As the General Elections in Nigeria are drawing nearer, stakeholders and political parties are sharpening their weapons, and they send their intellectual or media spokesmen to the front line some barking more or less incantatory claims and other ushering fraudulent certainties. The recent statement by Reverend Kukah that the dismissal of Buhari is not the solution to Nigeria’s problems is one of those fraudulent certainties, because it takes the form of an one-eyed, tolerably irresponsible syllogism.
Yes, dismissing Buhari, as well as having elected him – as we can retrospectively admit – is not the solution to Nigeria’s problems. But the logical incompleteness of the famous reverend’s statement lies in the insidious silence on the need to turn Buhari’s page.
Clearly, if sending Buhari back is not enough to solve Nigeria’s problems, and help this great African country realize its economic, social and moral potentialities, it is necessary to send the apathetic old man back to his ivory tower. For, it is time for Nigeria to be led by a man whose age, physical and intellectual abilities reflect those of the average citizen. And as imaginative and striking as it may seem, the argument that an umpteenth marriage is not the solution to the failure of the n-1 previous ones is not the appropriate response in the Nigerian case. Because the methodological priority of Nigeria right now is not to have a new president, but to put an end to the government of the current one, as has just been done in South Africa. For this and to take again the beautiful image of the marriage so dear to the catholic prelate, for a married couple, it is better to be alone than badly accompanied.
And every honest citizen and what’s more intellectually in view as Reverend Kukah, must know it.
Adekoya Badero