Give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and I will
Spend the first 4 hours sharpening the axe – Abraham Lincoln
After sixteen years of destructive and primitive politics, dismal performance and unconscionable looting of the nation’s patrimony, any serious leader who knows his onions and wants to succeed must go to the drawing board to redesign, reconstruct and redevelop a robust plan for the way forward. President Buhari as a war time General understands this very well. He knows that the only way a General with a small army can defeat another General with a big army is simply by understanding the meaning of robust planning and preparation.
President Buhari as a war time General understands that before a well trained General goes to war, he needs to sit down to study the map of the war zones. He needs to look at the size and strength of his ground troops to know how fit they are. He needs to measure the strength of the enemy. He needs to reassess what it is in the armoury and how good they are. If air power is to be used, he needs to look at the state of the war planes and to make sure they are in order. If sea power is to be applied, he needs to crosscheck the state of the war ships and the naval ratings. He reassesses his strength, his weaknesses, his opportunities and threats. Once the General is satisfied with what is on ground he goes to war to win.
A typical example how a good leader thinks is what happened four days after President Buhari was sworn in. He jetted to Chad, Mali, Niger, Cameroun, Germany, and USA to begin consultations and engagements on how to confront the monster called Boko Haram. Those international engagements have yielded great dividends. We now have the cooperation of the neighbouring countries. We have the cooperation of the international community in getting the tanks and ammunitions to affectively challenge Boko Haram. We now have the support of even the United Nations to forge ahead in the campaigns to defeat Boko Haram.
President Buhari at his inauguration ordered that the defence headquarters be moved to Borno State. Today the Chief of Army Staff, General Tukur Buratai is the one leading the troops to the war zones. This singular act has boosted the morale in the army and gingered the excited troops to fight to conquer. Today Nigeria has recorded tremendous and unprecedented gains in defeating Boko Haram, which can no longer bring the war to Nigeria, but Nigeria soldiers now take the war to them and put them on the run.
President Buhari has also adopted the same common sense strategy to rebuild Nigeria’s economy and to reposition our country to take her place in the comity of civilised nations. He has deployed military strategies and experiences gathered for more than five decades to recover huge looted funds, and to methodically plug loop holes and leakages within the system in order to build up the funds required for projects. Equally, his committed and trusted associates of many years are in his kitchen cabinet.
President Buhari’s carriage, character, attitude and body language speak volume. Even his shadow is sending strong signals that it is not business as usual. Nigerians are releasing their energies once again to work for the good of the commonwealth because they know that a man of integrity and honour is in the saddle. In the power and the oil industries, people are now compelled by the President’s shadow to do the work they are paid to do. The fear of President Buhari is now the beginning of wisdom in Nigeria. A nation suffers when children are in power and now that we have the real man in power things are adding up.
In three months, just about 6 percent of his 48-month tenure, the angry election losers have been at work. They want mountains to be moved, they want Nigeria turned into gold overnight, and they want 30million jobs created. They say that President Buhari should have formed his cabinet and hit the ground running. They say he has achieved nothing in three months. Yes, we agree but he still has 45 months to go. If I may ask, why is it that they cannot wait till he finishes his remaining 45 months before they call for his head? In three months, the losers claim they have not seen anything. Yes they may not have seen anything because they do not want to see anything. Honesty is of God and dishonesty is of the devil.
With all the trillions of Naira made and spent in 16 years, PDP could not attain more than 2000MW of electricity. But in one year alone, President Modi of India built 5000MW of electricity generation plants and more than 5000 kilometres of transmission lines. Supporters of President Buhari gave him a four-year mandate to prove his leadership skills in Nigeria, and I do not think it is fair to start judging him only after three months. The President should be allowed to use his strategy to prove his point. We need unusual solutions to address unusual problems in Nigeria left behind by PDP in sixteen years. We need to do things differently and wisely too to reposition Nigeria to the path of honour and greatness. We need to apply unimaginable solutions in addressing unimaginable problems created over sixteen years. This is our chance!
Joe Igbokwe is Publicity Secretary of Lagos State Chapter of All Progressives Congress.
