Next level is the style term for President Muhammadu Buhari’s second term. It was conceived at the onset of the 2019 campaign, matured through the elections and was sealed on the announcement of the results. There is so much hope in it, and Nigerians are on the watch for its kickstart in earnest.
Next Level will finally takeoff on the announcement of the next cabinet, but it has consolidated so much base as foundations for the smooth conduct of government in the next four years. It may be a party, committee or a thinktank group’s idea but PMB holds it. Everyone watches out for how Next Level plays out.
So far, a number of deals have been sealed on cover and on over. First was the election win. Then came the number strength of party members and loyalists at the NASS, to silence the minority. And most recent is the APC’s seal of the NASS leadership, having dominated the offices to direct the NASS towards the policy thrust of the Executive.
That evening, PMB signed into law the public holidays Bill to legalise June 12 as Democracy Day and May 29 to remain handover of elected governments at different levels. Many see the June 12 idea as controversial but the FGN wants to correct errors of the past, in its efforts to entrench or deepen the roots of democracy.
Yes. Democracy cannot be deepened with the wounds of June 12 remain painful in some hearts. Many see it as a measure to appease a section of the country, but FGN meant to unite all sections instead.
Whatever, whoever are thinking that and taking June with one finger of the hand, must have their reasons which may also be as political as what they say the FGN’s is.
A day after its legal rebirth, June 12 was celebrated before the very eyes of world leaders as witnesses to the renewed Nigeria, their good sister that PMB said it will remain.
The celebration was a huge achievement for PMB, his next thrust of policy, to his party and its men and women. The opposition’s tummy must have carried gallons of water that day until now.
Next level is consolidated. It is just about taking off, soon. It is huge score for PMB and supporters for the next level of consolidation and continuation of more yields from the popular, unprecedented programmes put in place, programmes and infrastructural lying that many capitalists from all shades find ridiculous in contempt of the poor and the needy.
And that is the seal. It is the seal of the PMB factor in Nigeria’s democratic leadership. it is the seal of the nays, fear, sabotage, destruction and killings of the opposition to those programmes and the policy of fighting corruption. It is the seal to the assurance that PMB can do anything in surprises that the guilty may not find funny.
Some of them count the prisons under construction but are silent on the roads, railways and the good socioeconomic policies changing lives of many. The fear of prison is the wisdom of the guilty. But the use of the fear to make a bad case is for self actualisation is abominable.
In their blind eyeing of issues, they forget the ‘The Justice of PMB’ which milk has poured down to the cups of many, including the guilty, including Justice Onnongen’s acceptance of retirement even when the FGN has all the legal instruments of dismissing him.
Even if a million prisons are built, it is only the guilty and the offender that will find it an issue. If PMB turns to jail even the innocent however defined, then men will be sorted out on who and who will find that funny.
Except if those who are scared by the erection of prison walls want the FGN and other governments at the lower levels to let a free place for the corrupt and the criminal to do what they like to anyone and to the State and go free.
That will be pathetic then. Crime is universal. It is not unique to Nigeria. So planning against it is not peculiar to Nigeria. They tell us the current waves of kidnaps, killings and all crimes are just meant to be lamented as they thrive.
No wonder they find strokes to lash the government. It is the highest order of unpatriotic wish for the country. Well, there will be those who will be housed. It is a way of life, normal, perhaps for their own faults.
For the past four years, the FGN has given all the opportunities and privileges of reconciling with self and with the state over faults and misdemeanours of the past. The good among the defaulters have long seized the chances. Many have returned money and asset, cleared their names and are free members of society.
Directly or indirectly, the instrument for financial and economic justice, the EFCC, has been mild – explaining and campaigning through all means – to make the guilty and offenders to return, to negotiate, to explain on honesty and on admission, to help the officers. In the stead of cooperating with it, the stubborn thieves still see it as an instrument of hunting the opposition.
Many complied. They saw the chances in the many open doors for reconciliation with God, with self and with the people of Nigeria. Many are forgiven and are now working hard on the right hand of governments. And true, they are forgiven in every sense.
All they needed was to admit, to regret and to promise never again. It was that simple. But no simplicity virtue can appeal to the difficulty that some persons in Nigeria form for themselves.
But many are still busy languishing in denials of their offence with gowns o arrogance and still see the repentant as persons who have just been readmitted into the folds of the Government only to continue stealing. How do you deal with such humans?
How do you help who don’t want to help themselves or to be helped? May here is where the PMB FGN failed. It failed to help who do not need help. And that is huge kudos to it. No one can do the impossible.
It is the highest point of impunity for anyone who has the remote and the immediate history of Nigeria at heart to reason and act like that. Prisons are part of life. For every palace of a traditional ruler in Nigeria, there is the god neighbourliness of inmates just next door.
Some of us don’t think they know any iota of national history. We will never sort things out at any level if we continue to ignore our past and deny our mess, not even at the family level.
The staunch denial of the immediate past is the reason for this deliberate ignorance about the critical issues we are facing and how the overburdened governments at all levels are trying to surmount them.
Now the sad issue in the forming trip to Next Level is what some of us in the North are trying to make out of the D-Day and June 12. While the FGN is using it as an instrument of unity and reconciliation, those who are in competition with the leadership are challenging the nation that it is sectional and is about one person only.
Someone said on one of the international radio stations that the declaration of June 12 was done in order to please the family of the MKO Abiola. So. Was he not the loser, the cheated by the denial? What else are we talking about?
I wished a number of friends Happy DD. None replied. And only one sent me a wish. There is a stubborn negligence of the D-Day that Wednesday. An eerie silence from individuals, groups and governments across northern states brings early a sense of the cold, dusty cold December-January in June.
The fact in that is the faultline dividing the nation. Many in the North see it beyond a mere political act. They see it as a day of the Yoruba. Others think it is an exercise in helping the Jagaba to consolidate for 2023 when he hopes to perpetuate another long pace for a Yoruba Presidency. They still hold the OBJ years fresh, adding to their grievances that the last PMB four years and the-would-be years are all dedicated to the SW.
How? Because works started from down the Niger? Because Bola Tinubu was smart to obey, support and work with PMB? Because of the works in Lagos or the Lagos-Ibadan rail?
Because PMB trusted Tinubu and others who obey him and are loyal to him? Only fools in government use adversaries to advance public causes. You use like-minds.
Because they refused all the temptations from the same elements to make them deceive him from his sickbed then? Nigerians cannot forget just yet. It is too early to manipulate public opinion.
It is impossible in the new Nigeria of Next Level. Because PMB surmounted the obstacles on the way of the journey to date, to make possible make NL possible and sure?
Those questions have no answers. Anyone who holds to the past grief has no intention to travel. We know that the single one man has no personal gratification in all these. Those who know know.
Some of us in the North will turn out to make the region the last in political developments. It is not PMB’s policies that are disadvantageous to the North. It is the attitudes and disservice of the bad elements and servant of the almighty SELF.
But those who trade faults of the President will always find reasons to ask other questions on getting answers they will never accept for the above questions. And the conclusion among even kindergarten is that they didn’t/don’t want any work in roads and rails to begin. Their transport businesses will die.
It may be all the above. It may be some of them. It may be none of them. Yes. In everything Government does, there is always an exploit for someone. But if it turns out to be the other person and not you, it doesn’t not negate the intention and the purpose of the Government action.
Government does not act on the basis of an individual’s personal terms. No responsible one does. It is a matter of misperception. All the while that personal interest has been used to define its policies, how many times has the PMB FGN reacted to explain? It is because they are inconsequential.
Those who believe know that work will trail up above the Nigerian the kickoff of NL. The coaches for the Lagos-Ibadan rails have arrived, though. What I have found in life is that whatever you hate so much and pray hard they don’t happen will always come to be.
Hassan Alhaji Hassan can be contacted on 08032829772/08050551220 (text only with full names and address)a[email protected]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect WikkiTimes’ editorial stance.
