When despair begets hope

Also published in Daily Trust

Though the current unprecedented economic hardship resulting from the increasingly unbearable fuel scarcity, severe power shortages and acute cash crunch in Nigeria, which also afflicts Nigerians against the backdrop of the country’s already rundown economy, induces despair, it nonetheless raises the prospects of an imminent change for the better in the country, as the situation can’t possibly get any worse. After all, despite the country’s enormous wealth, Nigerians have endured enough of leadership-inflicted misery, which has also been particularly excruciating over the past few years.

Interestingly enough, it is quite ironic that, Nigerians have unnecessarily resigned to their fate, though it may not be actually their fate after all, having never been completely helpless in reality. In any case, the irony is that, this unjustifiable resignation contradicts their real or perceived rights consciousness, which they are always fond of displaying to give the impression of being too assertive to be short-changed or taken for granted by their leaders.

Besides, though in many countries with even less socio-political challenges, citizens have peacefully and successfully pushed for and indeed achieved comprehensive and sustainable socio-political and economic reforms in their respective countries, Nigerians have mysteriously failed to recognize the imperative of finding and sustaining common ground on the bases of their shared strategic interests, in order to build and mobilize a strong and cohesive nationwide mass movement with a pragmatic political approach that transcends partisan and ideological boundaries to push for radical changes within the existing framework of the country’s legal and constitutional provisions. This irony has always baffled many observers and indeed disappointed many revolutionary-minded activists.

Anyway, now with Buhari’s presidency that commences in exactly two weeks’ time, it appears that the country’s prospects of a better and sustainable change have never been brighter.  Until very recently, the country’s future looked so gloomy to the extent that only a few Nigerians had positive expectations for the country in at least the near future. Pessimist and many cautious and realistic optimists had practically given up hope, for it admittedly used to take a great deal of the sense of optimism for one to constantly keep hope alive that things would actually change for the better in the country in the foreseeable future.

Nevertheless, though it is hoped that the current wave of economic hardship is, God willing, the final episode of the lingering despair inducing hardships in the country, it is noteworthy that, the prospects of achieving this ambition depends on the extent of our collective willingness and sincerity to actually cooperate with the incoming government to enable it to deliver. Because, no matter how much Buhari and the few like-minded honest and incorruptible elites around him are eager to turn things around in the country, they can never succeed without appropriate cooperation from at least a considerable percentage of Nigerians from all walks of life across formal and informal sectors in the country. 

Nigerians have suffered decades of disappointment and frustration; hence they can’t afford to mismanage let alone lose this hard-earned opportunity to cooperate with the incoming president to achieve the maximum result expected of him within his tenure; the most important of which are the introduction and execution of progressive sustainable development policies and the institutionalization of the culture of transparency in order to make it impossible for any future government to reverse the policies or deviate from them.

This will certainly be quite achievable in view of the calibre of individuals likely to occupy important positions in the incoming administration. Besides, perhaps more than all other previous federal and state governments in the country, the incoming federal and many state governments, national and state assemblies parade real progressive elements with verifiable antecedents as honest and professionally competent bureaucrats and politicians. 

There are also many yet to be tested honest and progressive people with potential to deliver, as well as, of course, many self-proclaimed and fake progressives who have benefitted from Buhari’s sweeping political phenomenon to win elections, and other political opportunists lobbying for non-elective political appointments at various levels of government after inauguration.  

In any case, the real honest, hardworking and progressive Nigerians in civil service and various political offices at all levels of government in Nigeria who have always blamed the absence of cooperation and encouragement from their principals, fear of victimization, witch-hunt and other forms of blackmail and intimidation, for their helplessness and failure to appropriately deliver in their respective and various public offices they have held, would hopefully have nothing to fear in performing their duties according to the law and applicable procedures, under Buhari’s administration. 

The enabling environment they have lacked for so long would soon prevail, God willing, because the president is a man of unquestionable integrity who recognizes the imperative of supporting, protecting and appropriately rewarding honest and hardworking subordinates for him to be able to deliver.