Urgent Issues President-Elect Must Tackle, By Tunde Abatan
It is now fifty-seven days to the assumption of office the sixteenth President of the federal republic of Nigeria, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu who by the special grace of God it pleased Nigerians to elect on February 25 this year.
In the election, he defeated two other prominent contestants in what has become the most fiercely contested election in the history of Nigeria as contestants put in their best to win the election.
The two other contestants, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the opposition People’s Democratic Party, PDP and Mr Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP were the two other dominant contestants as both the duo and Tinubu who eventually emerged winner campaign throughout the country.
It must be noted that all the contestants had votes across the country as different from the previous elections where only two parties were dominant.
However, the election also witnessed the reopening of the nation’s fault lines.
Issues like ethnicity and religion came into the fore as both Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Mr. Peter Obi both harped on their Northern indigeneship while Mr. Peter Obi undeniably used the Christian religion to campaign mixed with both the clamour for Christian candidate and issue of President of Igbo South East extraction.
However, it must be noted that these two issues should form the areas where President Tinubu has to work to reverse the bitter ethno- religious emotions which has divided the country further though he had votes more than the two.
While the issue of forming a government of National Unity may be hard considering the decision of the duo of Atiku and Obi to pursue the matter in the Presidential Election Tribunal, and at the same time organised protests in the streets, yet the two issues of reconciliation and unity of citizens must be addressed by the President after being sworn in.
Since he has accepted to be President of all Nigerians, he should employ tactics that will give supporters and followers of the others reasons to see him as their leader to serve them.
This is better done using the existing National Peace Committee headed by a former military head of state, Abudusalam Abubakar and Reverend Father Matthew Kukah so as to use the existing institutions to unite the country.
Furthermore, the national reconciliatory and healing initiative must also involve Traditional institutions as both are removed from open partisanship.
Another important issue is the nation’s economy which has received several bashings from both the I’ll conceived Fuel scarcity months to the election and the Naira redesign policy which actually confiscated hard earned money of both the poor and even the rich the policy is targeted at to prevent vote buying and promote cashless policy.
Efforts must be made to apologize to Nigerians on the pains inflicted by the policy and measures must be taken to help cushion the debilitating effects on the poor and those the policy has pushed out of employment and business.
Another important area is the need to put in place measures to ease the attendant pains of the withdrawal of fuel subsidy now that it is apparent that all sectors and cross section of stakeholders have agreed on the inevitability okay subsidy withdrawal.
It should be done in phases instead of one fell swoop considering the effect of the two of previous policies, the fuel scarcity and naira redesign.
Nigerians must be assured by the new government that lasting and far-reaching policy thrusts on infrastructure must be put in place to reduce pains and poverty induced effect of the withdrawal.
Nigerians are tolerant, long suffering and patient with government but they need trustworthy leaders who are honest and transparent on their goals and programmes.
The issue of education and employment which has alienated the youths from successive governments in Nigeria over the past six decades leading to mass exodus from the country needed to be addressed.
Far reaching education policy that will return education to the masses and give hope to the poor must be vigorously pursued to stop hopelessness and restore belief in the country by the millions of youths who has lost hope in nations rebirth.
The President is in dire need of good education administrators not ‘Yes men’ who will instill confidence in the students, academic, administrators and other stakeholders who must be convinced of a Roadmap to revamp education from the Primary to Tertiary levels. Since Free education is still debatable considering our resources, poor friendly fees and scholarships must be made available to identifiable indigent students who will in turn be disposed towards serving their country who has invested in them.
Issue of health tourism must also be addressed such that our moribund health institutions both primary and tertiary must be revitalized to cater for All and stop medical tourism’.
The President must urgently devise, if he has not done already, new method to curb banditry, religious insurgency through Boko Haram and others and kidnapping which assumed a new in the dimension in the last eight years with its effect on national cohesion and attracting foreign investment needed to turn the mono- product economy around.
We need to tap our native intelligence and home-grown policies developed Out of the Box if we must achieve different result.
In this policy initiatives, the President must use proven men with track records to pull the nation on the brink of socio-economic collapse and live by his words to run a national government of Competency which is not in short supply either at home or among the Diaspora.
Finally, President Tinubu must make it expedient to embark on Restructuring of the country based on survival of all the entities that make up Nigeria if his policies and programmes must succeed.
If this is done then he would have done things in a different way from all his four predecessors who had refuse to do things differently to achieve national cohesion, stability and much elusive progress in the last fifty-seven years since the military intervened to disrupt and reverse our mutually beneficial Federation bequeathed by the British in 1960.
Anything short of this is prolonging the evil day.
Only great men make everlasting fundamental changes because only they are visionary enough to see the benefits inherent in taken a road others feared to tread.
