Jagaban and the change we desire

The March 28 presidential polls ended with a publicized verdict. The candidate of the All Progressives Party, APC, General Muhammadu Buhari trounced incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan to emerge winner.


For the political gladiators on the APC side, it was indeed a hard-fought contest. Initially scheduled for February 14, the election dates were to be shifted in circumstances that clearly suggested that the ruling PDP was feverishly trying to prevent their looming defeat. Too much ground had however been lost. The APC still won.


Critical to the APC victory was the activity of one man. As National Leader and alleged prime financier of its efforts, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, aka Jagaban, put in enormous time and resources into the scripting and execution of his ‘commonsense revolution.’ And in doing this, he was to demonstrate once again that youth do grow. The fledgling political neophyte who left his corporate post to pitch his tents with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) during Ibrahim Babangida’s ‘crafted’ transition project in the late 1980s had now matured into a political colossus of sorts.


To be sure, Tinubu’s road to his current status as principal patron of the incoming administration has not been without controversy. However, what is more germane for us at this point is to situate his new role within the context of our historical moment as a nation and to attempt to help him appreciate his history-assigned role in the days following the victory at the polls.


Here, two imperatives clearly stand out. One is a re-examination and sharpening of the visionary paradigm on which the victory was secured and the other is the shortlisting and promotion of the appropriate personnel that would drive the vision so outlined.
Understandably, there has been a lot of movement in the days after the election but this writer has observed that much of it has been on the latter and very little of the former. Which is sad. It is the dog that wags the tail and not the other way round.
Vision, my dear Jagaban is everything. Without vision, a people perish, the Bible outlines. It is all too important that we can almost begin to foretell the end of this matter even now. And the probable outcome that we are seeing is not looking good.
On that critical day of reckoning, you may want to exculpate yourself by arguing that you were not the one elected to govern.


That would not be true in a fundamental sense as not only do we all know that the President-elect could not have emerged without your buy-in; you have equally continued to loom large as the man with the critical vote as has emerged in instances as the choice of the National Chairman and the Presidential and vice-presidential candidates; as well as the overruling of the President-elect’s barring of AIT from covering his transition activities. It is still playing out as we write, as regards the jockeying for personnel placements in the new dispensation. There is therefore no controversy that the ball yet lies in your court. The question to ask is how well you are playing it?


And history indeed is a most patient witness. Like has been the case with leaders like Olusegun Obasanjo and lately, Goodluck Jonathan, who had so much opportunity and clout to push our nation to far more successful heights than their limited visionary prisms could fathom, if you continue to carry on with your current focus on ‘who gets what’ at the expense of ‘what is to be done’ you may very well wake up a few weeks or months into the future, asking yourself that oft-repeated question: when exactly did all the support and goodwill that the Nigerian people invest in your mandate leak off? With the benefit of hindsight, Obasanjo can point to matters like ‘Third Term’ and Jonathan to ‘Ojota;’ would you let yours be ‘shoddy and unprincipled transition management?’


Let us break it down. Every administration is defined by its core essence. Thomas Sankara called it ‘historical mission’ and Shehu Yar Adua used the words ‘National Purpose.’ Great leaders like Mandela, Lee Kuan Yew, and arguably, Murtala Muhammed, are remembered for it. Your core mandate now is in our view not carion-hunting but to help your nominees get the vision right. And make no mistake here; just like ‘the Transformation Agenda’ was truly ‘all sound and fury, signifying nothing,’ your mantras of ‘Change’ and ‘Commonsense revolution’ today really mean nothing.


And yes, you may not have been the one elected, but so was Nehru. Invest in enjoying your future Jagaban. Make the right choices. It is that simple.