Buhari— A Man of Blood

When we read through the Bible, for anyone who has read extensively, you will find no attempt on the part of the writers to conceal the horrible things that some of the Kings of Israel caused their people to endure.

All of this, despite the fact that God made Himself available to them to be consulted pretty much as a mentor would. What strikes the reader is the lengths to which some of the Kings went to impose hardship, idolatry and injustice upon their people. I write this to say—-some people, by their nature are predisposed to evil and some to good.

Today, in Nigeria, a transition has held. A man of blood has exited the stage. A man of vision takes the stage. The prophets of doom must hide their faces as God did not send them in the first place. On a day like this, I wonder what members of a certain congregation now think about their pastor’s prophecy that he would be No. 16. I also wonder about the several others. If you must defeat an incumbent government—-one thing is imperative. You must unite. If Atiku, Kwankwaso and Obi had UNITED unselfishly with Atiku stepping down for Obi, we would not have a Tinubu presidency today.

God is not unjust.

We are not happy. Many of us are sad on a day that we should happy. A day like this looks like a day of Pyrrhic victory—like the day Prince Absalom the coup plotter was killed. David, a General, Leader, and King was unable to rejoice because his natural title as father was also at play. General Joab, David’s right hand man had to call him to order. This is the state of affairs in Nigeria today. Not much clinking of glasses except in very elite circles—-circles of the rich who benefit from every government. Whilst we do not belong to the class of the ‘elite of benefits,’ no one can deny that we are the elite of heaven and we have the power to make demands of the new government.

Above everything else, one of the first Bills that should be sent to the House should be one that creates State Police. If this government fails to do it immediately, then, it would have sentenced itself to failure, and Nigerians to a long night of insecurity. A N10 Trillion Naira investment was made on guns and tanks that “never arrived.” This new government should do this quickly to open up the space for security to be on a local government basis. The bandits will disappear from our forests overnight. This is where Buhari failed woefully, and we hope, Tinubu will listen.

Our second demand is “Let there be light.” No amount of economic stimulus or macroeconomic policy will work in a country run on generators. Government can speed up the deregulation of power by making grants available to States to pursue building their power plants.

These are our minimum demands. As for the rest of the problems in our beautiful country—-

Laissez nous tranquille.
Laissez nous faire.

Leave us alone.

We have been coping. We will continue to cope with them.

Viva Democracia!! Viva Nigeriana!!!!

Michael Ovienmhada.
Author, Poet, Playwright and Public Affairs Commentator.
[email protected]