Buhari needs all the support

Since Muhammadu Buhari was announced as the winner of the March 28, 2015 presidential election in Nigeria, so much has been said and written in the form of advice and agenda-setting for the president-elect and his incoming administration. Virtually all sections of the country, including different interest groups and organisations, the media, the business community, the academia, among others, have in their various ways outlined what they think should be the priority areas of the Buhari administration. Core areas highlighted so far have included the power sector, education, infrastructure, security, corruption, and so on. The voices have become even louder now that the May 29 handover date to the new administration is just around the corner.

We believe this is all in good faith. And it is to be expected. The Buhari presidential campaign rode on the change mantra. And Nigerians massively voted for change. Expectations are therefore very high on the Buhari government given the current near despondent state of the Nigerian system and Buhari’s personal moral credentials – strict, no-nonsense discipline, zero tolerance of corruption, asceticism and frugality with personal and state finances. Many thus see the incoming president as the long-awaited messiah who would right most, if not all, the wrongs of yesteryears.

In all of this, however, one thing seems to have been conspicuously absent: the need for all Nigerians to support the incoming administration to succeed, knowing very well that Buhari is only one man and can only do so much. It indeed goes without saying that without the support of the people, there is really very little that the Buhari government, or any government for that matter, can achieve.

This is why the recent call by President Goodluck Jonathan is very timely and apt. While receiving members of the African Ambassadors Group who were on a farewell and solidarity visit to the State House in Abuja recently, President Jonathan called on Nigerians and the global community to support the incoming government of Muhammadu Buhari, saying the new administration would need the cooperation and commitment of the international community and Nigerians to effectively deliver on its promises to the people.

“It is not just about who becomes the president of a country, but somebody has to be there and the person needs the support of all to succeed,” Jonathan said.

Indeed, beyond all the gratuitous pieces of advice and to-do lists on offer to the incoming president, Nigerians in all walks of life must begin to knock themselves into shape to provide little support in their quiet corners, by living by the laws of the land, to ensure that we get the change we seek and the change we voted for. It does not, and should not, end with marshalling out prescriptions to the man of authority, all Nigerians must resolve “to serve our fatherland with love and strength and faith” – according to the letters and the spirit of the National Anthem. 

Furthermore, while it is not wrong in itself to have high expectations of an incoming government, especially one that anchored its electoral campaign on change and won massive support partly on that basis, it is also imperative to temper these expectations with basic realities. It is therefore incumbent on the incoming government to begin early to put its programmes in perspective and carry Nigerians along early in the day, explaining every part of the process. Buhari rode to the presidency on mass support; he must retain this mass support to effectively deliver on his manifesto.