Buhari,Tinubu and the New National Majority... by Kanmi Ademiluyi

With the last, dying gasp of the old order, a new society is been midwifed.The presidential election on the 28th of this month will be pivotal alright but what else does it portend? In a way it makes us to recall a famous quip by the legendary manager of Liverpool football club Bill Shankly. Pressed as to the real essence of football, Shankly memorably stated,”football is not a matter of life and death, actually its much more important than that”.

Paraphrasing Shankly,this is not just an electoral cycle and its not just another election, actually its much more important than that. The highly respected Awujale of Ijebuland alluded to this recently. Out of presumably exasperation, he was to state that in over a fifty year electoral cycle he had never seen an election of this intensity. The Awujale was being characteristically polite. In this election, the agents and privees of the outgoing regime have thrown the kitchen sink not just at Muhammadu Buhari but also at the Social cohesion of the Nigerian state.

Religion, ethnic divide everything has been used to contrive a divide based on destroying the social solidarity of the Nigerian state.
The intensity says it all, that there is more than an election at play. In essence and there are echoes of 1993 here. What is in construction here is a new national majority. A victory for the All Progressives Congress (APC) will in effect set a new template different in large measures from what we have seen since the ‘restoration` of democracy in 1999.

It is understandable that the old post- 1999 order has run its course. This is not surprising. For in spite of record earnings from crude oil sales, the much anticipated’ dividends of democracy` has turned out to be a mirage. In many ways the new national majority been put into play is actually a way of slaying the beast of the often cited`Nigeria Paradox`. The conventional wisdom defines this paradox as the puzzling inability to translate record oil earnings into at least a marginal increase in living standards. On the part of the Nigerian people expectations have been quite minimal. This is why the disappoint has been so very,painfully pronounced.
Kudos have to be given to those who have against the odds put together what is transmitting from a conventional `opposition` to a government in waiting. It is quite an achievement. As well as a saving grace for our somewhat fragile democracy. The alternative to this would have been a response at variance with democracy. In a multi- ethnic,multi-religious society this sort of reaction would have been disastrous. Those who provided an alternative deserve all the kudos.

For the valiant efforts of Buhari, Tinubu, Okorocha,Ameachi, Atiku and co, two choices now face the Republic. It is either we continue on the path of underachievement and disappointed expectations or we change course. Changing course means a decisive and irreversible break with a dismal past. Their is no middle path.

The shift also comes at a time of declining oil income.
For this reason a new national majority will be required to unite the progressive, national and democratic forces and tendencies behind a banner of national reconstruction and re- generation in order to save the republic. This is imperative because the economic outlook is unfavourable.
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The outgoing PDP has not only mounted the most divisive election in Nigeria`s political history, it is also at the tail end carrying out a scourged earth policy. In the process we have gone from wholesale to retail looting. The outlook is dire!
Facing the future means the construction of a new unifying national ethos to effect the re adjustment that must be done. Capital has to be redirected from consumption into production. Luckily, or is it providentially we have in GMB the man with the fiscal rectitude to do so.

GMB terrifies the outgoing ancien regime precisely because of this. The days of financial lawlessness will be put behind us. Frankly in our present situation there is no other alternative. A new national majority will also ensure that the country develops a real market propelled economy.

On the contrary what the out going regime promotes is croynism. This sort of system was denounced by the great Afro beat exponent Fela Anikulapo Kuti as `paddy\ paddy` government. The system has worked hand in glove with corruption to stifle the nations economy.
By promoting sweetheart deals and preferential treatment to a favoured few in the corridors of power costs have been skewed against the consumer and competition stifled. Anticipated new pro competition and anti trust laws and a strong regulatory body will soon put an end to this debilitation. For example no competition authority no matter how incompetent can conceivably tolerate the corruption induced use of import duty waivers. Since these waivers have been depriving the country of tax revenues and stifling competition this will be a real gain.

The dying gasp of the old order is predictably vicious. It has to be for it signals the end of unearned privileges fuelled by a sense of entitlement. This has denied the majority of their economic rights and led to increasing mass poverty.
A new opportunity for national rebirth beckons it presents an opportunity to build through what is in essence an historic compromise a new society. We should seize this opportunity with both hands and not once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.