Verdict of history

It was with great relief that I received the emergence of Muhammadu Buhari as the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress for next month’s election. There’s no better time than now that there is economic downturn, high unemployment rate, profligacy in government, insecurity, lack of electricity, underdevelopment, corruption in high places, lawlessness, seizure of territory by Boko Haram insurgents, government’s inability to rescue the Chibok girls and others being held by Boko Haram. 

The postulation by Thomas Hobbes about a nasty, brutish and lawless society is alive and kicking here. Life in this part of the world indeed is hellish, isn’t it an irony that there exists a government and one who prides himself as a President and Commander-in-Chief of Armed Forces? 

I listened with a bit of surprise when the President declared his intention to run for a second term in office on November 11,2014 and how he laboured in vain to impress on Nigerians a list of unverified achievements. This also reminds us about his first declaration on September 18,2010 and his rekindled speech at the infamous launch of the road map on power in Lagos: “If voted into office within the next four years, the issue of power will become a think of the past. Four years is enough for anyone in power to make significant improvement and if I can’t improve on power within this period, it then means I cannot do anything even if I am there another four years.”  

It is my submission that every leader should have an eye on the verdict of history and that is why a good leader must push forward the frontiers of possibilities well beyond that which he met in office. But creating a low ceiling of possibilities in performance by sticking lamely to existing standards of morality or general attainment is to take the cheap and lowly path to leadership failure, history is usually unkind to such individuals. 

A leader must choose his words with care and great caution. It is unheard of in a truly democratic polity that a leader would say, with respect to his public perception and image, that he doesn’t give a damn and that he is the best thing that has happened to Nigerians. 

I have no idea from where a president serving under the Nigerian Constitution could adopt such an imperial outlook; it is either he doesn’t understand the conceptual pitfalls associated with such a claim by a leader in a republicans society. It ought to be the case in all democratic settings that a president would want to know, whenever he wakes up in the morning, where he stands on the public opinion gauge, his public image and prestige.  

Emmanuel  Umohiyang,  Ilupeju,  Lagos State