On
3 June 2015, I was a guest on CoolTV’s morning programme, “Good Morning
Nigeria.” The topic was “Buhari’s job as a democrat.” I added “so
far,”on reading the invitation e-mail, wondering if the show’s producer
or anchor hadn’t betrayed an unusual case of what might be called
“change anxiety.”
Guest and audience, it seemed, were being
invited to score the performance of Buhari, whose first coming was as a
military dictator, after five days in office as a democratically elected
president. My invitation was dated 30 May, so the assessment had been
deemed necessary the day after his swearing-in! The first question I was
asked concerned Buhari’s failure to name his cabinet. “But you can
count the number of days he’s been in office on the fingers of one
hand!” I pointed out.
The
producer, obviously, had merely projected the general anxiety of the
Nigerian people to bring closure to the trauma of the Peoples Democratic
Party’s 16-year plague on the nation. For victims of the
I-don’t-give-a-damn philosophy of government, change cannot come fast
enough. But then, to score a government, no matter the whirlwind of
expectation that bore it to power, five days after assuming office? I
reached for fable to illustrate my stance of patience and critical
optimism. At least, in the first 100 days.
I recounted the story
of the tortoise who fell into a pit latrine and was trapped there for
seven days (I may have said seven years on air, but no matter). No one
heard his cries for help as he fell, nor subsequently whenever he could
bear to open his mouth to call for help. For seven days, he endured
indescribable stench and breathed abominable air, among other horrible
ordeals, including that all who came after relieved themselves on him.
But
at last, someone heard his by now feeble cries for help. “Tortoise,
hang on there, okay? Help is on the way!” she said to him. But as soon
as tortoise heard the footsteps and other noises of the rescue operation
afoot, he shouted, “Hurry, hurry! I can’t bear the stench another
minute!”
Now, can we accuse tortoise of impatience, of desiring
rescue too soon—the very minute it was promised? Would it be fair to
blame the rescuers if it took them longer than a minute, say an hour or
even a day, to rescue him? After all, it is tricky business for all
concerned: tortoise may very well end up being buried in ordure, just as
any or some of the rescuers could end up joining him down there, not to
speak of the danger of destroying the crude but very useful
convenience, if care was not taken.
Even more questions: how
long should it take to rescue tortoise? Would it be appropriate for the
rescuers to deliberate on proper ways and means while tortoise
languished in the latrine? Wouldn’t that be inexcusable time-wasting,
abdication of responsibility, and even shocking indifference to an
emergency? Lastly, how much should it matter to tortoise that help comes
in a minute,an hour, or a day?
Confession: other than my stance
of patience and critical optimism, I have no right or wrong, yes or no,
answers to the human predicament this fable entails. I have retold it
here more clearly than I did on the TV show to highlight the dilemma
faced by the victim (tortoise, the Nigerian people) and the would-be
rescuers (President Buhari and the All Progressives Congress). I will
only elaborate as follows. Any government—of the right, left, or
centre—deserves a reasonable period of grace,upon assuming office,
before it can be properly assessed as to the effectiveness of its
actions. It must be granted a certain, that is, limited, benefit of the
doubt at inception.
Thus, I refrained for well over a year from
criticising President Jonathan after he finally succeeded his deceased
boss. A reader sensed betrayal and wrote to accuse me of seeing nothing
wrong with Jonathan because he was a fellow Niger Deltan.
President
Buhari has given a slew of reasons for his slow and deliberate approach
to constituting his cabinet, all of which boil down to one claim: that
he wishes to understand the extent of the rot that had wholly
compromised the government so he could name the right people to execute
the programme of change.
Call it diagnosis before prescription.
What must the surgeon do if, set to operate, he detects that the
patient’s condition is different from or far worse than earlier
believed? Besides, there is the question of down-sizing a mammoth
government that consumes 75% of our resources in order to free up sorely
needed funds for capital development. It may be arguable which approach
puts the horse before the cart, but it is clear that unless this is
done first, then Buhari must give us on demand the same monstrously
large cabinet that we are also impatient to do away with.
But
whether or not one is inclined towards guarded but critical optimism or
simply impatient for change NOW—assumed to be what it means to hit the
ground running, though if you ask APC spokesman, Lai Mohammed, Buhari
has been in a sprint since 29 May—the taste of the pudding remains in
the eating. By the fruits of Buhari’s slow and deliberate approach we
shall know him.
I wager that he will be vindicated.
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