Let’s keep politics aside and be honest to ourselves. As a Nigerian, can you say for sure that this country is heading in the right direction? Can you say our economy is doing well or that our democracy is headed in the right direction? Will you say our justice system is making the right progress and that you are proud of our lawmakers?

In my opinion, President Buhari shouldn’t have been elected President in 2015 and 2019.  This is not the Ottoman Empire and era. He has no idea on how to run a modern democracy in a globalized world. He lacked the intellectual power to appreciate and gravitate around the complexity of a global economy and politics.

He should have stayed back in his native Daura and enjoyed his retirement quietly as an elder statesman and former Head of State. That would have been a befitting epitaph for him than presiding over the current mess which will take half a century to clean up. That is if we survive him. 

Besides incompetence, he is an unlucky president. Twice in his presidency, we have gone through major economic recessions and now stagflation. Sometimes, I don’t know whether to blame him for our woes or not to blame him, but I must admit it’s difficult to equally excuse and exonerate him especially when he hasn’t hired the best of hands to assist him.   That Nigeria is headed in the wrong direction is to say the least but is the president aware that we are adrift both at home and on the global stage?

Is he aware how bad things have gotten and that recovery is increasingly becoming difficult, save a miracle happens? 

The greatest irony of our tragedy is finding people you thought were smart gleefully jumping into a house that is on fire instead of jumping out to safety. I mean the alarming rate of defection into APC by the political class. This won’t be a problem if the party has performed creditably well. How will Nigeria be saved where the political elites are comfortable with a political party that has hopelessly ruined the polity and sees nothing wrong with the state of the nation?  How can Nigeria survive where even the grandchild of the Information Minister sees grandpa as liar? 

Someone once told a story of an air plane loaded with politicians that crashed in a cornfield belonging to a farmer. The farmer witnessed the crash and was the first person at the accident scene. He hurriedly buried the victims. 

When the police arrived at the accident scene, they saw the smouldering wrecked plane without the victims. They enquired from the farmer about the victims, and he told them he already buried them all. The officer further asked if there were no survivors? The farmer in response acknowledged that some of the victims were screaming that they were still alive, but that knowing how politicians lie, he couldn’t get himself to believe they were truly alive. So he buried them all!   

It has repeatedly been said  that the president is not a politician, but is he  aware that he is surrounded by liars, that all they do is lie to him and divert his attention from the real issues? Is he aware he is held hostage by liars and that he needs to see things for himself to know the truth? Nigeria is bleeding and people are dying. What we are getting is neither the Change nor the Next Level the president promised us.

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While we are dissipating energy on Igboho and Nnamdi Kanu, is the president aware that these self-determination agitators aren’t Nigeria’s Number One enemies and problems? That they are only irritants and mere symptoms of the problems? Neither the Igbo nor the Yoruba nor the Hausa are going anywhere. We don’t want another war. The people simply want a good country and that’s not too much to ask for.

Being part of a big nation is a thing of pride. Is the President aware that if Nigeria is working as it ought to, there will be no need for some ethnic champions clamouring for Oduduwa nation , Arewa nation, Biafra nation and Middle Belt nation? Is he aware that these agitations can still die down if we address the grievances of the agitators which simply boil down to having a just, equitable and fair society? We want the Nigeria of our founding fathers, a country we shall be proud to fight and die for.

A restructured Nigeria is possible. We can still remain one big country where the Muslim North is allowed to develop in accordance with the Islamic principle of Sharia and the South develop at their own pace and culture. We need not fight over true federalism and fiscal federation. We need not fight over rotational presidency and devolution of more power to the states. We need not fight over local government autonomy and all the things we fight for which ought to have been settled issues. 

Did the President watch the Tokyo Olympic Games? Did he watch the relay race where we started so well but ended so badly? Is he aware that Puma is suing us for breach of contract? Is he aware that ours was the highest contingent to be disqualified in an Olympic game? Is he aware that the Athletic Federation of Nigeria has no official bank account? That the money paid to the Federation by Puma ended up in a private account? Is he aware that no one has resigned for the Olympic oddity? If he is not aware, now I am informing him that he should be demanding the immediate resignation of the Sports Minister and Chairman of the Athletic Federation. He should be ordering an investigation by now. That’s what the nation expects of him in the circumstances. Not a penny more and not a penny less.              

While corruption remains a Frankenstein monster, is the President aware that Nigeria’s number one problem as far as the people are concerned is insecurity, that we are in anarchical society and that the problem are the bandits in various disguise? That these bandits are now everywhere terrorizing and disrupting the peace and stability of the nation and that the country he leads is being erased and may soon disappear, not largely because of Igboho or Nnamdi Kanu, but due to insecurity?

Is the President aware of the grim report published by Intersociety of Nigeria, which states that over 3642 Christians had been killed in Nigeria in the last 200 days by Jihadists, bandits, Fulani herdsmen and state actors, and that the killings in Benue, Kaduna and Taraba states have literally made Nigeria one of the most dangerous places to live in on the planet? 

It’s time we quit our deception and embrace the truth about the state of the nation. If we were sleeping all this while, I think it’s time to wake up and make hay while the sun shines. The President must be aware that we are fast losing our country to bad people; that a government that cannot protect lives and property is no government.  This president needs help and should headhunt for good heads. The headhunt must not be from his religion, political party or from his region or tribe. He needs the services, advice and inputs of men and women passionate about the survival of Nigeria irrespective of how they dress or pray or the language they speak.

The President should be aware that we are heading in the wrong direction and that time is going too. What we do to overcome this unprecedented time depends on him and him alone. He is the pilot of this plane, the driver of this vehicle and the captain of this vessel. While we still have time on our hands, let all hands be on deck. I pray for the President. I pray for his good health. May God guide him and give him the wisdom to turn things around so that in our time, our land will be peaceful and glorious.