Be patient with Tinubu’s Government, Though his approach may be slow

EBINYO GINAH

Nigeria as a house is like a big generator set that was working well for the owners, but for long, the users did not plan to save money to carry out its maintenance, either by scheduled maintenance or by over-haul turn around maintenance (TAM). Nigeria with its present position and situation needs turnaround maintenance.

In the past, our political leaders did not have the political culture to carry out routine maintenance and to plan ahead for the future of our country. They allowed everything to go bad before using fire-brigade approach temporarily to solve our problems.

Nigeria as a house is not working and just struggling with death because of using short time approach by using mosquito coil to solve its numerous problems and challenges over the decades, but it does look like the present government led by President Ahmed Tinubu is now trying to use a stronger detergent or chemical to kill the mosquito or the canker-worms once and for all.

Thus he has decided to start with the country’s refineries which have been broken down over the years and no successful government since 1999 till date has been able to fix it for us.

We all know what we have been passing through in terms of fuel scarcity, kerosene, diesel and gas etc.

The refineries are our economic wealth, and when they are fixed, they will bring a lot of gains such as low prices for fuel, gas, and other related products like kerosene etc. They will also create more job opportunities etc.

Though protest is our inalienable right and is one of the ways to express our grievances and dissatisfaction, it should be done in civilized ways. I personally sympathise with those states where some lives were lost and their properties vandalized and destroyed.

It’s better we get off the streets, to see what the government will do to make things better.

My candid advice to Mr. President is to be a good listener and I quote; “Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, was known for his love and compassion.

Friends and foes alike respected him as a good listener, because they knew that whatever the outcome of speaking frankly to him, he would usually act with justice and wisdom.

Three years before becoming president in 1861, Lincoln made an unsuccessful bid for a Senate seat in Illinois. During the campaign, he gave one of his greatest speeches.

The country, torn apart by the issue of slavery, was moving rapidly toward civil war when he gave the “House Divided against Itself” speech, in which he clearly and poetically foretold the fate of the United States. It would become either one or the other: all free or all slave.
Before giving that speech, he asked a few close friends to review it. Some of them wanted this sentence removed “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

One said that of course the statement was true, but he doubted whether it was a good idea to address it so directly in those words.
Lincoln listened patiently to all the arguments, then said he’d keep that sentence intact.

“if it must be that I must go down because of this speech,” he said, “then let me go down linked to truth, it’s better to die in advocacy of what is right and just. This nation cannot live on injustice, ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’”
And so, we are heirs to one of the greatest speeches of all time.

Lincoln listened to others, but he then took their criticisms into his own contemplations”
President Tinubu should stand strong and deliver the promises he made to Nigerians before taking his oath of office.

Mr. President should thank some of the state governors both ruling and opposition parties who did not fully support the protest otherwise, Nigeria would have become one of the hostile countries like Kenya, Chad, and Sudan just to mention a few.

I, therefore, plead with our leaders in the country to give their genuine advice and support the president in tackling some of the major problems bedeviling this country, such as fuel scarcity, electricity, insecurity, unemployment, and food insecurity.