• Continued from last week…
The innocent person becomes caged and held captive in a world of make believe. Not very long after, the leader no longer picks his calls. Get at him in a chance meeting the excuse will be “Am always very busy”. Few months to winding down, his attitude would change, and he would pick and answer calls. At such a moment, he would tell the once abandoned acquaintance something along this line: “You know my tenure is almost coming to an end.” Really, we need to take another look at the security and functions built around our leaders. The ‘security’ cordon around them is anti-good governance.
These days I take time to listen to some of our leaders speak. Armed with the knowledge of end of tenure blues, I take special interest in the addresses they give. I have found that a common line runs through most of their speeches and it is this: “I am leaving office in May next year”, “My tenure is almost coming to an end”
Many of these our leaders whose tenures are almost ending are restless and really troubled about their placing after office. I can deduce that in spite of the bravado they display at the start of their tenure. At some point they begin to care about what the verdict of history on them and their times in public office would be. The take away for us as a collective should be the need to reorder our structures in such a manner that incoming leaders know that we operate in the world of reality, where no man can stand as God. And since no man is God, it means that whatever has a beginning must have an end. Put in another context, power is transient, so whatever good you can do you begin from the first day to dispense it, knowing it is by our rich legacy that one will be remembered.
If our leaders were schooled enough and have requisite knowledge they will know even before assuming power that there is great gain in staying glued to the world of reality. They will not only hear what the people say, they will know exactly what they want. When leaders struggle to tell constituents so much has been done and yet the people reply «you can tell that to the marines», what has happened may not be entirely about no achievements recorded; it could be more about projects and activities that are far off the basic needs of the people. This development is most often the consequence of alienation. Good behaviour is cardinal and should be thought in schools and entrenched as an abiding convention. This is what people who earnestly desire sustainable change do elsewhere and from what we see it works. Watching the British Prime Minister fight for his programmes and policies almost daily in parliament, you see the beauty of both republicanism and democracy as system for moving society forward.
Today’s Buhari is a smiling Buhari, the one for all of seven years in power chose to appear like a man with a heart of bile. The ideal leader in a democracy should be genial, approachable, yet strong and firm in the positive sense. Charisma is part of the game, not taciturnity. In this late hour, he has been labouring to be what he should have been from the beginning, when he was first voted into power in 2015. Today, he portrays accommodation, he no longer talks tough, he is beginning to visit areas outside his zone. Just imagine if he began this way; some of us could bet a significant proportion of the tension stoking the land would have been nipped in bud before they grew to become monstrous.
Having made the points on personal understanding and conduct, highlighted some evils and hindrances it poses, it is important we know that we must watch out for what these departing leaders do in terms of policy enunciation, award of contracts, appointments and employments. A typical example would be what President Buhari and his administration has done with refining of crude oil, refined products supply and subsidy. They came to power promising us to revitalize and build new refineries. They also told us they never believed in anything like subsidy. Nearly seven years into the eight year of the two terms, there is no refinery while subsidy on petrol supply has doubled, if not quadrupled what they met when they assumed office.
After seven years in office, the uncanny thing in all of this is that the matter received no concrete attention beyond raising pump price of refined products, primarily petrol, diesel and kerosene. Few months to the end of their tenure it became a major issue and assumed a nature of life and death. Following anticipated controversy the administration settled for an eighteen-month moratorium on the issue. What it means is that such a policy laden with landmine is initiated but left for the new administration to inherit. This is what end of tenure blues can do. It doesn›t solve problems it rather complicates matters. Dislocations from end of tenure blues is not limited to policy, it cuts across. The pain it has caused is not ended yet it has not propelled our leaders to change course; it is this reason and more that should motivate us to wake up from passivity and insist on right things being done. Proper transformation is difficult to realize except those agitating for better deal know what the challenges are and what relevant solutions should be applicable. Today many blame low federal allocations for inability of states to pay wages at due dates, but the root of the challenge is not that, it is found buried elsewhere.
It has more to do with unreasoned duplication of agencies and units, and reckless employment that often will not follow the rules of need, vacancies and expertise. Every leader when reminded that they have not done anything for their people flood offices with personnel as they leave office. It won’t matter to them that the recurrent expenditure implications of such decision, as far as they are concerned, is a burden for the incoming government. It is part of what has taken us to the point where we have to borrow money to pay salaries. For how long would this be? I don’t know. If you know please tell us. What I do know is that challenges are best solved from the root. Let those ending their tenures avoid “end of tenure blues” just as the governed must maintain eternal vigilance and resistance if it becomes very necessary.