A new dawn

Today is a historic day in Nigeria. Today marks 16 unbroken years of democracy in the country after nearly three decades of military rule punctuated only by a failed Second Republic and an aborted Third Republic.

Since the country’s return to civil rule in 1999, May 29 has come to be celebrated as Democracy Day. This is primarily because it was the day that the military, with General Abdulsalami Abubakar as head of state, finally handed over the reins of power to the civilian government of Olusegun Obasanjo.

But this year’s Democracy Day is different in many respects. First, it is witnessing the exit of one federal administration and the ushering-in of another. But not just that. It is the first time since 1999 that a president from a hitherto opposition party is acceding to the High Magistracy of our Federal Republic.

For many Nigerians, today represents the dawn of a new era. The overriding mood is that of optimism. The hopes and expectations are higher than ever. The euphoria in the air is both fever-pitch and contagious. The mood in the country today, according to some analysts, mirrors the mood at Independence in 1960.

And the reasons for this are not far-fetched. For one, the performance of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) at the helm of the nation’s affairs in the last 16 years has been far from sterling. In spite of huge earnings from oil revenues in recent years, Nigeria has failed to save any significant amount in the Excess Crude Account while the naira has seen major devaluations; the power sector has remained comatose despite multiple attempts at privatisation; the oil sector has remained synonymous with high level corruption and unbridled cronyism – in short, the economy has remained in tatters.

Things seemed to have worsened in the last five years under the Goodluck Jonathan presidency. The much achievement the Jonathan administration recorded in the areas of agriculture, infrastructure rehabilitation and power reform fades into insignificance when placed side by side with the massive corruption and impunity that bred and festered under his watch as well as his inability, initially, to tackle the insecurity that rocked the north-eastern part of the country.

So, for many Nigerians, change was inevitable. And to them, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, represented this change. Buhari and the APC anchored their campaign on the change mantra, raising the hopes of Nigerians with mouth-watering electoral promises. And on March 28, 2015, Nigerians, in their millions, voted for change.

The English theologian and historian, Thomas Fuller, in his 1650 religious travelogue ‘A Pisgah-Sight of Palestine and the Confines Thereof’, writes, “It is always darkest just before the day dawneth.” It is the hope of many Nigerians that the country has seen its darkest hour under the Jonathan presidency. The Buhari presidency, therefore, represents the long-awaited dawn.

Many Nigerians from different walks of life have outlined what they want from the incoming administration. The list of agenda-setters continues to grow by the day. This, in our view, is a measure of goodwill and the confidence reposed on the Buhari administration.

There is no doubt that the Buhari government is inheriting a broken country and a broken economy. It is understandable that the rot in the system will take a while to fix. However, Nigerians want to see the first necessary bold steps in this direction in the first few days of the life of the new administration. President Muhammadu Buhari, the hopes of Nigerians must not be dashed. Your time begins now.