By Joe Igbokwe.
For two months prior to the just concluded elections, I shut down most of my social media interactions with the Atikulates or anything Anti-Buhari. It never made sense to sustain a fruitless debate on an election that will be decided at the grassroots domiciled mostly in the rural areas of Nigeria. I know Buhari will win, hence why the debates?
On the Atikulate side are those who think they are elites entitled to a better disposable income at the expense of backlogs of unpaid pensions to our parents, dead or alive, heroes who spent average of over 2 decades in public service. We should just move on without taking care of the past, the rotten infrastructure which should be the spine, heart and marrow of a great nation, a past when we moved the economy from the rural areas where our forefathers built mansions without living in an urban area for a day, a past of huge corruption where 100% payment for service undelivered is even too small to satisfy the vultures who ruined the country, a past of stomach infrastructure, champaigne filled owambe only to realize one had nothing to go back to when the party was over.
They feel it is wrong to support the poor with money when most of these elites were groomed with just hundreds of naira in public institutions. Tradermoni is wrong but billions of bailout to a corrupt bank is applaudable. Those who should know that a sustainable house is worth more than a life of food and wine only believe investment in infrastructure is a saddist approach to solving economic problem. Even infrastructural revamp should happen in less than four years when our infrastructural funding deficit is in thrillion of dollars.
Those who have never turned around a business in their lives wondered why it is taking Buhari 4 years to clear the mess, with a broom kept hungry by PDP in 2 eras of oil boom since 1999. They look up to China and other developed countries of today without looking back at how those countries persevered through decades of pain to build their foundation for greatness.
Obi talks of China as if he could have found it so easy to have only one child for decades in same China. He should have been one of the hundreds of million labourers that built a great China with next to nothing equipment. They want to be known for how much they spend on clothes, wines, cars rather than for how beautiful and solid their country’s Infrastructure is. Because they stepped down from a brand new car to a used one, 10000 naira to a petty trader is at most a petty intervention to solving poverty problem.
These are same people who paid 100 naira for a bed in a federal higher institution to earn a degree. They propound economic theories from countries that built from scratch, but we must build from the sky rather than from ground up. They can’t wait for the foundation to rise above the ground, just show us a completed building!
They profiled a Fulani man in the most detestable manner, but when another one showed up, they agreed he is a smooth criminal, much better than the other Fulani man of integrity who moves at a pace of wise old men. Fake news became their journal of intellectual engagements. My prayer was answered, I will rather go hungry than vote for a man of questionable integrity. I don’t need a proof other than a candidate admitting he created a private business to operate in same area of administration he managed as a public officer, the source of his humongous wealth till date. They forgot the greatest leaders in most part of the developed world were just salary earners in their private lives, living on modest means but deploying humongous public fund for public good. And the worst of them like Zuma, Belusconi, and even Trump, were successful businessmen.
Buhari is blessed, try harder next time to make sure your curse stays on his garment. You scream he is clueless, but who laughed last. The clueless has ruled Nigeria as a military ruler, came back 30 years later after 4 attempts to be a democratic president, the only NIGERIAN leader to unseat a ruling party and still flogged it silly four years later in another election. Who is the dumb and dumber now. You or him. If you still disagree, go and ask that great Nigerian that created red card movement, then became a candidate and then pulled back when the politics became so dirty for her to handle.
She tagged Buhari incompetent, now we know who can’t even find her way through a mush room party to lead the most complicated black nation on earth. Buhari will remain in your memory as long as you live, whether it is for bad or good. For me, it is on the good side. And Nigeria will be better for it. We need to be challenged in the absence of oil boom so our creativity can flourish. There is no free oil again. US pumps 10 times Nigeria daily oil production and still produce food above what they eat. What do we produce apart from oil prior to 2015? We even forgot we grew up as babies feeding on Akamu and now insisted our children must feed on imported baby food bought with oil revenue we have no input into apart from words of mouth.
My late father endured 16 years of PDP failure till he died in his eighties. APC may not be the best in 4 years but the work done so far made it incredible to bring back PDP. It would have been an absolute disaster of quick fixes and stomach infrastructure fueld by the usual corruption driven wealth, bought prayers and partying for no reason other than I have arrived.
They think NURTW workers and traders in the rural areas will not vote Buhari despite smoothening their roads which is their key tool for survival? Have you ever driven a 20Feet Trailer on Nigerian road over 300kms twice a week? If no, then you don’t know what a few metres of tarred road means to his livelihood. Pensioners will not vote Buhari despite paying them backlogs in a time of low oil revenue? Have you ever worked for 35 years in public service and wait or queue for months and years to get your pension? And you think a Buhari paying pensioners their dues unpaid for 18 years is a petty, irrelevant issue?
Hope my ‘Atikulate’ friends can let me rest now. My silence over the past few months leading to the elections was to prove the King in the North could look so unassuming but politically deadly. President Buhari has won this election in case you are still not sure. Go and learn how to build a brand name that cannot be shaken by your political enemies. 4+4=8, in case Buhari victory has made anyone to forget addition.
Good name is better than Silver or Gold. A lesson our parents taught us. Integrity was the deciding factor in this election. Same President Buhari was ousted in 1985 because he was not cosmopolitan, not liberal minded, not free market inclined, not ready to listen to IMF and world bank recommendations, though no one questioned his integrity. Some Military men overthrew his government and brought in a cosmopolitan, gap-toothed man with the same integrity question Atiku carries today. We celebrated the incoming, fine gentleman famously called maradona because of his promise-dribbling skills. He had the best Nigerian brains in his cabinet and ruled for 8 years. Professor Babs Fafunwa, Olikoye Ransome Kuti, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, Professor Jubrin Aminu, Olu False and many other brilliant Nigerians formed the cabinet. 8 years later, Nigeria was gasping for breath under a heavy weight of massive corruption despite unprecedented oil revenue following the Gulf war. Nigeria’s problem is not lack of leadership, but lack of credible leadership (integrity tight).
The elites who have always enjoyed this old status quo still find it hard to understand that power has shifted to the masses who just want a honest man to guard the nation’s treasury. It is Buhari’s time, and 2019 election is pay back time for 1985 mistake. No matter how competent you are, my thumb will not place an ink on your party logo on the ballot paper if you have integrity issues.. It is a non-negotiable condition my late father placed in me.
God bless Nigeria.
Joe Igbokwe.