President Muhammadu Buhari is human, therefore susceptible to mistakes. The fanatical idea that he is some sort of super-human, a rare specie, even an ‘alien’ – not from this part of the world and therefore not prone to our common mistakes, may be our bane, if we’re not careful. That ‘Buhari cannot go or do wrong in our eyes’ mentality came to the fore during his recent trip to New York for the 70th United Nations General Assembly. The glaring absence of Nigeria at a very crucial meeting where countries affected by the Boko Haram crisis sought assistance to deal with millions of displaced people, cannot, and should not be justified by any right thinking Nigerian. Likewise, reports that our dear President, the ‘new sheriff’, was not properly guided on which route to take, which resulted in his being locked out of a meeting with Pope Francis, was a serious diplomatic blunder and attempts by the dyed-in-the wool Buhari supporters to blame Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Prof. Joy Ogwu for the gaffe, is not only pathetic, it is a sign of failure on our parts, as followers, to speak the truth to authority at all times. More so, when will we stop making excuses on behalf of the President? If this blunder was committed by the immediate past President Goodluck Jonathan, the song would’ve been different. I digress. Truth is, the absence of a properly constituted Federal cabinet resulted in some of these avoidable diplomatic blunders but the die-hard Buhari supporters are blinded by their loyalty to the Daura-born general that they choose to absolve him of blame, where ordinarily, he should be receiving flaks. Let’s not create another ‘caged’ President. One, whom we cannot call to order because the loudest voices of sycophants, drown those of reason. One of the greatest mistakes made by supporters of the immediate past President was they failed to speak the truth, even when it hurt their hero. They chose to lead him on, painting pictures of things that never were, until they led him back to his village in Otuoke. It might be too early to draw a conclusion, but the same scenario is already playing out with President Buhari. No doubt, the new sheriff is in town and everyone is on their toes, even the worse of them all – the Discos and the Gencos. All of a sudden we’re enjoying unbelievable electricity supply, thanks to the ‘new sheriff’s’ body language. But in our moment of praise, we create the impression that it is okay for the President to run a monocracy – apologies to PDP – so long as his body language is visible to all and sundry. Make no mistake about it, the honeymoon was long over and it’ll only be a matter of time before everything goes back to the way we used to know (God forbid it!) if certain steps are not taken and with urgency too. It’s been four months since Muhammadu Buhari took oath of office as a democratically elected President and if we mustn’t lie to ourselves, that period of time is too long for a country as large and as complex as Nigeria to be run as a one man show! Excuses that the Aegean stable is been cleaned can no longer be sustained not until we actually see some evidence that those who dragged us into this mess in the first place, are paying dearly for their greed and kleptomaniac tendencies. The delay in appointing ministers and the excuses given by the President and the All Progressives Congress went with the wind recently when in faraway Paris, France, the ‘new sheriff’ described ministers as ‘noise-makers’! Haba, Baba! Is that the real reason why you’ve foot-dragged in unveiling your ministerial list, choosing to wait until the 11th hour to do so and putting us all on edge? And rather than condemn the President’s comment for what it is, his supporters chose to gloat and laugh over it. Why? Because President Buhari can do no wrong in their eyes? But here’s the deal, the longer Nigeria stays without a properly constituted cabinet, the farther we are from the change we campaigned and voted for. Every lover, supporter, believer in the gospel according to Buhari, must brace up and do what was not done before under the past government – tell the President the truth at all times, no matter how much it hurts! Campaigns are over, Jonathan is no longer in office, therefore, we can’t keep blaming him for our problems, the reality is staring us in the face and unless we seize the moment, we might just find ourselves right where we began before all this clamour for change began. Dear Nigerians, fellow Buharites, we do ourselves and indeed, our President more harm if we fail to tell him the truth and even worse, when we do all within our powers to demoralise him with our words even in the face of genuine and concrete achievements. This President is for us all. If he succeeds, we all succeed! God bless Nigeria and happy 55th Independence Anniversary. Ayodele Daniel is a content writer at Information Nigeria. He tweets @ayoadaniel
