Dailytime Nigeria / 12 hours ago
“Kings take pleasure in honest lips; they value a man who speaks the truth” Proverbs 16:13 KJV.
President Muhammadu Buhari has 100 days of warming the highest seat of power in the land has come and gone. We still remember with nostalgia May 29, 2015 as a day of audacious magic that brought back the optimism of our collective will for a new Nigeria. To make a success of repositioning Nigeria, Buhari must begin to love his critics.
In retrospect, it is fact that ministerial silence doomed ex-President Jonathan’s presidency. During his tenure, Jonathan was a prisoner to a cabal that refused to say the truth but rather supported many of his bad decisions. His ministers and advisers lost the commitment to relentlessly speak out against all odds, against ex-President Jonathan’s excesses and against all entrenched privileges. There was no gesture of defiance to save Nigeria, no statement of hope to cheer the intellect, no voices in their angry cadences to speak truth to power.
As a result, Goodluck Jonathan lost all radical determination to fix Nigeria. He made no concerted effort to swing the political pendulum away from suffocating corruption. PDP governors became predators who developed demonic and covetous attitude toward the total cleansing of our commonwealth. It was a person like Okonjo-Iweala who lost the moral and patriotic battle to stand up to Jonathan and make a hell of a noise about the breathtaking bankruptcy of Nigeria’s economic condition.
Rather than advise ex- President Goodluck Jonathan on the mood of the nation, his advisers fooled him with the idea that adversarial political messages against Muhammadu Buhari will swing the vote for him. Nigerians were ready to decide the Manichean struggle between integrity and banality, good and evil, freedom and slavery and the desire for change. The soul of Nigeria was left in the hands of plutocratic technocrats who swallowed our riches in one gulp. There was stark departure of collective outcry to speak truth to power and call former President Goodluck Jonathan to order on these excesses. This is where Mohammadu Buhari must embrace a timely lesson on governance. If indeed it is true according to the proverbs above that kings value the man who speaks the truth, then Buhari must listen more to his future outspoken aides, critics and enemies more than his flatterers who want one favour or another.
What we want is ministers who will be courageous and patriotic enough to speak truth to power if the president is going adrift in his change agenda. We want ministers and advisers who will be audacious enough to trespass their turf by articulating cold truth without fear of retribution. Pursed lips or resignation to cowardice as happened during the time of ex- President Goodluck Jonathan among his ministers and aides should be seen as a crime against the voters who voted for change. Truth telling should no longer be silenced by material indulgence. Already, there is public outcry against President Mohammadu Buhari’s lopsided appointments, selective justice on war against corruption, his religious bigotry and even militarism.
He has to listen to these critics and make necessary correction. Nigerians would prefer a listening president who will respect the opinions and sentiments of internal and external critics who speak out against aberrations that might destroy the democratic renewal and reconstruction we all have been yearning for in the past 16 years. Rather than cosy up to his flatterers, he should rather warm up to his critics and respond to constructive ones with courage and conviction and admission of wrong in the true spirit of the time.
If indeed integrity and honesty are the twin pillars of President Mohammadu Buhari’s change administration, then these values must be elastic enough to accommodate dissenting voices and irritating critics who may have valid reasons to disagree with his public policy formulations. His Ministers and advisers who are closer to him must enjoy the liberty to express their mind when things are going wrong with the ship of state. The ongoing tragic emblem where appointed government officials are turn into demagogues, see no evil and speak no evil zombies should now be outdated. The President should not be blindsided by sweet talk alone he also needs hard talk. That is the true meaning of leadership
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