20th
September, 2016
By: Amir Abdulazeez
T
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here are so
many things that signify a doomed society. One of such is when nobody wants to sacrifice
and take responsibility of moving it forward. The history of the world is dotted
with the stories of leaders and followers who made sacrifices to either pull
their society out of backwardness or to move it further than it is on the
prosperity ladder. That the Nigerian journey is still searching of how to
progress and not actually progressing is most unfortunate as this means we are
not even on the right road, not to talk of travelling it, no matter for how
long.
The President
Buhari administration’s launching of the ‘Change Begins with Me’ campaign was
greeted with mixed reactions. While some agree even if theoretically that
change begins with them, others feel that the change should begin with the
president and his team. While this debate is needless to say the least, two
things are clear; the new campaign is now over-politicized and already dead on
arrival and we are once again on a habitual wild goose chase on how actually we
should go about fixing Nigeria morally, socially, economically and politically.
First, one
begins to wonder whether APC has any blueprint in the first place or it is now
that it is coming up with one. During the campaigns, the party and its candidates
strongly emphasized that it was the head that was wrong with the fish and once
the head is not rotten, the body remains fresh. Some 16 months after clinching
power, the party is now launching a campaign that suggests that it is the body
of the fish and not the head that matters most. Granted that every society
cannot move forward without its members actively playing a role, but APC should
have properly coordinated this clearly and vigorously right during the
campaigns or at least from the very beginning of its administration. That this
is coming 16 months after been in power suggests that the party is embarking on
a gradual and unfortunate journey to cluelessness on how to handle some
critical issues.
It is
evident that the APC did not utilize its early days in power when goodwill was
more than abundant adequately. The apparent indecision of its government and
its failure to hit the ground running in the guise of trading carefully and
clearing of the PDP mess, are all coming back to haunt it. Many things that the
ruling party ought to have initiated or executed during its first few weeks in
power are now being introduced only recently. It took the presidency many
months to appoint an INEC chairman for instance and well more than a year to
appoint commissioners for the electoral body. Whether this also requires
trading carefully and clearing some PDP mess is what many don’t understand. The
commission is now dropping some hints of its potential inability to conduct a
conclusive and credible 2019 elections.
The APC and
the presidency have also failed largely to rise above the shackles of partisanship
to run a truly unifying government. The way it is running its affairs largely
reflects the results of the 2015 elections. The style and politics of the party
is yet to be significantly different to that of the PDP. It gives the impressions
of ‘everyone-is-a-wrongdoer-except-us’ and ‘we-came-to-rescue-Nigeria-alone’. The
President appears to have critically left out important stakeholders from the
onset of his government, the result of which we have seen clearly. The
successes recorded by the APC government could be far more than this and some
of the problems we are facing shouldn’t be as much especially the likes of the Niger
Delta militancy.
Those who
argue that change should begin from the president, his cabinet and the ruling
party are only right if that doesn’t mean that they are pretending not to have
any role to play in effecting that change themselves. Others that are arguing
along the same line are doing it for political reasons, thanks to our culture
of politicising almost everything. The word ‘Change’ consciously or
subconsciously reinforcing the political dimension of the campaign itself is
not helping matters. It would be better if the government can rebrand the
campaign if possible to cleanse it of what largely looks like an APC affair.
It is true
that the Presidency and the ruling party which also controls the National
Assembly have not shown enough change yet. While the cost of governance is
still seen as exorbitantly high, impunity in government dealings is still
apparent. From so many alleged secret and unmerited recruitments in key
government parastatals which used to be a regular practice of the past to the presidency
allegedly turning a blind eye to allegations of corruption against some of its
kitchen cabinet members, many citizens now feel change should begin from where
these things are being done or perceived to be done.
Some Nigerians
believe they have tolerated enough of the economic hardship currently in the
land; they see themselves patient enough to have tolerated the chronic fuel scarcity
at first and then price hike later. It is because the people were on the side
of the government that the NLC strike against fuel price hike failed woefully. All
these are in addition to the peoples’ perseverance and resilience in making
sure that the APC government came to power. Because of these and many other
obvious reasons, many citizens feels change or progress if we are to coin it
apolitically, should not begin with them or at least, they shouldn’t be its
focal point.
Those who
argue that change should begin with citizens are only right if they are not doing
such only for the purpose of partisanship and blindly defending the government
or the party which they are sympathisers. One should genuinely believe progress
begins with him for sacrificial and patriotic reasons. While some have patriotically
accepted that they need to change their own attitude, if at all Nigeria stands
any chance of progressing, others are only out to sycophantically defend every
action of government. These kinds of people are everywhere and they have
stubbornly refused to allow people who constructively criticize the government
and genuinely want it to succeed to be listened to.
That the
ordinary Nigerian has not done enough to move the nation forward is well
documented. He sees the solutions to his country’s problems coming from all
other quarters except himself and he always forget that alongside his other
country men, he is the most critical stakeholder in nation-building. Many of
the socio-political catastrophes inflicted on Nigeria by the PDP over the last
16 years were partly possible due to the fact that we lack active citizenship. Our
‘I-don’t-care’ attitude is legendary; beside our ethnic and religious problems,
our greed, selfishness and carelessness have refused to allow us do simple
things that would collectively place Nigeria on the prosperity map. We always
think that other countries developed exclusively because of good leadership, we
don’t seem to care to find out what roles citizens played in ensuring that such
leadership existed and succeeded.
Since the
debate is not about whether change or progress should begin or not, the debate
is rather on where it should begin from, can we simply recommend that it should
begin from everybody? No need for anyone to wait for the other; it should begin
in earnest from both leaders and followers. It should begin from Buhari,
Jonathan, APGA, APC, PDP, Modu Sheriff, Makarfi, Oyegun, Tinubu, Lai Mohammed,
Femi Adesina, akara seller, university
lecturer, student, shoe shiner and from everyone else.
Personally, I
may have my reservations on APC and President Buhari, but my being Nigerian or
wanting her to progress didn’t started with Buhari and APC and it is not going
to end with them. My hope and efforts of being a good person and Nigerian will solidly
remain irrespective of whether APC does its job or not. While I may pressurise President
Buhari and his team as well as every other Nigerian to do the needful in their
respective capacities, I would accept that #ProgressBeginsWithMe as an
individual and I won’t compromise that.
Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez
