What President Buhari Needs To Do, By Rabiu Shamma
POLITICS DIGEST – President Muhammadu Buhari is perceived by many Nigerians as having integrity, this perception can be traced back to when Buhari was military head of state and later when he was the head of one of the most lucrative agencies in Nigeria history, that is the PTF under the late military leader, General Sani Abacha of blessed memory.
Mr President demontrated quality leadership that endeared him to Nigerians back then. Since Buhari’s return as a duly democratically elected President in 2015 and later reelected in 2019, many have started to doubt his overbloated perception of integrity, eventhough I can say up till today nobody can perhaps point at Buhari of having engaged in any shady deal to enrich himself personally or any member of his family, but many have the belief that Mr President seems nonchalant and obviously never proactive in dealing with alleged corruption cases against people close to him or those he is working with as part of his cabinet.
Recently, there has been palpable frustration with the style of leadership of Mr President, the President seems to be far detached from the ordinary people, he seems not aware of the rise of frustration with the economic reality particularly biting hard, insecurity escalating, majority of the populace are suffering with depression and utter poverty. Healthcare facilities, education and general infrastructure are in need of dire attention, but there seems not to be any policy intervention to arrest some of these decline.
Some of us that worked for the reelection of Mr President in 2019 still have sincere belief that Mr President can turn a leaf and become the no nonsense leader we all crave for, in order to quickly tackle some of the myriad of problems confronting us as a nation. We still believe that Mr President, with the goodwill he still has among some of us can demontrate some of the following leadership qualities we all expected a Buhari presidency to be.
President Muhammadu Buhari can as a matter of urgency start to demontrate ability to resolve problems and find out lasting solutions to them, a situation whereby the president demonstrate lack of awareness on some of the problems facing this country should not be exhibited again.
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Secondly, the President should delegate task to the right people with proven record of delivery and patriotism in their previous assignments or even businesses. A situation where charlatans are appointed to head sensible positions must be stopped immediately. There are a lot of young people waiting to bring vigour and expertise to Mr President’s cabinet, they should be incorporated to assist Mr President deliver on his promises in this second term.
Mr President should also demonstrate ability to organise people and resources, he should be seen to be giving all his ministers deadlines to deliver on specific assignments and also to punish those found wanting. Mr President should also move closer to the people, he should interact more and open ways of getting direct feedbacks from ordinary Nigerians, he should be proactive and pay unschedule visits to Ministries, Schools and Hospitals, President Buhari is too detached from the people at the moment. Mr President should not be afraid to fire people, he should also not be afraid to make policies that may hurt the few individuals that have hold this country to ransom, siphoning our collective resources and plunging the majority of the masses further into abject poverty. Mr President should also inject serious money and entrepreneurship policies to Small and Medium Scale Entreprises, Nigerians are naturally industrious, what many need is the enabling environment and support to succeed in their businesses.
I am not a good economist, but I believe there is shortage of money circulating among small businesses in the country, that is why despite our population, many businesse are collapsing for lack of patronage. Mr President should also look into our closed border issues, many businesses have collapsed, while millions have gone into penury as a result of the closed borders. Without any iota of doubt, Mr President has the following qualities. No matter what some people will say, I can still vouch for Mr Presidents integrity, patriotism, intelligence, sense of humour, he can motivate if he wishes and also charismatic. Mr President also has still got the goodwill of the international community.
In my book, Mr President has also achieved some level of success in his first tenure, the introduction of single treasury account has gone a long way in reducing corruption, relative success in the fight against insurgency was also recorded, the Npower program has also helped in reducing the army of unemployed youth roaming the streets, there was also some level of recruitment into police, immigration, fire service and other para military agencies which has also reduced the number of unemployed people among young people. Mr president should however please start to demonstrate some of the above quality leadership pointers to bring the country out of the woods. Security and Welfare of the people should be the cardinal priority of Mr Presidents second tenure.
Malam Rabiu Shamma, Chairman Kano Youth Coalition for Advocacy and Development (KAYCAD).
