Now that Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) has been chosen by the Nigerian people, it is my duty as a patriotic Nigerian to help him succeed even though my candidate was President Goodluck Jonathan, a man to whom I will always be loyal and appreciative.


General Buhari is about to mount the saddle and I for one am in a very good position to tell him some home truths because as a senator-elect, I have a very fulfilling job awaiting me and I do not need a job or favours from Buhari so I do not have to play nice.


Looking at the personalities he has appointed to his transition council, I am wont to believe that General Buhari needs to expand his circle of friends and advisers.


As a military strategist, the president-elect must be familiar with the principle that the people you use in subduing an opponent are not necessarily the same persons you will need in rebuilding the territories you took. I may be using military terms, but I am sure General Buhari is aware that politics is war by other means and therefore many of the rules of war and peace apply to politics.


The General will be best served if he thinks of what is best for Nigeria rather than what is best for his party, the All Progressive Congress (APC), and its chieftains.


He must remember that in Nigeria’s subjective politics, it was his person that the people voted for not his party and he should therefore serve the people the dish they are angling for.


And what are the expectations of Nigerians from General Buhari? Definitely not business as usual.
The president-elect ran on a promise of change and while that change was not really defined by its chanters, Nigerians defined it as a change in their situation.


To borrow from the famously potent prayers of Mountain of Fire and Miracle members, the Nigerian masses defined change as a situation where wealth and power must change hands from the elite to the masses by fire by force and they see General Buhari as the enforcer angel that will bring about this change.


With this type of expectation, Buhari’s honeymoon period with Nigerians will not last very long if he does not take drastic steps to adjust Nigeria’s economy to the realities of falling oil prices and a dearth of buyers for the Bonny Light Sweet Crude.


To put things into perspective, when the United States started buying less and less of Nigeria’s oil, we looked to China as an alternative buyer of oil but it has since come to light that whereas America spent $101 billion on clean energy between 2012-13, China spent $125 billion within the same time frame.


The above data should alert Nigeria and other nations that look to China for oil markets to the fact that China is even ahead of the West in the search for alternative to fossil fuels as a source of energy.


Buhari may wish he did not win the 2015 elections when the reality of our economic situation sets in.
In his December 2014 Channels Television interview, Buhari said he was going to “stabilise the oil market”. The General will learn soon enough that today’s oil market is a buyers’ market.


And the General’s choices are limited because he cannot (unless he is extraordinarily brave and politically callous) do the obvious and sack civil servants. Yes, he will eventually have to reduce the over bloated federal civil service, but before he can do that, he has to build up political capital by reducing the overhead of the Executive and persuade the Legislature to follow suit.


Austerity measures must start from Aso Rock. This means that luxurious multi car convoys must be reduced. The presidential air fleet has to go, by way of being auctioned off or sold to local airlines. Estacode allowances must be slashed and the president’s entourages should be lean while non-essential foreign travels should be banned.


The president-elect should not underestimate the big difference these small changes can make and their capacity to buy him enough credibility with the labour unions, the kind of credibility that will see them accepting cuts in the federal workforce and reduction in pay and entitlements.


A small change like flying commercial instead of by private jet saved Britain a whopping £200,000 when the thrifty British Prime Minister, David Cameron, flew to America to meet President Barack Obama on a regular BA flight.


Nigeria is in for very desperate times if we do not tighten our belts while our major foreign exchange earner is facing global challenges.
Russia, a nation that many will say is more prepared than Nigeria for the shocks occasioned by the drop in the price of oil devalued its currency by 11 per cent in just one day.


While Russia is taking these steps, the world is watching to see if Nigeria will continue to spend hundreds of billions annually sponsoring its elite on pilgrimages to Mecca and Jerusalem.


I mean, no economist will get why a nation with over 60 per cent of its people living in poverty at the best of times, will spend almost 1 per cent of its annual budget sponsoring pilgrimages for its elite who can afford to go to the Holy Land on their own dime.


I for one do not get it. A pilgrimage is meant to be a sacrifice of a believer. How is a pilgrimage still a sacrifice when someone pays for you to go? The Nigerian government is sending people on holidays not pilgrimages!


I daresay that the money being spent by the Nigerian government to airlift pilgrims to both Holy Lands is enough to educate all the almajiri in Northern Nigeria. Wouldn’t God and humanity be better served if we looked after the less privileged in our midst?
General Buhari has his work cut out for him and he does not have time to be bitter about who said what, when and where. He must let go of any desire to pay any of his traducers back whether they be from the last 16 years or as far back as 1985.


Four years is only enough time to fix Nigeria. Any time spent on other ventures is time taken from this most important of assignments.
And let me say that General Buhari should not allow himself to be pigeon holed by people who dangle ideologies instead of realities. Yes, the APC may have styled itself as a progressive party, which in itself is a contradiction because Buhari is a conservative, but Buhari should not bother about that.


Whether the philosophy is progressive or conservative or liberal or free market, he should go with what works because as Deng Xiaoping once noted: “It doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, if it catches mice it is a good cat.”
And it is fitting for me to end with a mention of Xiaoping. No other contemporary world leader, in my opinion, closely mirrors Buhari as does Xiaoping.


In 1966, Xiaoping was dethroned from his powerful party positions by loyalists of Chairman Mao as was Buhari in 1985 by loyalists of his Chief of Army staff.
Xiaoping suffered house arrest, loss of earned privileges and was consigned to political limbo for almost a decade as was Buhari.


But then Xiaoping bounced back into favour and became China’s leader in 1976 and thereafter jettisoned his life long belief in Mao’s Cultural Revolution and introduced the “one country, two systems” policy that allowed communism and capitalism to coexist in China. This is similar to Buhari’s conversion from an anti-democrat who believed power flowed from the barrel of a gun to a democrat who accepted democracy as the best form of governance and capitalism as the natural economic policy of a democracy.


But this is where Buhari has to learn from Xiaoping. Xiaoping refused to demonise Chairman Mao, his predecessor who had purged him from power and placed him under house arrest after stripping him off his privileges. Instead of bitterness, Xiaoping believed that Mao’s “accomplishments must be considered before his mistakes”.


This is how Buhari must treat his predecessors. He must not demonise everything that was done by previous administrations and mark those who served in those government as persona non grata. He must take the bitter with the sweet and make use of the best brains Nigeria has to offer, for as he said on December 31st, 1983, “This generation of Nigerians and indeed future generations have no other country than Nigeria”.

• Mr. Murray Bruce is a Senator-elect and CEO of Silverbird Entertainment Group




http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/it-doesn-t-matter-if-the-cat-is-white-or-black/208021/

Not all wish come tru thou!

Very funny

Very true sire, but his caustic & fork tongued offsprings on Nairaland will still attack you in their charasteristic trademark approach to obvious truths.
Simply put, Buhari is in for a long rough ride with his fellow country men

The biggest problem Nigerian Politicians have is that they are never prepared until they win.

#NicePointsThere.

I didn't read the thrash cos I know its full of hate speech. That man is a doubting Thomas, he still doesn't believe change is here, well he shall see it with his own eyes oniranu oshi

Every media houses now have a say in politics

Buhari has a lion heart... not a fish heart like GEJ

We are watching

SuperSuave:
I didn't read the thrash cos I know its full of hate speech. That man is a doubting Thomas, he still doesn't believe change is here, well he shall see it with his own eyes oniranu oshi

No hate speech bro, the thing is that you naturally buried your head in the sand like the ostrish at the mere sight of the topic. Topic is reality 101 for you & buhari

You see why you're dull and insipid? You don't read...You don't comprehend...You don't analyse...Yet you comment and argue blindly! Which hate speech are you talking about? Okay Einstein, define "hate speech"! Olodo rapata!

SuperSuave:
I didn't read the thrash cos I know its full of hate speech. That man is a doubting Thomas, he still doesn't believe change is here, well he shall see it with his own eyes oniranu oshi

smh, Na ao all of us take enter ONCHANCE

As long as the corruption rate is reduced things will get better.....politicians should learn to be public servants not public thiefs......Buhari will definitely work......we the sane masses don't expect a miracle.....we all know it's a step in the right direction

Who is he sef? Bruce lee's cousin?

Well said bruce. All the promises“. Free meal for students, salary for unemployed youths, 7000 naira every month for the poor citizens, ending boko haram, 40 per liter, 1naira to 1dollar,bla,bla,bla. All this promises are nothing but scam!!
GEJ my HEO! FAYOSE my ROLE MODEL!!
#BABAONECHANCE

So u mean pa Buhari will soon wish if he never One-Chanced us.. me sef dey laf in an unknown language..

Post d link or i don't believe

TRADELYN:

The biggest problem Nigerian Politicians have is that they are never prepared until they win.

#NicePointsThere.

d same thing applies to GEJ..

Ben Bruce hit the nail on the head! There is a vibrant reality that ushers idealism out of the window! One of such realities is the fact that Nigeria is limited in resource spread! Another is that running costs must be compressed to reasonable limits! Anything short of that would be disastrous!

However, if the above is not handled well, it would be political harakiri for Buhari. Where I disagree with Ben Bruce is that Nigerians by the very same rabble rousing nature and a natural desire not to bite their words, will endeavour to give Buhari a lot of understanding, and it will take a lot of debacle to start any murmuring!! It won't be because Buhari is efficient, rather it would be because he has literally been deified and is the choice of the owners of media houses!

Lol. Buhari is in a quagmire.

I have said it before

Another hater... So Jonathan would have been the best, so he could continue leading the country into pit with his power drunk wife who had turned invisible since they were slapped at the polls... Well was this man ever investigated cuz for a GM of NTA to own a private station means a lot had been done overnight.... Fingers crossed

Only a fool reads a different meaning to a useful advice such as this.

Buhari, be guided

Please, stop the fawning! It's becoming trite! What Buhari needs is healthy criticism that would defeat inertia and constantly put him on the edge, so that human failings or lethargy won't set in!!! He doesn't have a magic wand, granted, but part of integrity is keeping to promises made! You don't make promises and now disavow them because of changed circumstance! A good leader demonstrates a proactive understanding of the problems at hand, and doesn't start stuttering with excuses when he gets the mantle! We need to keep him on his toes, and demand accountability!

If GEJ had gotten rid of fawning praise singers, he could have achieved more! Let's not go down that road again!! May God grant Buhari the wisdom and direction required to fulfil his promises! Amin!

prof1990:
As long as the corruption rate is reduced things will get better.....politicians should learn to be public servants not public thiefs......Buhari will definitely work......we the sane masses don't expect a miracle.....we all know it's a step in the right direction

Even in the olden days back in d bible they said the shepherd is better then the fisher man that is y jesus tell the to come and fish for soul but the best of them always have some thing to do with goat and cow u name it God choose this time not we so have faith let the SHEPHERD lead

PDP fools are always known to talking trash and corruption! !!

SuperSuave:
I didn't read the thrash cos I know its full of hate speech. That man is a doubting Thomas, he still doesn't believe change is here, well he shall see it with his own eyes oniranu oshi

He is talking from a reliable point of view. Change cannot be achieved by a single individual. It must be by individuals of like minds.

Bruce is being truthful, expectations are just too high and Nigerians lack patience. Even the core Buhari supporters don't need more than a month or two before they start faulting him.

GMB my HERO
AMEACHI my ROLE MODEL

The multiple citizenship destroyer of NTA has spoken.
APC should make sure nobody with more than one citizenship (NIGERIAN) should be given any role not even as a messenger in government parastatal