governance.  Except the constitution can be amended within the first one month or as quickly as possible, some states may drag him to court for putting them at a disadvantage on account of not having their own ministerial slot.   Though a few lawyers are arguing to the contrary, Buhari would not need the distraction that would bring.  

There are many more things he can change.

Firstly, he can slash his ministers pay.

Buhari can also disinfect himself of some political contaminants.

The President can take decisions and stick to them in so far as he is convinced that it would guarantee the utmost good for the largest number of people without going outside the law to do those things.

The perception is that Nigeria has gone to the dogs because blind sentiment, cronyism, nepotism, greed and a culture of indolence in high places, have  been packaged as a staple for the immediate past  President who refused to see beyond his nose.

For Mr. President, an attempt at equitable distribution of political power would be a first step towards enthroning a regime of economic prosperity and political stability.  That was where his predecessor failed.    And that was why he did not realize that his style of administration had become an incubating contraption for disgruntlement and angst.   Disgruntlement! Angst! These states of mind do not bode well for any system – be it the corporate world or the murkier platform of political governance.   Jonathan created a situation whereby a few individuals became lords of the manor, poking fun at millions of Nigerians and further exacerbating a sense of loss.

Up until 16th   century Britain and after, there were fierce, bloody battles over economic and political control, the seeds of which were sown centuries earlier.    Because of the circumscription of the political space which was largely in the grip of the monarchy and political elites, consequently manifesting in the type of monopolistic economy of that era, nothing other than a stifling political atmosphere and an asphyxiating economic environment were created.

In their celebrated book,  WHY NATIONS FAIL, The origins of Power, Prosperity  and Poverty, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson  reveal how, by 1621, there were 700 monopolies granted to a few business and political elites of that era.

Indeed, the English historian, Christopher Hill, reportedly put the choking and destructive dangers of a monopolistic economy:

“A man lived in a house built with monopoly bricks, with windows… monopoly glass; heated by monopoly coal (In Ireland, monopoly timber); burning in a grate of monopoly iron …. He washed himself in a monopoly soap, his clothes in monopoly starch. He dressed in monopoly lace, monopoly linen, monopoly leather, monopoly gold thread…. His clothes were held up by monopoly belts, monopoly buttons, monopoly pins.    They were dyed with monopoly dyes.    He ate monopoly butter, monopoly currants, monopoly red herrings, monopoly salmon, and monopoly lobsters. His food was seasoned with monopoly salt, monopoly pepper, monopoly vinegar….    He wrote with monopoly pens, on monopoly writing paper; read (through monopoly spectacles, by the light of monopoly candles) monopoly printed books”.

Acemoglu and Robinson then concluded that “these monopolies, and many more, gave individuals or groups the sole right to control the production of many goods.    They impeded the type of allocation of talent, which is so crucial to economic prosperity”.

It is gratifying to hear Buhari in his inaugural address declare: “I am for everyone and I belong to no one”.   Either on the godfather front or on the ethnic or religious front, Buhari’s statement can be likened to John F. Kennedy’s “think not what your country can do for you, but think of what you can do for your country”.

Therefore, we are today offering Buhari a strategy of hope, as contained in a Washington Post Bestseller, POWER PLAY (Win or lose – how history’s great political leaders play the game, written by Dick Morris, Fox News Channel Political Analyst.

The book is a compelling read for President Buhari not because he must do as it says, but because he can learn to avoid the slipshod which ruined not a few men of power.

Examining 20 leaders as “early as Abraham Lincoln and as recent as Junichiro Koizumi, George Bush and Tony Blair”, Morris examines “how Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and Winston Churchill succeeded and Lyndon Johnson failed in mobilizing their nations at a time of crisis.”

Noting that “politics is the pursuit of power and history is the story of that pursuit”, Morris insists that “there is nothing new in politics; there are only ingenious reinventions of the wheel”. 

Therefore, Buhari would need a heavy dose of introspection in dealing with the multi-faceted challenges on the way to enthroning a regime of change.  

In the power sector, energy sector, transport sector, health sector, education sector, security, water and other areas too numerous to mention, President Buhari has his work cut out for him. In doing that, he would need to be clear-headed, very clear-headed.   This is so because, in the final analysis, there is a world of difference between the desire to accomplish and the capacity to deliver. That was where Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Omorele Jonathan missed the point – the great mismatch between his desire to perform and his ability to deliver.   However, by his last symbolic act of conceding the election, Jonathan created the platform for the enthronement of change.

It is now left for Buhari to deliver – without excuses, might we add.