By Steve Osuji
We went to sleep in 2014 and woke up to find a mediocre ensconced at the very apogee of power in Nigeria... to our pain and ruins today.
Buhari has bludgeoned our country, he has seared our souls with red-hot lead and has almost torn us to bits. He has set us back 50 years. And finally, he has lined us up for tanning: snakes and scorpions in the form of atrocious fuel and energy price hikes for 2022; the type Nigerians have never experienced. These must be his dark parting gifts for us... but we know for sure that even Buhari will pass too...
But never again shall we allow ourselves to be scourged by the mediocrity of the magnitude we suffer today. We must be vigilant and shout and kick and scream anytime this ugly pestilence rears its head again. And this is the reason for this post. I have had cause about one year ago, to comment on the quest for the presidency by the incumbent Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal. He had set about a blitz of consultations then, jetting all across the country, preparatory to declaring for president.
The action then was particularly irksome considering that his state, Sokoto was among the most backward then by practically all human development indices. Tambuwal had done about five years in office, he had no excuse for such poor performance. Yet, all he wanted was to be president.
The case of out-of-school children was particularly staggering - about 1.5 million. And this matter remains quite troubling even to this moment. The Almajirai scourge which is at the root of most other social vices roiling the state remains unattended. Not a bold legislation outlawing the retrograde practice; not a comprehensive institutional review to merge Almajirai into the formal school system - a win-win proposition.
University admission, Unity school intake, centralized certificate examinations, etc remain abysmal. We expected so much from Tambuwal considering his antecedents as Speaker of the House and his cosmopolitan outlook.
But right now, he appears a whited sepulchre, a fluke. He does not seem to have taken sedate Sokoto, the great seat of the caliphate, one inch further than he found it. Apart from education, security in the state remains his albatross. I have a particular affection for Sokoto, it is the home of my youth service and it's serenity suited my nature. I hated to leave after service and l missed the place even many years after.
Today, Sokoto is among the epicenter of banditry in the northwest, trailing behind Zamfara and Niger States. Only last month, daredevil bandits had struck at a weekly market in Goronyo (home of the famous dam: doubt if it's still functional), opening fire at the market horde and killing about 60 instantly and injuring uncountable. It was a bloodbath. It was a dark day for Sokoto, for Nigeria, and for humanity.
At the same time, it was the sort of day great leaders are made. It was the sort of day history presents to perspicacious leaders to mount the gilded pedestal of greatness. Tambuwal was of course blind to the moment. The wise world waited for him to be a statesman, to craft a great speech, to mount the rostrum, and to punch his fist in fits of umbrage; to tell the world that never again would his people be slaughtered like a tethered herd; to tell the world that he would chase the bloodthirsty bastards, who walked casually into an adjoining forest, that he would chase them to the end of the world.
Tambuwal told the world nothing. It was as if nothing happened. But something grievous happened and has continued to happen. Bandits have been tormenting Sokoto State as if the place is devoid of a governor!
As at 1986 when I served there, Sokoto was among the major food baskets of Nigeria. It had many functional dams and it produced a lot of rice before rice became a national crop, among other grains. I remember also they had a way with vines that produced various fruits. Even if there were structured approaches to agric, rampaging bandits would have made a muck of it. It may well be that Tambuwal has put up more stellar performance than we can see but these things don't hide. Prof. Babagana Zulum, Borno governor presents an example that good deeds would always shine forth.
It's trite that Tambuwal is within his rights to quest for the top prize but it is also within our rights to insist that we do not think he qualifies. That is what this column seeks to do.
On what performance indices do we assess him after nearly seven years as a governor? In any case, he should be reeling out his scorecard for us to assess and verify. But all he says is he just wants to be president as if it's a divine right. Like many other aspirants, people seek to be president just because they want to and not because there's a mission. It's quite disconcerting that Governor Tambuwal is dead on becoming Nigeria's president after he obviously has not acquitted himself well as a governor.
Second, in his vaulting ambition, he forgets that inclusion is more the soul of democracy than sheer inanimate numbers. How could Tambuwal in good conscience want to be president after 8 years of President Buhari, another man from the northwest? Shall we just simply conclude that it's preposterous. It is insensitive. It is akin to calling his compatriots from the south stupid without saying it. Lack of inclusion is the sole reason President Buhari has failed so woefully.
Never again shall we allow the calamity of 2014 to befall us again. In this business of running a country, CAPACITY IS KEY, track record of performance will not be compromised.
As I averred in the first intervention, Tambuwal has his hands full already. A great governor is as good as any president. He still has a bit of time, let him apply that huge presidential campaign war chest to his people. But he can yet secure his Sokoto legacy, and who knows... In any case, whatever happens thereafter, history will be kind to him.
...Steve Osuji is one of Nigeria's most prolific and erudite Journalists, a newspaper Editor, and renowned Columnist. NNL.
