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Buhari Must Not Spare The Rod By George Chinnah

May 6, 2015

On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia's new king, Salman, issued a decree sacking the Kingdom's head of royal protocol, Mohammed al-Tobayshi, for seemingly slapping a photojournalist in an unruly show of political strength that caused uproar in the country and brought shame and dishonour to the royal family. His dismissal from office happily surprised most political watchers who thought that it was business as usual in the Middle East kingdom.

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This act, though, was not a fluke or a publicity stunt. Back in April, the monarch banned a senior member of the Saudi royal family from taking part in all sporting activities and from speaking to the media following racist remarks he made during a TV talk show.

As if that wasn't enough, he fired the country's Minister of Health after clips surfaced on the internet and in some local TV stations, showing the health minister in a heated argument with a member of the public who had only come to complain to him about the condition of a hospital in the country's capital, Riyadh, much to the pleasure of the Saudi people.

His actions are reminiscent of those taken by His Holiness Pope Francis following his election as the head of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in 2013. Immediately he assumed leadership of the Catholic Church, he embarked upon the cleanup of the corrupt Institute for the Works of Religion, better known as the Vatican Bank. He initiated sweeping reforms that saw the leadership of the Bank overhauled and commenced an ongoing investigation into its activities dating back to as far as the Cold War.

He also set up a high-powered committee made up of priests and lay intellectuals to look into the messy child sex abuse scandal that has rocked the Church in recent years. These and numerous other bold initiatives have endeared him to Catholics and non-Catholics alike and amazed skeptics.

These are two of the most powerful men in the world, passionately striving to bring positive changes to their domains. They've been a breath of fresh air, bringing life, vigour and transparency to some of the world's largest and most secretive institutions. Buhari must do the same in Nigeria.

President-elect Muhammadu Buhari must go against the norm and bring governance in Nigeria into the 21st century. His age does not really matter here. A memorable quote from the 2012 James Bond movie, Skyfall, has it that "Age is no guarantee of efficiency and youth is no guarantee of innovation." The Pope is 78 years old, while King Salman is 79.

Governance in Nigeria must be stripped of the legacies of the military era: opacity, oppressiveness, corruption and unruliness. The most important quality needed to achieve this is personal zeal, not age, not gender, not anything else.

Buhari must wield the big stick if he's to be taken seriously by the international community and win the confidence of Nigerians. Like the Pope did with the Vatican Bank, Buhari must embark upon the cleanup of the country's cash cow and nexus of corruption, the Oil and  Gas sector. He should, among other things, launch an investigation into the controversial petroleum products subsidy, no matter whose ox is gored.

He should also look into the financial activities of political parties – identified by 94% of Nigerians surveyed by Transparency International in 2013 as the most corrupt institution in the country – in addition to the police force, the judiciary, the banking sector and the bumper salary of Nigerian legislators must also be addressed.

Of course, there will be resistance. When you fight evil, evil fights back. It's only a tree that knows it would be cut down the next day, but stays in place. Nigerians, irrespective of their demographic or political divides, have high hopes for the incoming administration. The dogged and seasoned General must ensure that this hope is not dashed; he's the leader on whose shoulders the survival of this country has been thrust. His success or failure will go a long way in determining the continuance of this Nigerian Project.
 

To contact the author on this write-up: George Chinnah [email protected]