President Buhari, GEJ, and The Garland of Blanched Hopes

PDP’s bubble gum at the centre have finally ran out of sugar. Mr. Jonathan and his party have been left like a common mongrel, sprawling on the ground. The air of their loss at the April 27 polls still rings, putting behind us his 5-year reign as the president of world’s most populous black nation, now, only a relic of history, and before us, years of uncertainty interlaced with a cauldron of worries, worries fed and watered by the ambiguity of what tomorrow holds.

Having provided many mouthwatering promises, our former major opposition party, All Progressives Congress, not only succeeded in sweeping GEJ and his party with the broom, sometimes painted green, white and green, that symbolizes the party and secure itself tenancy in Aso rock, it now serve the majority in our red and green legislative chambers.

Mr. Buhari’s victory, searing and profound, suffused with joy, sorrow, and longing, keeps our expectations hinged, and they remain hanging because it remains uncertain still whether our hopes were raised for nothing and if they will be dashed and smashed like a mosquito to an evenly leveled concrete wall.

The victory, which landed GEJ, our Otueke-born, soft spoken, former C-in-C, in the untimely travesty of “once upon a time” Nigerian president and brings to mind the overused and worn-out cliché: Time is of the essence, at first, wracked his people, south southerners, with bitter disbelief, wrapped them in the pashmina of the wounded, the cheated, unsure whether or not their own will ever ascend the presidential stool, ruptured a gash that may take forever to seal in their hearts, and calls for reflections and cross-examinations while the bitter-sweet glow it brought lingers.

Just like president Buhari, GEJ is said to be a good, sincere and honest man. Yes, he may be sinewy with goodness and passion for Nigeria, but can we hazard that any of those admirable traits had any bearing on his tenancy at Aso rock?

As president, he could have given us a better life, a life he and our realities determined it margins. He did promise to give us a better life. He promised to put epileptic power in the past tense. He promised to fight corruption and insecurity. He promised to tackle unemployment and make it stuck in its nadir. In 2011, he promised us things very similar to what the APC recently promised us. But anyone who is remotely familiar with the average Nigerian politician will recognize these promises for what they are; mere promises.

What exactly happened to the industries he promised the Niger delta? The Itakpe iron company, nko, why didn’t he revive it as promised? Oh, his plans to revive the Ajaokuta steel complex slowly flapped its wings and flew itself like an eagle, a super eagle, into the heavens and his plans of getting industries in Lagos up and running, developed legs of its own and ran with the speed of thought into the Sahara?

What stopped his EFCC from clamping down his ministers and political appointees who wore “corruption” like crisp suits? If not for his natural proclivity towards shielding the corrupt, a standing that sure sullied his gentle, soft spoken and saint-like mien and demeanor, why was Stella Oduah not punished for violating due process in purchase of cars and the perpetrators of the petrol subsidy scam not prosecuted?

Why did we experience towering impunity under his watch? Why did he watch patent illegality transpire with ease? He stealthily made us see judges subjected to the fate of common pickpockets in Ekiti and officers like AIG Mbu, don impunity like a hat well positioned on the head of an Ijaw chief. In fact, he rode on the wave of tyranny to a bigger office, even. We saw a man, a father, who treated the kidnap of our Chibok girls rather insouciantly, an act that further ashen the evening of his presidency.

Perhaps, acceding to the frisson of hopes and longings that welcomed his inauguration in 2011 and acknowledging the fevered gongs of expectancy that made Nigerians push for his transition into that hallowed office after his boss passed, we saw a man who consented his failings at a time too late.

At any rate, all we can do is hope not to see a president Buhari, who like his predecessor, will be engulfed in a bittersweet glow of an ending limbo and seek refuge behind an armada of regrets, regrets of having promised too much during his campaign and done too little while he served as president, at the twilight of his tenure. Let’s pray we wouldn’t see a Buhari, who like GEJ, will have several garlands of blanched hopes finely placed on the neck that connects his head to his slim, lanky frame.

In closing, here’s to all, who like this writer, heard, from the mouth of our former president, speeches underlain by several prick of pins, delivered in hush and wan tones of regret, regret of having not done enough for his people, and saw in his eyes, during his thanksgiving services at the Church of Advent in Abuja and much later at St. Peters Anglican church in his home state of Bayelsa, ghosts of goodwill to his people morph to life, how much he tried to hide the chink in his armor and shake off the morose shadow, notwithstanding. Let’s hope and pray Mr. Buhari wouldn’t follow his predecessor’s template. Let’s hope that for the peoples’ general, it wouldn’t be lather, rinse, repeat.

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Articles by Joel Pereyi