Did President Buhari really say that?

As part of his reaction to the gruesome and senseless murder of rice farmers in Zabarmari, Borno State, penultimate Saturday and the general state of insecurity in the country, President Muhammadu Buhari called on Nigerians to intensify prayers against insecurity. The President also avoided taking responsibility for securing the country by claiming that the federal government had provided the armed forces the needed support to take all necessary steps to protect the people.

I honestly wish the President had not said that. I sincerely wish he had neither called for prayers nor dodged his responsibility as Commander-In-Chief. I wish the President had for once been presidential in his statement by telling the people what his government would do to once and for all put an end to the senseless and needless killings in the land. But instead the President hid behind the veil of “I have done all I can do” and calling for prayers to aggravate the people’s feeling of helplessness. Rather than promising to move the might and resources of the state against the killers, the President said he had done all he could and was resigning to fate and putting everything in the hands of God.

Pray, what should be our prayer point in this matter, Mr President? Do we ask God to take over from the President as the Commander-In-Chief so He can help us out of our security challenges? Do we call on God to conduct investigations into the cause of the killings? Do we call on Him to come down and arrest the killers? Do we call on Him to make our security architecture more effective? Do we call on God to mount surveillance over the land? Do we invite God to equip our security operatives? Do we call on God to get intelligence for our security operatives? Mr President, what exactly do we pray to God for?

Nigerians filed out on February 23, 2019 to elect a Commander-In-Chief, not a Chief Imam or a Bishop. If we had wanted a prayer warrior rather than a Commander-In-Chief, we would have appointed the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) president or the Sultan of Sokoto as our President. President Muhammadu Buhari was elected to protect us, not to resign to fate. For the President’s information, Nigerians do not need him to pray for them, they already do enough of that on their own.

The President’s call for prayer over the nation’s security challenges leaves a bitter state in the mouth because great leaders don’t act that way. In critical moments, leaders don’t make an open show of their supplication to God; they pray in their closets to seek the face of God and provide direction in the public. That is leadership.

Leaders don’t resign to fate; neither do they make prayer a national strategy. As a matter of fact, the essence of leadership is to proffer solutions to the people’s challenges. Leaders are not elected to lament a situation neither are they appointed to blame others for a problem; leaders are elected or appointed to fix what is wrong in the society. Finito.

Problems persist mainly for one reason: the lack of will to find solution to them. The unwillingness usually is either because some people profit from the problem or because the people concerned are disinclined to engage in the mental rigour required to find a solution to the problem. Whenever leaders demonstrate the will to solve a problem, nothing stops them.

When Hannibal, the legendary Carthage commander, was told by his military generals that it was impossible to cross the Alps with elephants, Hannibal’s response was simple, “I will either find a way or make one.” He did find a way.

 

Another retreat into history:

Winston Churchill took over from Neville Chamberlain as the British Prime Minister in the first year of World War II. Though it was a difficult time for the British Empire, the new Prime Minister did not roll out any pity party; neither did he lament Chamberlain’s handling of the situation nor call for a prayer session. While not ignoring God, Churchill knew that victory was dependent on what he did with the resources at his disposal. So, at his first meeting with the House of Commons, he gave an unforgettable speech. Churchill said, “We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”

 

Churchill led his country to victory at last.

Mr President, in this battle against the mass killings of Nigerians, your aim should be victory, “victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”

Mr President, enough of the excuses, enough of the lamentations, enough of the blame game. Find a way to protect life and property in Nigeria or make one. Find a way to defeat terror in Nigeria or find one. That is not too much to ask of a President and Commander-In-Chief. Or is it?

 

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