Editor’s note: President
Muhammadu Buhari’s recent visit to India, where he disclosed that
Nigeria is broke, is currently the core subject for discussions. In his column
with The Nation, Sam Omatseye opines that it is too early for the
president to start lamenting but high time he started implementing.
Omatseye notes that the cabinet is not a talk shop, but a brewery of
ideas that the brewers themselves turn into frothy fulfilment on the
people’s dinner table.
We are in a state of suspended animation. The phrase, once
used to acclaim by Wole Soyinka here, actually originated in the
19th century. Samuel Coleridge, author of the popular poem Rime of the
Ancient Mariners, also popularised it in the era of the Romantic poets.
But the phrase came out of the loins of the Royal Humane Society to
describe the state of a drowning man.
The drowning man is neither dead nor alive. He inhabits that never-realm of paralysis. It is that place between conception and birth, between night and day, between sleep and vigil, between silence and sound.
Added to that is that fear of a collapse to recession. The Central Bank of Nigeria chief once warned that we are on the cusp of recession. Then he ate his words, perhaps after realising he embarrassed Aso Rock and himself. But Freudian slip is important because the truth just escaped into the wind.
Amidst all these, a prominent Yoruba politician’s kidnap ignited separatist impulse within a section of the Yoruba elite. The North lashed back in denial, seeing it as isolated criminality. In the North, the army collides in a war of truth with the Borno state governor, Kashim Shettima, over the successes in the war against terror. Meanwhile, the Washington Post writes a scathing editorial over what it sees as our army operating as barbarous hordes in contempt of human rights.
In the Southeast, the Biafra spirit haunts like a baleful ghost. Arrests and protests reify questions fundamental to democracy. When does free expression become treason? In the Southwest, some jingoists are taking a federal state for granted and installing Ezes and fantasizing about them when they cannot allow them in their own yards back home.
If the zest for Biafra reawakened is farcical, are the agitators for imperialist Ezes not even more terrible. The Nation columnist Professor Jide Osuntokun wrote brilliantly on this subject titled: “A Republic of Thousand kings.”
At the bottom of this, the economy reels. Many are going out of jobs. We crave discipline but the child of the priest pants for bread. When does the country make the distinction between good forex policy and good international trade? When is IMF fulmination neo-colonial and when is our resistance self-destructive nationalism? Businesses are supposed to work in a state of purity but all around them are men in suitcases who cart billions out of the country, in spite of the rigidity of the forex policy.
So, now that change has come, the problems should not be allowed to go out of reach. When Lenin took over power in the Soviet Union, he doused concerns of a flagging zeal by inaugurating what he termed “permanent revolution,” even though some political scientists have said he was a counter-revolutionist with his New Economic Policy.
If the president says we have been materially vandalised, it is no new wisdom. If a lot of our money has been stolen, what is the progress in getting them back? We need the money. We don’t want a president who will lament. We want one who will implement. If we want ministers, they should be given jobs.
The cabinet is not a talk shop, but a brewery of ideas that the brewers themselves turn into frothy fulfilment on the people’s dinner table. It is still early days for Buhari, but this is the time to inspire, not give a sense of soporific retirement.
Read more on The Nation
The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily represent the editorial policy of Naij.com.
Your own opinion articles are welcome at info@naij.com — drop an email telling us what you want to write about and why. More details in Naij.com’s step-by-step guide for guest contributors.
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Source: Naij
Buhari
The drowning man is neither dead nor alive. He inhabits that never-realm of paralysis. It is that place between conception and birth, between night and day, between sleep and vigil, between silence and sound.
The president’s remorse in India
As President Mohammadu Buhari jetted out to India, he brought to the fore a significant knowledge of our state of paralysis. He said we are broke. We cannot pay salaries. Some ministers will merely sit in council. We cannot speak of infrastructure renewal. We have been both morally and “materially vandalised.” Nice phrase. But not words of inspiration. They are platforms for remorse.Added to that is that fear of a collapse to recession. The Central Bank of Nigeria chief once warned that we are on the cusp of recession. Then he ate his words, perhaps after realising he embarrassed Aso Rock and himself. But Freudian slip is important because the truth just escaped into the wind.
Amidst all these, a prominent Yoruba politician’s kidnap ignited separatist impulse within a section of the Yoruba elite. The North lashed back in denial, seeing it as isolated criminality. In the North, the army collides in a war of truth with the Borno state governor, Kashim Shettima, over the successes in the war against terror. Meanwhile, the Washington Post writes a scathing editorial over what it sees as our army operating as barbarous hordes in contempt of human rights.
In the Southeast, the Biafra spirit haunts like a baleful ghost. Arrests and protests reify questions fundamental to democracy. When does free expression become treason? In the Southwest, some jingoists are taking a federal state for granted and installing Ezes and fantasizing about them when they cannot allow them in their own yards back home.
If the zest for Biafra reawakened is farcical, are the agitators for imperialist Ezes not even more terrible. The Nation columnist Professor Jide Osuntokun wrote brilliantly on this subject titled: “A Republic of Thousand kings.”
At the bottom of this, the economy reels. Many are going out of jobs. We crave discipline but the child of the priest pants for bread. When does the country make the distinction between good forex policy and good international trade? When is IMF fulmination neo-colonial and when is our resistance self-destructive nationalism? Businesses are supposed to work in a state of purity but all around them are men in suitcases who cart billions out of the country, in spite of the rigidity of the forex policy.
Now that change has come
All of these remind me of Professor Sheldon Wolin, the theorists who rescued politics and democracy from the so-called behaviourists who looked at democracy from cold data. The Harvard Professor, who died recently at 93, proved in his opus Politics and Vision, and Democracy Inc., the limits of democracy. He announced that elections can easily be an illusion after an era of change is ushered in. He said democracy can be what he termed “inverted totalitarianism” in which a powerful few or cabal lose touch with the mass and still use the concept of popular sovereignty to hold on to the reins of power.So, now that change has come, the problems should not be allowed to go out of reach. When Lenin took over power in the Soviet Union, he doused concerns of a flagging zeal by inaugurating what he termed “permanent revolution,” even though some political scientists have said he was a counter-revolutionist with his New Economic Policy.
If the president says we have been materially vandalised, it is no new wisdom. If a lot of our money has been stolen, what is the progress in getting them back? We need the money. We don’t want a president who will lament. We want one who will implement. If we want ministers, they should be given jobs.
The cabinet is not a talk shop, but a brewery of ideas that the brewers themselves turn into frothy fulfilment on the people’s dinner table. It is still early days for Buhari, but this is the time to inspire, not give a sense of soporific retirement.
Read more on The Nation
The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily represent the editorial policy of Naij.com.
Your own opinion articles are welcome at info@naij.com — drop an email telling us what you want to write about and why. More details in Naij.com’s step-by-step guide for guest contributors.
We’re ready to trade your news for our money: submit news and photo reports from your area using our Citizen Journalism App.
Contact us if you have any feedback, suggestions, complaints or compliments. We are also available on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe to Naij.com Opinion page!
Source: Naij