Outside the bluntness of man’s ambition, President Muhammadu Buhari is the oldest known Nigerian that has exhibited the longest sustained determination supported by a now historic cry, in his drive to rule Nigeria.
Now that he has succeeded, in the days ahead, Nigerians would be exposed to how prepared he truly is as a president and the essence of lamenting Nigeria’s leadership failure before a world press conference after failing in his electoral bid, 2011.
There is no doubt that he has a commendable administrative past which his opponents love to slam as the ‘non-digital era’ or ‘old-time’. And because Nigeria seriously and timeously needs a revamp in most sectors of its national-life, the new President’s opponents fear he would sooner or later come to discover that things have been taken beyond his reasoning age, which could further plunge Nigeria into dire developmental disabilities.
Determinedly as his opponents have been emphasizing his inability to cope with the strain of administering a peculiar country as Nigeria under a democratic rule, even at the height of the electioneering campaigns, some feared he might unknowingly harm his health with such burden, and prayed that a higher wisdom or authority could prevail and force him to check into a hospital in London, instead of being audacious about a campaign streak that took him to Chatham House.
However, as a man with such legendary will, President Buhari has for the umpteenth time expressed a resolve that he might not now be brimming with the vibrancy of a military commander. But certainly, he would not allow age to beat him to the point of servitude as to become compromising; and therefore needs to prove that his contributions to Nigeria’s leadership requirements can go beyond mere lamentations.
There is something really instructive about President Buhari’s determination. Quite frankly, if he was only driven by monetary quest like most people, he could easily have found a leeway by becoming the Governor of his Northern State of Katsina. He certainly could have won again and again until somebody invokes the constitutional provision which stipulates a governorship’s tenure of not more than two tenures for a single individual.
Aside President Buhari’s first coming as a military head of State; even in the democratic dispensation, he has all the same, not been too far from electoral victory. For his worth as an electoral opponent, former President, late Musa Yar’ Adua had acknowledged the not too wholesome electoral process which brought about his presidential electoral victory.
Before the latest presidential election, the new President understood the need for a providential alliance with some vital interest like the political warhorse of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. As this alliance survived all tests, perhaps only former President Goodluck Jonathan can truly state what the effect of the alliance did to ridicule the gamut of his electoral efforts and war chest.
The congratulating of President Buhari by former President Jonathan on the eve of his electoral victory is significant in so many ways. As the former first citizen of Nigeria, former President Jonathan has shown what he expects other Nigerians to do with Muhammadu Buhari as the new President. Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has demonstrated that President Muhammadu Buhari deserves our congratulations as the person God has chosen to rule Nigeria for now.
This also includes that President Buhari deserves our respect as a laudable contestant who fights by the rules; that coming from different political backgrounds, President Buhari deserves our understanding because competition tends to inflame enmity; that President Buhari deserves our forgiveness if we at one time felt hurt by him – knowing we cannot afford to keep living in our past; that President Buhari deserves our attention because we must all be focused on the road other countries are taking to the future; that President Buhari deserves our corporation because the task of nation-building requires everybody’s contribution; and more especially, that the time has come for all to accept the unassailable fact which invest only Nigeria masses with the powers to determine who should rule them; as it has become very commanding too, that there is no a right way to do a wrong thing.
This time, as we applaud ourselves for casting the search for nationhood beyond the bounds of regional parochialism, we must sustain the positive spirit of President Buhari, who against remaining and enjoying the opulence of his comfort zone as a privileged figure in our country, became restless about solving Nigeria’s problems with a belief and possibility of achieving a pan-Nigeria agenda.
Importantly, we cannot pretend that this would be easy, or that there is a quick fix solution. At the instance of a reporter relating that a driver in the Northern part of Nigeria has accidentally driven into a church building, killing scores of worshippers; another reporter could amplify the story by stating that the driver was reported to be a Moslem; and a further report could state bluntly that Moslems have started killing Christians in the Northern part of Nigeria by savagely driving into churches when worshippers are known to be present.
Most times when we hear of such, even without hesitating to verify the correctness of the reports, tempers are flared up and the need to retaliate becomes urgent. Our regional sentiments take full swing and the ethnic and religious clashes resume.
While we are still living in such cynicism, we should be aware of how much it keeps harming our togetherness and therefore be unceasing in our fight to eradicate it. From failure to achieve selfish aims, we should not foreclose our expectations of people who would sooner or later commence the sowing of disharmonious seeds into the alliance that has offered our democracy yet another opportunity to see Nigeria working.
Notwithstanding this, the onus would still be on President Buhari to prove that he has not prepared for so long in vain. Certainly not after lamenting the failure of other rulers to do the right things, and more especially with the overwhelming support he now enjoys, which should equip him with the necessary goodwill and transitional abilities to solve new and old generational problems.

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