We all know that the road to victory for the President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu was thorny right from the APC’s presidential primary to the general elections. Nevertheless, considering the hectic and chaotic atmosphere, a profound thought triggers the mind that his government will mainly be occupied and defined by the forces of crises and expectations. Crises are the heaps of mess the government will clear and the expectations are yielding to our collective yearnings and aspirations. How these symbiotic elements are effectively managed will eventually determine the Tinubu governmental impacts, negatively or positively. While not traversing through the President Muhammadu Buhari torrential path, Tinubu ought to unlock these crises and accord them the best approach they deserve to gift us a new lease of life.
Everyone saw the ugly virus of conspiracy that was injected into the interior politicking of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to knock Tinubu down. He was about to become a great loser of the same political child he laboured to deliver. But like a miracle, he was eventually rescued and capable of sighting the light at the end of the tunnel. For our brooding recapitulation, the authored conundrums and political gimmicks were plotted to aggravate the political crisis particularly.
From the cited terrible experience enacted and executed by the political oracles, Tinubu should avail himself of all possible means to render them regret their ill-motivated actions by giving the best performance he can. At least, he will justify his mandate as being worthy of the prevailing circumstances so as not to pave them the easiest way to cast aspersions on his government when they find loopholes.
If I may be quoted right, the Tinubu’s regime hallmark will be based on crises of expectations. Of course, there are boisterous crises that are too much with us. The enormity of these problems has devastated our hopes and dreams beyond imagination. Majority Nigerians have been coerced to live with broken hopes. Majority Nigerians have lost emotional comfort everywhere and want to reclaim it and Tinubu is fully aware of this.
Although he is not the architect of these national maladies, yet his party will have to be given greater portions of the blame because it is under Buhari’s rule, by extension, APC government, that things degenerated from bad to worse. His particular efforts in addressing chronic matters will go a long way in restoring the lost glory of the APC in particular and the country in general.
But largely, the ordinary people will be highly desirous of getting their expectations fulfilled even though the crises will be too cumbersome to resolve. In the unfolding events, for every crisis there is a reserved expectation for which the people are anxious of its fulfillment. The multifaceted expectations are the democratic gains the masses are eager to reap. And the clusters of crises are what Tinubu should face and make his government popular or otherwise. It is this crisis management and its subsequent harmonisation with the people’s expectations that we are going to evaluate Tinubu’s regime. When a clash of crises and expectations ensues, two results are imminent. The crises are unresolved and Tinubu becomes a casualty. The expectations are unfulfilled and the masses become the victims. Ensuring a balancing, therefore, is the major objective of the Tinubu government.
Resolving each crisis is putting options before him to choose the correct one. To learn from Buhari’s goofs, he expended so much time and thoughts indicting the PDP government of bad governance. In the long run, it became clear that Buhari was not a good crisis manager as he squandered the opportunity for national construction. This must be food for thought for Tinubu.
When sworn-in to take charge of the nation’s affairs, Tinubu will be overwhelmed by the general expectation. Our general expectation is giving us what rightly belongs to us – good governance. This is the overall crisis of the crises of expectations. The past eight years have been nightmare for our existence. What will be greatly expected, therefore, is that the incoming government should be a paradigm shift from the old order to a fresh one.
Tinubu will have to battle many fronts of crises to meet our expectations. In balancing them, the expectations belong to the general populace, while the crises are owned by Tinubu, albeit he is not the primary culprit. The way Tinubu will see, bear and handle the crises will not be the same way we will comprehend them. On the other hand, the people’s elated expectations may not be the same way Tinubu will perceive them. This conflict of perception culminates into another crisis which can be described as the crisis of lost confidence. And this is the starting point of the government forfeiting its credibility.
Whatever the case, Tinubu will fight inherited shambles from the man with whom they belong to the same party. But they have different leadership styles. It is hoped that Tinubu will not succumb to committing the same political suicide Buhari mistakingly did. He decided to fight the PDP and Jonathan as the problems with Nigeria while the real troubles continued to accumulate until Buhari could no longer contain them.
To confront Nigeria’s heterogeneous crises and meet our expectations, Tinubu must tactfully resolve the overriding crisis of confidence that is now lacking in government. In other words, Nigerians are waiting for a mini revolution to set them free from the shackles of poverty, inflation, insecurity, unemployment, naira devaluation, falling standard of education and the others.
In Northern Nigeria, particularly, the crisis of expectations revolves around the axis of political reciprocation in which the North contributed to his victory and expecting a payback. To achieve this, Tinubu must not sacrifice the political North for the northern political elite supremacy. In other words, giving juicy appointments to northern elite who will only enhance self-aggrandisement without meeting the wallowing masses’ aspirations will be a great political catastrophe which he will live to regret.
Tinubu’s list of crises includes the separationists palaver, the question of unity restoration, the religious pandemic of same faith ticket and how to appease the gullible minds of those who voted against Tinubu’s faith and now want him to accommodate them in matters of appointments. Will Tinubu be a party to national inclination and reject party inclination when it comes to dealing with the right people to spearhead the affairs of the APC? There is indeed an overwhelmingly all inclusive crisis of depression cutting across Nigeria. This pathetic scenario is akin to the infamous depression of the post World War II. We are waiting for Tinubu’s response.
In a summary, Tinubu will act as a risk bearer to confront the unprecedented crises Nigeria is passing through. To succeed, fulfilling our expectations is very paramount.
Abdullahi writes from Ringim, Jigawa state via [email protected] 07036207998
