And with over $400 billion frittered away in oil revenue and poverty staring down citizens and now compounded by clear bias in the management of herdsmen crisis, it is heartbreaking to spot Nigeria amongst the listed fragile states index, occupying the 14th position in the world and 9th position in Africa far back as 2019 and 2020.
With this grim picture, those who call the President “Baba” and lack the temerity to call him out are not doing him any good. Misguided loyalty is cancerous, because it gradually eats into the consciousness of the self-acclaimed “loyalist” as he keeps imagining himself a patriot. Patriotism is not reckless imprudence. It is measured by a heart that loves the nation but that also recognizes its responsibility and that of other citizens, rich or poor, as rights holders within a social contract that binds leadership as Duty Bearers that must be held to accountability.
If by your standard, everything the leader does is right and you must each time hurl expletives at those who find it insensitive and repugnant, then you are enslaved to primitive patriotism, which is the type that shouts, that glares, that denigrates, that threatens and that call others names. You are numb to the deaths and pogrom around you, because your political idol must not be hurt. This is a conscious bondage where your indiscreet respect for your chosen leader is the greatest enemy of truth. This is why you seek diversion away from every disorder and would rather shift it to political camp disunion rather than enter a coalition of honour to move the nation forward. This is why, instead of holding government to answer certain questions, some of us have elected to divorce answerable leadership from the leader. When you brand a worship idol out of a nation’s Power holder, you have burnt patriotism and embraced servility. What we’re seeing today is the effect of not just bad governance, but also that of enabling aye-sayers.
This is why government’s spin-doctors are quick to demonize and incriminate the media and civil societies as “heating up the polity”. Isn’t it sardonic that this same administration that rose to power through a well-orchestrated media machinery and propaganda and that consistently solicited Civil Society’s support to call out bad governance of the past is now tagging the media the enemy of the nation by the duplicitous estimation of an intolerant administration? This gas lighting is a disingenuous conduct of a government that circumvents the truth, fails to take responsibility for its errors and must attempt to steer you away from questioning facts is completely alien to its mouthed integrity!
The President must face a fact here today: There has been a sweeping and systematic liquidation of other people’s territories by unhinged suspected Fulani herdsmen. The President’s own people.
The President must ask a question too? How do foreign nations who lead the pack in global cow-ranching business get on with this business without slaughtering their own people?
On the 13th April, 2011, when you wept over the state of the nation in your quest for power at the international Conference Centre, Abuja, will you say you have turned the country around and made it safer after power was granted you from past six years till date?
What are you making of your legacy? Are you capable of rising over ethnic sentiments now and protect all Nigerians? After voting you, and handing over to you, the constitutional mandate to be leader of all, do you recognize that the Presidency you hold is more dignifying and it is beneath you to still carry on with a now hazy perception of you with the people struggling to resist pointing to you as a Fulani leader?
As a Muslim who is nearer the valedictory stage of your life, I shall step into this faith to remind you, Mr. President, that for each time you know what to do, to rescue Nigerians from Fulani herdsmen slaughter, but you fail to do so, you will struggle to shake off an inaudible complicity in the murdering of innocent souls all in a bid to fulfill what is beginning to look like a well-orchestrated expansion agenda scheme. Your supporters of today will not stand in judgement with you.
Finally, good leaders take personal responsibility in crisis, no matter how much of these lie outside their control. Good leaders align team focus, and establish periodically evaluated metrics to monitor their own performance. Good leaders create a culture of accountability, and stay alert and aligned on effective dashboard of priorities. A good leader will unite this nation and not divide it. President Buhari should jettison his conscious or unconscious bias and demonstrate leadership now, before he goes into history as the last leader to preside over the affairs of a united Nigeria!
Concluded.
Akin Fadeyi can be reached via Twitter: @AppFlagit.
