Why We Voted Buhari

In the book "A Little Bit of Everything For Dummies" Chapter 7 talks about Leadership, I would use the introduction copiously to drive home this admonition. Leadership begins with the willingness to accept responsibility. But to what end? Does responsibility mean, for example, that you have to involve yourself in the personal lives of the people you're leading? Do you have to be all things to your group, wearing all the hats at all times? Accepting and dealing with responsibility are so fundamental to leadership...

The central responsibility of a leader is to provide the climate necessary for creating growth and success. You can do many things as a leader, but ultimately, if your group's mission isn't successful and you don't manage to grow something--whether it's the skill and knowledge in a group of kids you're mentoring or the profits of a major enterprise--then you have failed in your most basic responsibilities as a leader.

Defining the central responsibility is simple. But for your group to be a success and to accomplish growth of some sort, you'll have to do a lot of other things along the way.

So whether it was rigged, whether the chess-playing generals of yore (remember that picture of 'the men" in uniform playing draft), or the West did not want Jonathan is all subject to conjectures. Whether he failed as president, was clueless or a buffoon like some Nigerian writing for "oyinbo" paper called him is not the matter.

The fact, which cannot be subjected to opinion, is that, Jonathan called Mr. Buhari, congratulated him and today we are in the hemisphere of change. Before we came to this junction let me refresh our minds in a most cruel manner, and forgive me, as this is not on intent.

We voted Buhari because he was seen as a symbol of moral rectitude, he was/is "mai gaskiya" the anti-corruption czar. Christians and Muslims voted him, above-and-under age voted him, both real and ghost voters with and without card readers agreed it was time up for Jona-Jona.

We voted him ‘cause we were tired of the "fresh air" or was it "fresh breath". We voted Mr. Buhari, because some persons who now had many shoes were bent on leaving majority of us without legs. We equally to an extent had lost empathy for the umbrella, and anything that it represented was treated like an outcast. We all voted Buhari, and anyone whose head shared poster with him...He was simply the poster boy for the word "change".

We voted him because we were promised an end to Boko Haram (in how many hours or days, many cared less). We voted because we believed that at long last social security in the color of N5K was on the road to our banks whether we work or not.

Many of us voted, 'cause we saw a new Nigeria on the horizon, and trust me, I am no pessimist, and I still see a new Nigeria. However it is at this junction I need veer off the road. While the current administration met a falling nation, met enormous problems, a collapsing construct. Mr. President needs to understand, he was not elected to come tell us the problem or who caused it, but to solve it.

Nigerians want miracles, to say that Nigerians should exercise patience, would be like telling the Lion not to devour you because you are a vegetarian. To say that Nigerians should accept that we are going somewhere because some thieving big boys who simply have grown white beards are being tried on the media is not enough.

To spend precious energy TSA-ing, and aggregating emoticons on how Jonathan is under probe, Obasanjo is in the middle of a probe, or Chief of Witchcraft is above probe belabors the truth that this administration is yet to sincerely take off.

And though it remains a debate, and would be aggregately an exercise in futility to say how successful Jonathan, Obasanjo, or Yar'adua (who could not wait to get enough stick as Nigerian President) was. We all almost agree that after they leave the office almost all Nigerian President suddenly have something they know which their predecessor did not know...in reverse they all know the problem and possible solutions until we give them power.

And this is because many times, our leaders when it comes to responsibility, they strongly underestimate the enormous nature of the task they embark on. While Jonathan blamed those around him, and spoke only in Church, Mr. Buhari blames Jonathan, and everyone, but himself, and then speaks only abroad.

Our leaders need to start taking some responsibilities. We voted Mr. Buhari to bring about change, beyond partisan affiliations, we need to see change, real change…not the handover to a veepee while going on a five-day vacation. We need to see that kids of high worth public officials are finally attending good public schools; we want to pay for consumed electricity. We want to see Wike allowing Amaechi to work on our trains, airports, and roads.

Nigerians need go to sleep knowing that the Aso Rock clinic is not getting more money than Teaching Hospitals, we all, at the end of the current drama need to see the names being paraded around as corrupt in jail after a due judicial process (not that I mind them being thrown to Jupiter to be burnt)

Four years is not a lot of time, like the voice of that dude in "Who wants to be a Millionaire", Mr. Buhari's time does not start now, it’s has already started. Nigerians are not smiling, many cannot pay school fees, even my friend that wants to get married complained that the dollar is on the rise, and to think of it, he is from the village, and marrying a villager (wetin concern dollar). However the truth is that there is disconnect...one, which the mechanics at the change workshop need to start fixing.

I love my country; I would criticize its leaders including Mr. Buhari, so that they can do well, I shall not engage in some needless praise, or sycophancy.. I am neither a Buharist, nor Jonathanian: I am a Nigerian and in my criticisms, and admonition, all I crave is a better Nigeria, not a messiah, because there are none, so we either continue making excuses again like we did for Jonathan or get Mr. Buhari to really start working, our choice—Only time will tell.

Prince Charles Dickson
Freelance Journalist
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