JON WEST WROTE: I read the full interview granted The Cable online newspaper by Muhammadu Buhari and certain sore points stick out. When asked about resource control, restructuring of the Federation and Federal Character, he not so very cleverly side - stepped these crucial issues in his response. It is quite clear that this gentlemen is not in tune with the aspirations of the rest of the nation, as opposed to his Moslem Northern stronghold. There is more to Nigeria than the core North or even the SouthWest. We need a leader that is not prisoner to a perception whether positive or negative. We need a Nigerian leader and will have to accept some of his failings warts and all. However we do not need a regional zealot. Perception is reality and reality drives perception , so says the business analysts. It also applies to politics. What did Buhari say when his fundamentalist hordes attacked the Miss World competition in Abuja? He admonished Obasanjos Government for allowing the pageant in the North during the holy month of Ramadan. After this embarrassment, the hosting of the peageant by Nigeria was cancelled and awarded to 99% Moslem Turkey a week later. The peageant held during the same holy month in Moslem Turkey and nobody complained or killed any infidels. Buhari is responsible for his own political and perception problems. He comes across as a zealot both in speech and looks and also history. It is quite possible that he will make a good President in these very corruption-tainted times in Nigeria, but there is also the corruption of incompetence , nepotism, and intransigence that has always followed him from NNPC, PTF and his short term in office in 1984/85. If you want to lead a country in this century, then you must be perceived as a leader of all so that the country can make progress and the necessary sacrifice that this requires. Buhari cannot help being surrounded by his ilk, and I Think this will be a disaster for Nigeria at this point in time. The time for the Divine Right of Kings , Jackboots and all that nonsense is past. I would really love to see a great secular leader emerge from the current mess, to take us to the promised land. However, I dont see anybody among the discredited hordes masquerading as Presidential candidates who holds even a candle to the sub-optimal Goodluck Jonathan. I would personally give the incumbent the benefit of the doubt in 2015, in order to give us time to perhaps discover our own transformers such as Barak Obama, De Klerk, Bill Clinton and Lula of Brazil. Until then its Goodluck to us all.
Posted on: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 09:23:05 +0000
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