Can somebody wake up and smell the coffee? Why is there silence from hitherto vocal men? There is entropy in the polity, there is stasis in the economy and all you get is muted grunt from otherwise garrulous folks. It does appear that those who should know have relapsed into amnesia mode; they can’t remember anything anymore. And they pretend not to notice the tell-tale signs of anguish that adorn the faces of Nigerians.

At this time when pain pangs at the very nexus of the people; when electricity supply has bowed to the demons of darkness; when motorists spend the night at filling stations and still end up without fuel; when prices of goods and services have taken flight to the skies like unmanned rocket on a voyage to Mars; when hope has dissolved to despair; I had expected President Muhammadu Buhari to address the nation and restore hope in the people and faith in Project Nigeria. But he has not. And he may not. But he should.

It’s not that Presidential words possess a magical wand to fix things; but they are usually needed in moments of national desolation; they help to rouse the rabble, build people’s confidence and reassure them that all will be well; that the torments of the moment will soon morph to torrents of pleasure. Jerry Rawlings deployed it to good use when he set out to repair the broken breaches of Ghana. Spoken words are powerful especially when delivered with unvarnished pathos by men in authority. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States used Presidential persuasion to win the Americans. Franklin Roosevelt did same to birth hope in the American people during the Great Depression years.

Nigeria is passing through a storm, an economic storm that is fast building up social discontent. The people need to hear a voice; they need to be reassured that the ship of state is not adrift to nowhere; that out of their despair shall arise oases of hope. The President no doubt is making efforts; shuttling between jurisdictions and democracies, jetting from Arabia to Montesquieu’s French Republic; firing saboteur appointees of the PDP and hiring his own ‘trusted’ men. Yet, in the midst of these exertions, nothing seems to be working.

Josiah Charles Stamp, an English Economist and erstwhile President of the Bank of England in the 20’s once warned that “it is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.” Buhari, as it now appears, seems to be dodging his responsibilities. I doubt if he would be able to dodge the consequences of shirking his responsibilities. His brief was well spelt out for him by the Nigerian electorate. Their message was clear: come and save us from the cruel hands of the Shylocks in PDP; come and change our misery to mirth. Barely 10 months now in office, it is hard to believe that this was the change promised in the morning of electioneering; it is difficult, even for die-hard Buharists, to swallow the jejune explanations and excuses being bandied as reasons why the process of national socio-economic redemption is slow or has yet to take off.

There seems to be a gaping disconnect between the pre-election Buhari and the post-election version. Before the election, Buhari was an assertive, firm and decisive politician. He was clear on where he stood; where he wants to go and very lucid and unambiguous about revamping the economy. He touted social welfare as one of the canons that would define his government. His party, the APC, gave more decibels to Buhari’s voice by echoing statements that suggested the dawning of a new Nigeria where social security would be guaranteed for the jobless and the poor.

Today, the President is no longer talking about social security; he is concerned with more important things; stuff as important as firing vice chancellors of universities and replacing them with politicians who are members of his party. He is concerned with the clear-out of political appointees of the PDP whom he called ‘saboteurs’; he is more concerned with visiting developed nations where he is guaranteed regular power supply, where the public utilities work; where individuals do not sink their private boreholes and the sound of generators are never heard; where herdsmen of the Hausa Fulani stock do not freely and openly bear arms, arms as sophisticated as AK-47 (the semi-assault rifle designed by Russian Kalashnikov) not to hunt down games but to murder and annihilate their host communities and plot and hatch kidnaps to raise money.

In about 10 weeks from today, it will be one full year since Buhari took charge, what would he point to that he did to assuage the pain of the people he promised change? I like that he is fighting corruption but you cannot be fixated to the criminal life of another man when the same orgy of corruption swirls all over you. The President is yet to come clear on allegations of corruption hanging over the heads of some of his cabinet members; he is yet to come clear on how his campaign was funded; source of fund and who brought what?

Without any iota of doubt, the PDP government since 1999 was profligate, reckless and radically rascally with public funds. And the nation truly needed a breath of fresh air; but this air is not fresh. The Buhari government is yet to prove that it is any better than the previous governments. It is the same motion without movement; the same symptoms of episodic, ill-prepared government brimming with irrational minds doing desperate things like inebriated men. Nothing really has changed; in reality it is getting worse. Cast away sentiments, this change is inclined on a negative plane; it is retrogressive change.

To worsen matters, things are beginning to fall apart in the ruling party. There is a manifest expression of crisis of expectation within and without the APC. The main actors in the party, the real McCoys of the Change mantra, are reportedly livid because they are feeling alienated from the epicentre of power where they had hoped to plant a steely foothold. They feel ‘used and dumped’ in the most Machiavellian and cavalier manner.

But Buhari can still come good. He must start from himself and with himself. To identify with the ordinary Nigerians whose incomes are static while cost of living soars, he should sell off some of the planes in the oversized Presidential fleet; he should drastically cut the cost of running Aso Rock from security vote to domestic expenses including expenses budgeted for dogs and cats and rodents. And he should urge all cabinet members and persuade Governors to do same. These are smart steps which would guarantee quick wins and ultimately free up cash to meet some more people-friendly and masses-focused projects. We live in turbulent times and the graffiti on the wall bordering my small office says it all. It reads: “No light, no fuel, no money, there is God”.

This government has expended so much energy trying to exorcise the spirit of its predecessor such that it has become unable to overcome its own inertia. Slow, directionless and helpless have suddenly become appropriate adjectives to qualify its obvious shambolic proclivities. The late Murtala Muhammad spent just 198 days in office before he was mowed down and we still applaud his imprints, Buhari has spent more than 280 days he should worry about how history would place him, assuming he signs off now. But whether he cares or not somebody should wake up and smell this coffee: the aroma is awful and it needs a sweetener.

First published in Sun Newspaper of Sunday, March 13, 2016