By Muyiwa Adetiba

Most people in the Arts and Literary world often get asked to do book reviews either during public presentations (launch) or for publication. It goes with the territory. It is not my scene but I get asked too; perhaps too often for my liking. I had a request early this month for a book that is to be presented around June ending.

Although this is just a few short weeks away, I still have not seen the book to know whether it is thin or fat since the promise to ship the book to me has not materialized. All I know is that it is not a work of fiction which means it could be tedious or boring. But if it is anything like the author ’s last major work, then it should be seminal and would demand the burning of the clichéd midnight oil – something I don’t relish doing much of these days.

But the author is someone I respect too much to even contemplate refusing and our chanced meeting in Europe early this month was the first in years. I can only now nurture a forlorn hope that he has misplaced my contact address or that his publishers have reached out to some of the more professional book reviewers.

If Nigeria was a book and administrative tenures or regimes were chapters, then this May 29 would signal the end of a chapter and the beginning of another. When a chapter is racy, interesting and full of activities, you loathe for it to end. And when it does, you yearn to lunge into the next chapter hoping it would be more of the same. As the lines unfold, you immerse yourself into the thoughts of the writer and unconsciously bequeath respect and admiration to the process – research, composition and delivery – that gave birth to what is before your eyes. A bad chapter evokes a contrary reaction. There is a reluctance to go on to the next chapter. There is a palpable loss of energy coupled with a feeling that your time is being wasted or stolen even.

The last eight years can be described as a chapter in the story of Nigeria. This chapter should end in a couple of days’ time. Some reviews are already out by professionals and those who like to see themselves as professionals. Many more reviews will come out. Many have used statistics to justify a particular narrative. Some of the reviewers probably wrote one or two pages in this chapter they have taken upon themselves to review and are, therefore, partisan. Some, on the other hand, have been so rabidly negative in their review that you wonder if it is the same country we sleep and wake up in every morning. They have also conveniently ignored the infrastructural projects in rails and roads that have been put in place. In my opinion, those people who have put themselves at extreme ends of the
spectrum have allowed their biases seep into what should be factual reviews.

The truth is nearer the middle, and if you are in love with statistics and in what the data says about unemployment, mounting debt, rising out-of-school children, the value of the Naira, population vs GDP and the quality of life generally, you should be able to discern your own truth. This is because the real truth, the real review of this chapter titled ‘Eight years of the Buhari Administration’ depends largely on how it impacts every individual. Shorn of big statistics and highfalutin numbers, it all boils down to these few questions: are you better off today than you were eight years ago? Is your family better off? Is the country better off? Will the country be more livable as a result of the last eight years of governance? Finally, are you looking forward to the next chapter in the unfolding story of Nigeria, knowing you are still reading from the same APC book?

Many people are not. And that is why the Labour Party fronting as a Third Force, initially took a life and a force of its own until it was compromised along the way from its pan-Nigerian promise. I hope a Third Force, however, called, can re-energize and redirect itself. But I digress. A preview of the next chapter doesn’t look exciting judging from the frantic jostle for naked power and position currently going on by members of the National Assembly. Nigerians want a re-engineered country. The names coming up for key positions in the National Assembly are not encouraging. The mindset is even less so because it portrays a mindset of business as usual. Nigerians want an end to medical tourism.

The President-elect has probably spent more time in Paris than Lagos since he was declared winner. This is unfortunate and doesn’t bode well. The other seeming similarity between the outgoing President and his successor is that they are both past their ‘sell-by-date’ at a time Nigeria needs youthful dynamism and vigour. But beyond that, the two leaders are as different in temperament and outlook as day and night. One is visionary, the other is stuck in the past, almost reactionary. One is expansive and pan Nigeria, the other is closeted. One looks for talent to get the job done, the other looks for kith and kin. One delegates to the point of abdicating, the other monitors almost to the point of micro managing. One is a workaholic, the other finds the clerical part of office demeaning, almost distasteful.

In spite of these, the next chapter is not going to depart from the old one in many ways because the system has not changed; the principal actors are not coming from Mars and therefore, the mindset towards governance is not going to change soon. Some of those who wrote some pages in the previous chapter will be given paper and quilt for some verses in this new chapter. One can only hope that Tinubuwill be courageous enough to chart his own course assuming of course, that the courts give him the green light. He has, from accounts, prepared himself for this. He knows the fault lines.

He knows where the skeletons are hidden. He knows the footprints of his fellow travelers on the rock. The Kingmaker has now become King- with a chance to make an indelible footprint. We can only wish him well and hope he succeeds; for the sake of Nigeria on the brink, for the sake of our sons and daughters who are ‘japa-ing’, for the sake of those in the diaspora who long for a workable country, for the sake of children yet unborn.

Four years will soon be over before we know it and will be time enough for a review. I hope it will be a good one – for all our sakes.