The wind of desirable change that has swept across Nigeria on May 29, 2015 is still raging 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 that 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. With the introduction numerous youth empowerment policies, the despondency which came along with widespread unemployment that had hitherto created very dangerous situation 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 past, becoming a forceful curse to the past and present leaders of Nigeria.
Nigerians have now really rallied behind the government they have implicit confidence in as 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 hopelessand desperate situations that greeted President Buhari’s administration, occasioned by economic stagnation and general apathy among the citizenry, have now turned into vitality and renewed energy in releasing the positive potentials of the people to contribute positively to the overall development of their dear fatherland.
In that way, many Nigerians have deliberately fostered a new government in order to overcome these self-inflicted predicaments and to also assuage the extreme poverty across the northern parts of the country mainly to contain the spate of bombings, shootings and kidnapping by terrorists, 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. Accordingly, the government has succeeded in prosecuting the war against all forms of corruption and decadence almost effortlessly and effectively.
Nigerians are therefore encouraged by this administration having realized that it was poised to modify the existing government policies which have not been purposely formulated or geared towards alleviating the problems caused by pronounced inequality and redistribution of wealth. These twin factors have been highly responsible for the limitation of growth and opportunities among Nigerian citizen, and the government had already clearly illustrated how states and the federal governments could be encouraged to develop their scant economic fortunes and generate millions of jobs as a significant step to eradicate poverty.
Now, with a purposeful government to make judicious use of scant resources, 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 mobilized into productive ventures.
Agriculture has been made more attractive and many idle youths and unemployed people are enthusiastically partaking in it, especially on rice fields, and there are indications that in the next few years more than eighty percent of the nation’s food requirements, imported from abroad, would be produced locally to augment the efforts to ensure nation’s self-sufficiency in food production.
Now, two year after, the general assessment of President Muhammad Buhari and his able lieutenant, Yemi Osinbajo, was that they mean well for the country despite the fact that there are some clogs on the wheel that make people misunderstand their moves. Right now there is too much power tussle among those that surround them distracting them unnecessarily or even seeking to derail their train.
The change yearned by Nigerians will not just materialize by coveting it, because if those longing for it do not change their attitudes and dispositions they will certainly be changed or be swept away by the winds of change. People must work hard to ensure that change, and if they think they are suffering in their struggle to enforce change they should realize that there is always a light at the end of a dark tunnel.
Some people, wrongly or rightly, believe the Buhari 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 people’s 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 because 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 chain people rather than changing them.
So far, so good, and it goes without saying that Nigeria under President Buhari is coming out of the situation that overwhelmed and confused its people in the past and 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.
