Short note to Tinubu’s incoming administration

 By Yahaya Balogun

When you think positive, good things happen.” — Matt Kemp.

“To live in an open democratic society has a price tag. If you love your freedom, you will not underestimate the alluring values of democracy.” -Yahaya Balogun.

o say President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu has enormous tasks ahead of him after his forthcoming inauguration on May 29, 2023, as the President of the (most populous nation in Africa) Federal Republic of Nigeria would not be hyperbolic or an understatement.This short message is my open secret, and I’ve included the socioeconomic prescriptions for the incoming President Tinubu to solve our immediate problems. President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a political pugilist, technocrat, and indisputable strategist. He knows how to tackle the political aspects of his government. I do not envy President-elect Tinubu’s impending ascension to Nigeria’s hottest seat. We do not need any pretentious Nigerian “prayers” for him to run his forthcoming administration smoothly and successfully. All we need is a sustained implementation of people-oriented policies.

Ruefully, my prayer for Tinubu would be Tai Solarin’s ace prayers for himself during the usual New Year ritual celebration on January 1, 1968. Tai Solarin’s historic prayer “May Your Road Be Rough” was a prayer he wished everyone, including himself. The prayer generated a lot of controversies and prodded the mind of the Nigerian people with profound meanings during the period. Decades after, the truth is that Dr. Tai Solarin’s prayer is evergreen and antithetical to the pretentious lifestyle of a sinful but prayerful nation—Nigeria.

Meanwhile, I empathize with Tinubu for his impending inheritance of multidimensional and multifaceted problems plaguing Nigeria. The tasks ahead of the President-elect are gargantuan. Poverty and general hopelessness are rooted and entrenched in the soul of a nation. These pervading problems in Nigeria can be overcome! But BAT must be ready to declare a state of emergency in all sectors of Nigerian life.

Nigerian leadership is known for excusing responsibility for irresponsibility and mundane things. However, since followership is the offshoot of leadership, a transformational leader is needed to effect a crucial leadership change. BAT’s envisioned leadership must begin to hunt for talented individuals from the neglected followership. That is, to change the pervasive irresponsibility of the current Nigerian leadership. The leadership has always lacked responsible priority to meet the yearnings and simple expectations of the masses.

It’s important to re-emphasize for Tinubu the need to begin the implementation of the following socioeconomic and political prescriptions for Nigeria’s intractable problems.

The following simple solutions are crucial and should be considered in an instant to resolve our intractable problems in Nigeria:Declare a state of emergency on security and energy to ensure sustainable job security for all citizens. Second, Decentralize power generation and adequately remunerate the security personnel with reconnaissance tools to do their jobs.

Hunt for impeccable talents among all our disgruntled and hopeless Nigerian youth. Coach these talented youth to be a renewed hope and future of Nigeria.

Adequate representation of all aggrieved geopolitical elements in the country as representatives in Tinubu’s administration. Creating job opportunities to reduce the current 41% unemployment in the country. Restructuring of Nigeria with a truly national conversation.

Mobilize every citizen to unite to heal the ailing and divisive nation. Make a painful emphasis that: what we will lose will be more than what we will gain from the country’s disintegration. Our rich and unique diversity is a sine quo non in global affairs.

Amicable, mutual, or consensual divorce from seemingly a forced age-long marriage of convenience if the aggrieved unions cannot sustain the marriage.

Rebrand a nation conscripted by the brutish British colonialists for their sustained administrative convenience. Make Nigeria a tourism hub and a destination for global investment. Incentivize foreign investors and Nigerians abroad to come back to build a mecca of Nigeria. De-incentivize jumbo salaries and outrageous allowances of elected and public office holders.

The current situation in Nigeria is purely a failure of leadership and the transgression of followership. The mutation of disgruntled youth in our collective consciousness directly results from a dysfunctional society. Unless the leadership partners with the followership to douse geopolitical tensions, there will always be more militants ready to evolve from our sociopolitical problems spontaneously.

Inextricably, no matter how many achievements the current and previous regimes must have claimed, the system’s insecurity, inequity, and unfairness will further create a polarized nation and fuel chaos, unrest, and hopelessness. The current arrangement in Nigeria is fraught with injustices, ethnic jingoism, and inefficient leadership. It is not sustainable development, and the ineffectual outgoing Buhari administration on security is claiming more innocent lives. One life lost is too many in a society bedeviled with nauseating contradictions.

Buhari’s stance on safety is a failure that nullifies Bubu’s achievements in nation-building. As a moral individual, Buhari has squandered his legacy with ineffective handlers that thwarted his much-touted integrity. Therefore, I tag Buhari’s failure of success as the success of failure with his good but aborted intention. The incoming administration under Bola Ahmed Tinubu-BAT must learn from the deliberate mistakes of the outgoing administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. We sincerelywarned Buhari, but Buhari failed to be warned in a nation tainted with confusion and contradictions.

The hard work BAT had engaged himself in over the years pays him. While Tinubu’s distractors are busy trafficking in the inanities of life, the President-elect Tinubu is focused on his vision and mission; improving himself and others around him. He hunts for talent and we can see theresults in the just concluded election in Nigeria. The moment you’re focussed on your bargainers in the market; and you don’t care about the noises emanating from a rowdy market, you’re sure of getting good products and results from the market. This is the true genius of President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Our prayer for the President-elect: may BAT disappoint his avowed enemies but make his unconditionally beloved citizens proud of themselves for rooting for his success. May we wish May 29, 2023, usher in a new roadmap to the promised land. Unquestionably, Nigeria shall overcome all the disgruntled and unpatriotic Nigerians doomed to self-perfidy but bent on destroying themselves and other citizens in a pitiable nation.

Sincerely yours to BAT’s impending presidency, anything short of the itemized salient points above in the interim, or this intervening circumstance, is like journeying in our usual collective blissful ignorance on the road to nowhere again! But strategist BAT must not fail his political enemies, ethnic foes, and patriotic Nigerians in Nigeria and the diaspora.

•Yahaya Balogun wrote from Arizona, USA.