By Rotimi Fasan

It’s just appropriate to start the year  2022 with hope and prayers that it will be a far better year than the last few years, especially the last two in which the world has been in the vice grip of COVID-19.

Here in Nigeria, the beginning of this year should remind us that the present government in Nigeria has less than 18 months to remain in office. Yet many Nigerians have great expectations on what it can still do and are hanging hopes on it for a better-governed country.

Well, government may have come to the end of its tether. Former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, is always a polarising figure whose messages are almost always entangled with his person with many confusing the message with the messenger.

But he may have said it all when he recently advised Nigerians to more or less accept the truth of his own submission that expecting more from the present All Progressives Congress-led government would amount to beating a dead horse.

The government appears spent having given all it can to address the problems plaguing Nigeria.

There is pretty little left for it to do to bring about a turn-around in the fortunes of the country.

Yet it would be too simplistic and foolish to put all the blame at their doorstep or hold Muhammadu Buhari personally responsible for what is happening.

Buhari may have bitten off more than he could chew when he returned to power or vowed to keep Nigeria secure, among other promises.

Certain things happen that took the wind out of his sail, like the state of the world economy and the dip in the price of crude oil in the international market.

This led to a downward slide in the economic fortunes of Nigerians who are yet to have their bearing almost seven years since Goodluck Jonathan left office and hopes were high that corruption in high places would be reduced to the barest minimum.

If Nigerian politicians will permit, Nigerians can yet experience the good times even as we move close to the last year of President Buhari in office and the old man is allowed to return to his Daura farm as he has promised to.

The problems facing the country is beyond one individual, however highly-placed. Buhari’s best effort will not save Nigeria if Nigerians, especially the political class, are determined not to cooperate to see a better country.

There are many things wrong with the country today, but these things will not be corrected by the morals of one man alone.

Not when the majority of his co-travellers as politicians are fixed in their ways and imagine rather wrongly that they could hold an individual or the government he heads responsible for all the ills in the country.

That is playing politics and being a politician, which has never availed us, rather than being statesmen and stateswomen.

The President did not create all our problems. He may have done less than expected or he could, and allowed things to get worse. But it would be ascribing too much to him to hold him solely responsible for our problems.

That would not make him appreciate even the little he could do to make things better. He would end up only throwing up his hand and self-righteously conclude that Nigerians are out looking for a scapegoat rather than find real solutions to their problems.

Some inhabitants of Aso Rock Villa already suffer from a siege mentality, believing some hold them or President Buhari responsible for everything wrong with the country including private issues of how a couple interact with each other.

There is also no way many in the political class can be absolved of complicity in the rot in which we have found ourselves.

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There is, in fact, every reason to suspect that our problems, be they political, economic or security, have been aggravated by politicians who wanted to make their counterparts in present leadership positions look less than capable in order to clear space for themselves.

That is where they cannot be directly fingered for some of the problems.

It is not impossible that the many cases of insecurity around the country are sponsored by people opposed to those currently in power. Just as they in turn probably had sponsored others before gaining power.

Which puts them all in the same category as saboteurs making it all too difficult if not impossible to punish such offenders. Leadership is tough at any time. It is even tougher for those who are committed to serve.

While they are working hard their detractors are simply watching from the sideline and making their job difficult.

It is probably where we are right now and to hold a few people responsible will be dishonest and not be in our interest.

This calls for a united front; a collective ownership of the situation and readiness to put things right. And as we look forward to addressing our issues there are certain things we must not accept as normal.

One of these is the present level of insecurity. Where criminals called by whatever names (bandits, kidnappers, insurgents, etc.) can randomly walk into homes and abduct their occupants; where so-called unknown men and women could move into built-up areas and open fire on innocent people, or sack highly fortified military camps; where, indeed, robbers could lay siege to communities and operate for hours without interference from security agencies or people are displaced from their homes; where schools could come under attack and school pupils and their minders could be rounded up, marched into waiting vehicles and are taken into forests to be released one at a time for huge ransoms- where all of this happens, it would be no exaggeration to say that Nigeria has never been this insecure.

Those who choose not to see things this way deny the evidence of their eyes. Being critical of this is not and should not be seen as an attack on the government of the day.

They are in position of authority and it can only be expected that they would exercise the authority invested in them to address the challenges facing the country.

The point of this talk is just to say they cannot be held solely responsible for damage collectively wrought.

We must also not accept that our economic situation cannot get better or that we must permanently live under constant power failure.

Many have lost and many more are still losing their jobs or are unable to make ends meet.

Living from hand to mouth and not knowing where the next meal will come from while some engage in lavish spending on account of their occupancy of public office is neither right nor acceptable.

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