Mr. President, It’s 365 Days, Now Let’s Get To Work Please!
OMOGBOLAHAN BABAWALE
When in the twilight of the last administration, things went topsy-turvy, the economy nosedived and was precipitous, a corollary of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s naira redesign policy that led to the collapse of several businesses, especially, the small and medium scale enterprises, it was evident more than ever, the country needed a man with the Midas touch to stem the tide, a man who could navigate the country from her calamitous precipice. A man with the intellectual sagacity and a man with a track record of excellence at strategically taking a comatose economy through surgical ‘intensive care’ that would birth a new vision, a new horizon and a new world order of economic felicity, social equality and communal gregariousness. Nigeria sunk very low.
Nigerians would therefore, seek for a worthy successor to former President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2023 presidential election that saw the then Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu win with 8,794,756, beating his closest rival, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). The electorates latched onto the promise of #RenewedHope to run the country in the best interest of her citizenry and (now) President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR won. The election was fiercely contested and would, perhaps, pass for the most disputative, most sapid, most enervating and most energy-dissipating in the country’s political trajectory. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s victory at the 2023 poll could be likened to France’s Comte de Mirabeau, a revolutionist of the 18th century. The Nigeria populace expected him to have caused many ‘revolutions’ in many areas like de Mirabeau, performing some magical abracadabra.
Today, Wednesday, May 29, 2024 when the country marks the first year in office of Mr. President, assessing President Tinubu’s sway in office in the last 365 days reveals mixed feelings no doubt. While some persons opined that the economy has been worse off, rightly so, others are of the opinion that things may have to get worse before it gets better. On both ways, it is either one sees the cup as half full or half empty. Those who may not necessarily have considered where we were coming from as a country under an Emefiele-managed monetary policy would not see the current experience as a consequence of such trial and error methods. But for me, and being an economist as well as a finance-trained persona, I would want to agree with Mr. President that the current experience is a sine qua non if we must navigate the country through her dangerous bends and economic higi-haga (sic) of the past. It can only get better in the days ahead, having successfully laid some strong foundations.
As the country marks one-year in office of the Tinubu/Shettima administration, I congratulate Mr. President, his Vice Predisent, Sen. Kassim Shettima (GCON), cabinet members and indeed Nigerians a happy 1st anniversary. I equally seize this opportunity to appeal to Nigerians to bear a little more with Mr. President in his several efforts he is making across board to give Nigerians a deserving country. Building a country we can all be proud of, an egalitarian Nigeria where the son of nobody can become somebody without necessarily knowing anybody requires strong foundation.
It is worthy of mention that it is easier to destroy than to build. A rot of many decades cannot be fixed overnight. It takes careful but methodical approach. Mistakes will be made in the course of reconstruction, but such mistakes will only make the building stronger and better, especially when the builder is the listening one like we have seen in Mr. President reverse some of his decisions. I know, for a certainty that the catchphrase recently made by Mr. President – ‘Let the poor breathe’, indeed, the poor will breathe with the Renewed Hope agenda. Let’s give him a little more time.
God bless President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR!
God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria!!
OMOGBOLAHAN L.A. BABAWALE
Public Affairs Analyst
Convener/Lead Resource Person
The Think-Tinubu Initiative (3TI)
riches.babs@gmail.com/officialczar2@gmail.com
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