Will my brother President or Governor put food on the table of the masses or just for me alone? I ask this question because as a Father, I must look at the bigger picture of what the future shall uphold for my children and grandchildren. If I made them wealthy and all those living around them are poor, they shall become targets of those who cannot afford a meal a day. So which is better?
Presidents Obasanjo and Jonathan, Christian PDP leaders from the South and their Muslim Vice Presidents, administered the country for eight and six years, respectively. Presidents Umar Musa Yar’Adua of blessed memory and Buhari, Muslim PDP, and APC leaders from the North with their Christian Vice Presidents from the South also administered the country for two and seven years, respectively.
From Obasanjo’s time till now, we can count how many months our universities were in session. In this era of a Professor Vice President, it has stayed longer than all other years put together. Instead of our children leaving universities in their early 20s, they leave schools close to thirty. Meanwhile, most organizations ask for applications for ages below thirty with cognate experience. The implication is that our graduates cannot be competitive with their counterparts outside this country if pooled. So, what is this craze of having my brother as president?
For most parts of President Obasanjo and President Jonathan’s tenures and now for another seven years, we have had Southern Ministers of Works, Works and Housing, and Transport and now for seven years running. Yet entry and exit through the Benin bypass have been a nightmare for Nigerians. The Benin, Ore Sagamu road at a point had failed portions that kept Nigerians on the road for days. Sadly, the roads in many parts of the South are among the worst in the country.
From 1999 to now, Christians occupied the Presidential and Vice Presidential seats more than the Muslim North. Has that revived our seaports in the South? Has that improved our agriculture and agro-allied industries? Has that built us more refineries and gas plants? Which Southern cities have become Kano or Lagos commercial nerve centers during the years of our Christian Presidents and Vice Presidents?
President Jonathan was a Vice President for two years and President for another six years. Yet, he met and left the East-West road in his domain without completing it. President Obasanjo was a military Head of State for three years. He was a two-term President for another eight years. How did his eleven years, two hundred and fifty-eight days in office radically change the economy of Otta and the inlet and outlet roads to and from Ogun State? How did his Presidency change the roads linking Lagos, Abeokuta, Ibadan, and the economic architecture of West and South?
President Muhammad Buhari was military Head of State for one year, two hundred and thirty-nine days. He has been blessed with another eight years in the saddle. How has his one year, two hundred and thirty-nine days plus seven years from 2015 changed the economic lifestyles, security, maternal and infant mortality ratio, and the educational advancements of Katsina people and the entire North? So, what is this brouhaha about the North-South turn-by-turn Christian-Muslim arrangements?
Until we rise above these primordial sentiments driving nails into our relationships, nothing will change the narratives for good.
Grace and peace!!!
