ASIWAJU TINUBU’S DATE WITH DESTINY
President Bola Tinubu cannot afford to fail, writes Abdul Okwechime
Finally, the day is here. It’s been long in coming. Painfully, the woman who sowed the seed is not around to harvest the fruits. However, Iya Oloja, Habibat Mogaji, in her world beyond, will turn with pride and smile in fulfillment. It was her who took young Bola to the foot of brilliant politicians like the Dan Masanin Kano, Alhaji Maitama Sule, the legendary Aminu Kano and other great politicians of yore because she saw greatness in the child. Today begins the harvest of that seed, from years of learning and building. It’s a New Dawn.
This just points out the enormity of the task on your shoulders, Mr. President. It goes beyond here, it encompasses the dream of our ancestors, where Habibat Mogaji, your mother belongs. The market woman, Habibat herself, was a political power broker. The market plus everything and everybody within it were her constituency. She was in charge. That was the formidable backing she gave her son when he took on politics. She was everywhere with her army. No woman leader in recent times had commanded such a formidable force as much as Habibat Mogaji. She deployed that force to the use of her son, our New President. You owe her. You can’t afford to fail her.
However, it is to the living that you owe the biggest performance bond. Nigerians can no longer take excuses. The whole World is tired of waiting for Nigeria. This is the last chance and Sir, I am sure you know it. It’s a big burden. Sir this is not the time for parties or gala nights. We have had too many of those. The work at hand, like they say in Lagos, your city, “e pass be careful”. But unlike Lagos, you are carrying the hopes and aspirations of over 200 million people.
Mr. President Sir, if you had previously taken the Mandate Anthem, of your party loyalists, as just a song for the usual dancing and merry making, now is the time to feel the pains and complete trust, in that music. Pains from the millions of souls searching for deliverance over the years, from a deliverer they believe in. And you must do it Sir, because that is what they mean when they chant, “on your mandate we shall stand”.
These Nigerians have surrendered their Mandates to You. That’s the meaning in that song. That’s the burden that you must carry. For the type of belief the people have in you, you must satisfactorily carry their burden. What makes it a huge task, is the burden of belief they have in you.
Mr. President Sir, this is the first time someone from outside the government bureaucracy is coming to rule Nigeria since the days of the Military regimes. Every past President/Head of State, had a stint with one government establishment or the other; some teachers, some military, some para military. But you come with no such blemishes. You come with ideas not clouded with bureaucratic dogmas. You are here with a New Way of doing things, of thinking, of approach, so you must not be caught in the same old traps and mistakes. That’s a huge burden when you consider that you are going to work with the vultures that populate the public service. But no one cares Sir. No more excuses. The mandate says you are the one who can fix it. When religious people give their lives to the Almighty, they know that HE Cannot Fail Them and with HIM, all problems are gone. It’s a huge burden I tell you, Sir, but that’s what we have done by surrendering our mandates to you.
You once described your campaigns as gruesome. Indeed, but that’s nothing, compared to the work you have just signed up to. The difference is that while the campaign road shows were tiring and energy sapping, this, will be exhaustive and brain storming. You CANNOT back off. Not that it’s too late, but because you were not brought up like that, your pedigree won’t allow it. So from where you are coming from, from your antecedent, you dare not fail or falter.
You can’t fail yourself. You have a date with history, a date with destiny. It’s something you have dreamt of. Something you have toyed with and deconstructed in your mind. Very few humans live their dreams. You are living yours. You therefore, just cannot afford to falter. Because it’s your dream, only you can interpret it. All of us around you, are mere pawns in your game. It’s Your Dream, It’s Your Burden. Don’t transfer the trust we gave you Sir, to someone else. Don’t strive to make popular decisions, Make the right decisions. Even when they appear mean and sometimes harsh, the long run will vindicate you and what appeared unpopular will become the songs of salvation.
Remember you have no Godfather. You are your own Godfather and not answerable to anyone but yourself and millions of Nigerians who gave you their trust. You have come from outside the circle of the Kingmakers believed to be “the owners of Nigeria” and crowned yourself King. So you must expect a fight back from them. You must expect that every step you take will be infested with booby traps. Thank GOD, you are ahead of them, you are the Asiwaju and so must lead whilst they follow, whether they like it or not.
Gladly you are not a joker, you have never been, so don’t take the task ahead for a joke, not even for a second. Politics ended at the polls, now is the work time. Forget the shenanigans of sharing of offices because none of those jostling for positions know how the shoe pinches. Believe me Sir, they are all wearing different sizes of shoes and most of them are just for mere fashion. Yours are not. They can’t be, particularly when you realise that yours is one size fits all the 200 million feet of Nigerians. What magical pair of shoes that is. So while you are choosing able lieutenants don’t forget that it’s you that must dance alone, in these shoes, when the chips are down.
Everywhere you turn to in Nigeria and even beyond our shores, expectations are very high. They have never been this high, not even in the years preceding the civil war. That time, it was those who created and fought the war that again took up arms to mend the fences they destroyed. Yours is different. You are a complete outsider to the wreckage you are called upon to repair. So you must fashion your own tools, assemble your technicians, and navigate through a myriad of issues you probably know next to nothing about.
Don’t be bothered about the demons they say bedevil the seat of power, you are the King of Demons now and must ensure that all other demons bow to you. You planned for this journey, you worked for it, you dreamt about it and you have gotten it. Even the demons know that you have a plan for them. A plan that should and must bring them to their knees.
Today marks the beginning of a New Nigeria, whether you like it or not Sir. A New Nigeria that portends the possibility of a make or break. We are already broken and that is the truth, any further break will indeed be a crush and that, is also true. You are therefore here, Your Excellency, to make it happen. To deliver the greatness that we have and have long eluded us.
They say, “uneasy lies the head that wears the crown”, now you have the crown Sir, let your head be uneasy but unbowed. For those who know you, they assure the rest of us that you can never be intimidated, not by tasks nor persons and that only you can intimidate you. Let your achievements be intimidating so that when the name Nigeria is mentioned in the hereafter, it will be intimidating. This journey Sir, is your real test as a man, not the Lagos experience, which some have said was an achievement made by the advantages of youthful vigour. Prove them wrong, Your Excellency. Age is not a deterrence, it cannot be. In the Nigerian case, it is a bonus because “what the old sees standing, is invisible to the young even when they climb the tallest trees”.
Okwechime is a journalist and a researcher
