By Segun Adeleye
As the hand of the clock ticks to May 29, 2023, which is the fixed date for the inauguration of the 16th President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in the person of Asiwaju of Lagos, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is now transmuting into the Asiwaju of Nigeria, it behoves on well-meaning Nigerians who are sick and tired of the status quo ante to lend a voice on what they expect from the man providence has placed on the driver's seat.
This intervention is part of the cacophony of voices of agenda setting that we have been having, justifiably so. It is necessary and timely, considering the pack of pain the party under which umbrella Tinubu miraculously emerged as President has brought to bear on the citizenry. The pains are palpable.
The totality of it is that the All-Progressives Congress (APC) which manned the saddle in the last eight years, thereabout has broken the records of cluelessness of its predecessor, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). A paradigm shift is therefore needed in all facets of our national life.
And this brings me to metaphorically think of the all-time enduring legacy of the Great Man-made River Project undertaken by the late Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. The water and irrigation constructed with the princely sum of amount far in excess of $25billion brought succour to all areas of the Libyans’ lives.
All lives and living of the Nigerian State need the Great Man-made Water of Tinubu's ingenuity to tackle unemployment, unarguably the greatest threat to the corporate existence of the country leading to crime and criminality of all shades. It breeds insecurity, which is pervasive and discomforting to rational minds within and without the country. Beside the insecurity poised by unemployment, the twin brother of unemployment is the depletion of the best of the best of our professionals through the Japa syndrome. Our youths are leaving the country in droves due to lack of employment, which the coming administration should address genetically.
And talking of genetic solution to unemployment, education, which is the acquisition of skills should be prioritized; it should be hugely subsidized if it cannot run as a social service as done by Gaddafi under his watch in Libya- yet another great man-made river project the Asiwaju Presidency should address, if need be, with the declaration of a state of emergency, in this critical sector. A whole lot is wrong with our educational system. A confluence of experts drawn from far and near should be engaged for holistic solutions.
The Presidency under Asiwaju needs to arm itself with right education to convince the fear-driven sections of the country on the import of both fiscal and physical restructuring of the Nigerian state. It will lead us back to the days of yores of enduring legacies like the cocoa house, the groundnut pyramid and the coal heap which were prides of the regions, then. Days of healthy competition made possible by peer review.
Like education, yet another very critical area which the Tinubu Presidency should consider reforming for posterity is our election management process. Managing this well is a precursor to having an efficient and therefore effective governance, which would be the pride of all Nigerians.
This needs to be pursued with vigour and aspirations to leave a legacy. Revisiting the 43-man Uwais report will not be a minus, but rather, a plus for the post-Presidency profile of the President. Losing lives and property to the conduct of elections is not a good commentary in the 21st century Nigeria. Breaking the banks in the process of becoming candidates and emerging victorious or losing in election is antithetical to development. A demonetized process of electioneering would naturally kill thuggery and engender good governance.
One other critical sector which Mr. President could use to cultivate what I call electoral godfathers is leveraging on the pseudo electricity restructuring which President Muhammadu Buhari has done by signing into law that states could generate electricity on their own. Talking about saving the best for the last. A Tinubu Presidency that guarantees uninterrupted power supply will further set him parallel to the squanderers of $16billion meant to revive electricity years back. This will sure make ordinary Nigerians his godsons.
Can we do something about buying electricity meters, poles, transformers and other auxiliary materials for one's use and not being able to lay claim to ownership? What energy distribution companies should provide for you, you buy yourself and hand over ownership back to the companies. What an anomaly! Can we stop providing money to a private sector operation that the generations company are, with state funds. Just, can we?
It disturbs me wherever I see uncultivated land mass right and left of our highways and our youths are clustering at what is now known as "base" in towns, cities and even villages. They have legitimatized idleness and louting so much so that they put ears on the ground to know and harass whoever is doing any development project in the neighbourhood. A calculative and deliberate policy must be put in place to rid the streets of urchins for the gains of the uncultivated land which abound everywhere. If deserts can feed her citizens with left overs, Nigeria must do much more than what it is doing in Agriculture. Let us use Agriculture to drive industrialization to cause Japada, a reversal of japa.
It gladdens one's memory to remember that the President-elect had said a credit system will be instituted to curb corruption. The era of deploying wholesome payment to get items off the shelf will be a thing of the past. For the Nigerians who will want to steal OKE-ILEWO in Abeokuta after Ogun State had been willed to them as inheritance, I think capital punishment should be considered in the whole anti-corruption pill. We should not shy away from engaging the lawmakers on this and seek the understanding of all to embrace capital punishment.
Having seen the uncanny courage displayed during the electioneering period by ABAT, one is of the considered opinion that he will be the Paul Kagame of Nigeria; he will brandish the magic wand of Harry Leè Kuan Yew in this land of poverty amidst plenty and he will use his Midas touch GREAT MAN-MADE RIVER PROJECT to percolate all the areas of concerns in Nigeria so that freshness can flourish, once again in our land.
Segun Adeleye was:
DIRECTOR, MEDIA AND PUBLICITY
PROGRESSIVE VOLUNTEERS,
TINUBU/SHETTIMA 2023
OGUN STATE CHAPTER.
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