Without necessary going into deep policy analysis, I will say that in this election, as with other election in the past twenty years, there really are no differences in policies between opposing parties. It is basically same politicians, talking about same old Nigeria problems, with no new ways to solving them. Repeating same things, same talking points, but in different languages.
We patiently waited the outcome of the general election, for some of us, the election is long behind us, and we are now looking forward to the future with hope that the second term of Buhari delivers to us the Nigeria we want. As at the time of writing this post, INEC led by Mr. Mahmood Yakubu has just declared the winner. The General turned politician, Mohammed Buhari is the victor over the businessman turned politician, Atiku Abubakar.
What then should we expect in the next four years. Many skeptics will argue that if in the current term Buhari has failed as the promised savior, how then should we expect things to be different in the next four years. A valid point, but I still think APC with Buhari has a better chance to deliver than PDP with Atiku. And I say this as someone who has always liked Peter Obi as a politician, my record shows that. My judgement is based on what I saw during this election circle. Just to point out, comparing slogans, APC has stands for "Next Level" which by the way I think is a more authentic, and relatable slogan than the PDP "make Nigeria work again", whatever that means. APC in this election showed that they are a dominant force in terms of branding, just as they did to carry the election four years ago. Good marketing, and skillful branding might work in a corporation, but these are not the requirement in leading a nation. Buhari has won, on a well-structured campaign. There is therefore no excuse this time because Nigerians has given him an approval. I expect that APC will concentrate on delivering the promises they have sold to all Nigerians this time around despite how vague.
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As a distant observer of Nigeria politics, I have, like many others who get all our information from different sources, both credible and noncredible. Suffice to say that a lot of my "first news" on Nigeria updates comes from “Umunna” and old classmates WhatsApp groups. You should therefore expect that most of what is fed there are unverified information. To some though, I will give credit, they turn out to be genuine news even in the age of so many fake news. Nevertheless, I could sense that there are lots of discontent in Nigeria. With the way things have turned out in the last four years a lot more people have lost hope in the Nigeria future. People once had genuine hope for this country but gradually, in four years, it had all disappeared. I know this first hand because my good friend Christo who was a stanch believer of Buhari, a true to the core follower, but when we chat about Buhari in the group chats, he feels dejected and sad. He defended all of Buhari's policies and agenda, but I guess he like many hasn't seen the dividend of the four years rule. I don’t blame him.
Without necessary going into deep policy analysis, I will say that in this election, as with other election in the past twenty years, there really are no differences in policies between opposing parties. It is basically same politicians, talking about same old Nigeria problems, with no new ways to solving them. Repeating same things, same talking points, but in different languages. Actually, the parties with the clear agenda and mandates never do well against the giant and well oiled paolitical machines that is PDP and APC. Of course, this is not something new to Nigeria politics, because when it comes to policies, it is hard to outline what Nigerian government stands for. Again, this is not peculiar to this administration, because it is a common strategy of the type of governance we experience or have experienced with every administration since after General Sani Abacha. By conclusion comes from the personal conviction that I would prefer to have a government that has an agenda, right or wrong than the government that allows itself to be dictated by sycophants and trumpeters. I will leave this argument for another post.
I should confess that it's been a long while I visited Nigeria. I did not even vote because Nigerians in Diaspora are not accorded that privilege which I strongly believe is a wrong decision. I can go on and on as to why we it is wrong that as Nigerians representing our country well but still disfranchised without participating in the process to elect who governs over us. Irrespective of where Nigerians reside, we are still affected by whatever decisions our government makes which is why we should be included rather than excluded. I and many others have continued to participate in the Nigeria debates, and I continue to defend Nigeria in every opportunity I have. I know I have argued in some platforms, for those who follow me, that Nigeria is ungovernable, especially with the political, geographical structure we have. But slowly, maybe over time, I am realizing that this is what we have, perhaps my generation, and this is what we have to live with until there is that time when we get to maturity to decide the country as we want. But until that time, we have to make the best of what we have. We have Buhari, and we will get him for the next four years. So, do we have any other choice but to better trust him to deliver.
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Hence, what do I expect with this new mandate. I expect President Buhari to become unshackled. We all know he has a track record of uprightness. But we want to see him ask the same standard from his party members, ministers, and advisors. Now, Buhari has no excuse not to deal with and root out corruption irrespective of who is involved. From what I have read online, it seems the most backward of the bunch of sellout politicians we have, call him Buhari nemesis, Bukola Saraki, is on his way out. That means he can actually be prosecuted without the covering that the senate provides him and all his culprits together. I like that Dino Maleye is going as well. Enough of of his excessive tendencyt to drama. I expect President Buhari to use this next four years to focus on restoring trust in the Nigeria system.
I ask that we trust President Buhari and APC to deliver on their promises. In return, I ask the president to make Nigeria people the number one priority. I wish in Nigeria we can actually hold our politicians accountable and to high standards. But this is not the case. All we can do is to believe that this time things will be better. That we can see a government that will work for the people. A government that will be aggressive to actualize all that was promised to Nigerians. I don't want to go into listing the promises, vague as they all sound when it comes out from these politicians, but for a start, we want a government that will fix electricity power, create jobs, not temporary or artificial job, but real jobs and a government that will finally eradicate corruption. This is not asking for too much. This is the bare minimal expectation from any government that has the population welfare and wellbeing as number one priority.
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