Buhari’s first anniversary: So far, so good

The wind of desirable change that has swept across Nigeria on May 29 last year is still raging on and people have been swaying with it. Nigerians are now happy and excited that the new change brought about by a focused and more determined political party, the APC, with Malam Muhammadu Buhari, a resolute and morally upright leader at its helms of affairs, is really carting away the innumerable problems that have greatly stunted the development of their promising country.

With this development, problems that were hitherto hinged on weak and irresolute leadership have been resolved and, consequent upon that, there had emerged potent forces that are now helping the economy to grow, bringing pleasant gust of prosperity to all.

Attention is currently being lavished on several social vices with a view to implementing real remedy to the unpleasant effects they have created. The despondency which came along with widespread youth unemployment, creating very dangerous situations into which the country had degenerated, is gradually giving way to renewed hope for numerous university graduates and skilled artisans as they are faced with prospects of ending their miseries in the labor markets.  Oil theft is no longer a socio-economic menace which had pestered frenziedly in the yesteryear, becoming a forceful curse to the past and present leaders of Nigeria.

Nigerians have now really rallied behind the government of Muhammadu Buhari reposing  implicit confidence in it having realized that it has set out to contain dangerous situations that had previously culminated in widespread insecurity, brought about by unwarranted sectarian crisis, wanton political violence and endless unrests triggered by unhealthy ethnic rivalries. The hopeless and desperate situations that greeted President Buhari’s administration, occasioned by economic stagnation and general apathy among the citizenry, have now turned into joy and renewed energy in releasing the positive potentials of the people to contribute positively to the overall development of their dear fatherland.

Nigerians have deliberately fostered new government in order to overcome these self-inflicted predicaments and to also assuage the extreme poverty across the northern parts of the country principally to contain the spate of bombings, shootings and kidnapping by religious extremists and other scoundrels. President Buhari has acknowledged the fact that poverty has always provided motivation for insurgency by the economically disadvantageous and politically marginalized elements within the society, and in that regards became determined to drastically address it at both state and local government levels, where there is very high concentration of relatively poor folks. In that way, he has succeeded in prosecuting the war against all forms of vices almost effortlessly and effectively.

Nigerians are therefore encouraged by the administration of General Muhammadu Buhari having realized that he is poised to modify the existing government policies not purposely formulated or geared towards alleviating the problems caused by pronounced inequality and redistribution of wealth.
Now, with scanty, threatened oil income, but a purposeful government to make judicious use of it, the potentials of small holding farmers are being maximized in cultivating sufficient food to feed the teeming populace, and large numbers of able-bodied youths that roam the streets every day in search of jobs are being organized into productive ventures. Agriculture has been made more attractive and many idle youths and unemployed people are enthusiastically partaking in it.

There are indications that in the next few years more than eighty percent of the nation’s food requirement, currently imported from abroad, would be produced locally to augment the efforts of ensuring   the nation’s self-sufficiency in food production.
Now, one year after, the general assessment of President Buhari’s administration  was that he  has a tremendous goodwill for his country despite the fact that there are some clogs on the wheel that make people misunderstand his moves. Right now there is too much power tussle among those that surround him. The change yearned by Nigerians will not just materialize by coveting it, because if people do not change their attitudes and dispositions they will certainly be changed or be swept away by the winds of change.

Some people, wrongly or rightly, believe that President Buhari’s administration is slow, but such people ought to remember an age-old saying that slow and steady wins the race. That Buhari is slow does not mean he is not moving at the peoples’ expectations. Nigeria is full of impatient people that are always in a hurry. Such peevish and petulant people must learn to wait because things just do not happen; after all Rome was not built in one day. People who ardently clamor for a change must remember that the change that is not given a chance to manifest will very easily turn into a chain. It will indeed put in them in bondage rather than freeing them.

So far, so good, and it goes without saying that Nigeria under President Muhammadu Buhari is coming out of the situation that overwhelmed and confused its people in the past. Buhari’s administration will hopefully, within the next three years, effectively eradicate the widespread socio-political problems that had been bedeviling the country through good governance and judicious distribution of the nation’s immense resources.