Buhari: Change Is Actually An Active Verb......Simon Kolawole

Months have slimmed down to weeks, and soon we will be counting days and hours to the historic change of baton between President Goodluck Jonathan and Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.

Soon and very soon, Buhari will start dominating the headlines: Buhari did this, Buhari did that.

Jonathan will take the back seat, except he wants to be like that megalomaniac interloper in Abeokuta.

The front-page pictures of the newspapers will be all Buhari.

The subject of discourse by columnists and TV analysts will be

Buhari. If the weather is too hot, it will be Buhari's failing. If a policeman collects N20 bribe somewhere in Ode Omu, it will be Buhari's fault. That's the way we are.

God save Buhari if the PDP propaganda machinery is half as effective as that of the APC: he would be in hot soup from the word go.

But the PDP, as things stand, is crushed and in disarray, and it may

take the party years to get its bearing. So Buhari should at least have some breathing space in the meantime. Given the global goodwill he enjoys — backed by his reputation as an honest and modest

man — Buhari will likely be given a chance.

Typically, electoral success produces the initial euphoria, followed by the honeymoon after inauguration.

Next, the people begin to size up the new leader and, finally, the hard reality sets in.

That's the way life goes.

Buhari won the presidential election promising "change".

Now that APC has captured power, "change" must move from slogan to action.

During the campaign, "change" was a noun, an idea, a jingle. "Change" must now function as a verb, an active verb at that.

Verb, we were told in primary school, is a "doing" word.

Active verb "does"; passive verb is "done".

So Buhari must change Nigeria else Nigeria will change him.

He must be the subject, not the object. If he does not "do", he

will be "done" for.

If he does not "change" Nigeria very soon, trust Nigerians to become nostalgic and romantic about the past. You'll start hearing:

"Even Jonathan was not this bad!"

In Nigeria, we always think a former president is better than the current one. After all, it was suggested at some stage that Gen. Sani Abacha

was better than President Olusegun Obasanjo.

I heard arguments about how Abacha kept the exchange rate at N80 to $1 and how it had fallen to N120 under Obasanjo.

While I would agree that Abacha and Obasanjo were alike on many counts, I wouldn't suggest Abacha, who spent five years torturing and murdering Nigerians, was better.

However, if people could say late President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua — who did virtually nothing — was better than Jonathan, then I have seen it all.

Three things will define the Buhari administration in its infancy: one, his first cabinet; two, his first decisions; and three, his first budget.

Will his first cabinet be dominated by jobbers, losers and other

hopeless nominees intended to settle political IOUs like Obasanjo's team in 1999?

Will Buhari spend his first days in office reversing policies, instituting

politically motivated probes and cancelling contracts like Yar'Adua did in 2007?

Will Buhari's first budget be overloaded with overheads and

subsidy payments like Jonathan's in 2011?

These could end up shaping the direction of any administration.

The morning foretells the day in many instances.

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