By Collins Adaka

ON December 17, 2019 President Muhammadu Buhari attained 77 years on mother earth. We thank God for his life and for the journey thus far. His travails and odyssey have been quite sincere. Before his advent on May 29, 2015, Nigeria was ranked the corruption headquarters of the world.

The country was like drifting on a lonely sea. How and why our civic ethos got so profoundly debased over the years would remain perennially debatable.

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It becomes obvious and inevitable, however, that our country urgently requires some form of shock treatment to salvage and redeem our essential morality.

Most efforts of government in the past aimed at strengthening or salvaging public morality, were at best pretentious, cosmetic or at the very best half-hearted in terms of planning and execution. The expectations of Nigerians have been dashed continually.

Notwithstanding the great fervour they show for their beloved country, embarrassing under performance has remained their stable. There are some developmental projects that have been on from past regimes until now. They include the Lagos-Ibadan road, Lagos-Ore-Benin road, East-West road and a lot more. What often remains rather constant is the fact that the quantum of monies budgeted for developmental purposes, year on year are seriously diverted for personal use such that there is a parlous level of development all around us.

The Buhari/Osinbajo regime have a date with history because they came on board the ship of the country when we were at our lowest ebb due to maladministration of past governments. Although they came on board on a “change mantra” and Nigerians expected to see some immediate changes in the economy, many have become disappointed with time as the standard of living of most Nigerians has stagnated.

It will, however, take a while for the benefits of the various reforms of the government to manifest. Nothing in life comes easy. Life itself when viewed from the valley is a continuous uphill task.

As a patriotic Nigerian, I am looking beyond now and seeing a glorious future for Nigerians. I have the cautious optimism that it will be well for this country if and only if we are patient enough to reap what the Buhari/Osinbajo presidency has sown in the past few years.

President Buhari’s upbringing in Daura may have a lesson for all. While speaking at the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the community secondary school, Daura, he said: “I spent nine years in the boarding school, where the teachers showered us with love, care and total commitment. They treated us like their own children. They commended us when we did well, and flogged us on bare buttocks if we misbehaved”. The leader of the team, Alhaji M.T. Bature, Sarkin Kudu of Katsina, said the vision of the founding fathers, including the President, had ensured the success of so many sons of the state, with many growing up to become professors, engineers, doctors, and military generals.

In the past, President Buhari must have been filled with nostalgic memories when as the General Officer Commanding Third Mechanised Division of the Nigerian Army in Jos, he dealt with the Maitasine group that was just rearing its ugly head.

He completely annihilated them to the chagrin of the late President Shehu Shagari who almost wept on seeing the level of destruction. Such was the man, Buhari.

President Buhari is a rare gem who has the compassion of the down-trodden at heart. This is probably why the first task he undertook on assumption of office in 2015 was to test the limits of fiscal ingenuity by giving cash bail out to states to offset salary arrears. He was touched that poor workers would go home each day unsure of the next meal for their families.

Not done yet, despite inheriting a very fragile economy, he introduced free meals for our school children and the empowerment of poor and vulnerable traders through the introduction of “Tradermoni”.

Also, on assumption of the leadership he introduced Treasury Single Accounts (TSA), where all monies accruing to government were paid into a single account thereby pruning leakages. To his credit, there is a lot of infrastructural developments going on simultaneously across the nooks and crannies of the country.

Closing of our porous borders, tackling electricity headlong by awarding contract to Siemens, the probing at the NDDC and so many other initiatives are highly commendable. I join millions of his admirers and patriots to wish him many more years of service to his fatherland.