I am always pleased and surprised that anyone would take the job of being President of Nigeria. Of all the jobs in the world, it’s the one I’d least like to have. I know you get a to live in the Aso Rock villa for free, get an unconscionable allowance and salary, a private jet and a big staff but I still don’t want the job because it is a job with a job description!
It is always being a mystery to me why no one would want to be President of Nigeria. Anyone who’d accept to be President has to be some kind of nut who loves misery and criticism and posses a disproportionate wish to die.
For me, the perks of office are the reasons I would reject the job.
The Aso Rock Villa seems to be haunted by all accounts. Since creation Nigeria has lost more leaders or spouse of leaders to this singular location than any coup d’état has achieved. In retrospect, more Nigeria leaders have lost their loved ones while in office than any nation on earth. So, why would anyone [or their spouse] accepts to live there even for free?
The allowance and wealth are things to haunt you for the rest of your natural life. Alleged gulf oil money still stings the Babaginda administration 20 years down the line. You don’t even get the satisfaction of being envied upon disclosure of your financial worth or earning capacity, because you can’t. Nigeria President earns more than his American counterpart but heaven knows that’s so far an assumption.
The death wish comes with being told to fly in a presidential Jet. With the workings of our system and the Nigerian factor poking up at every turn and bend, I wonder how the President feels aboard the Presidential Jets. Does he kiss his wife goodbye at every flying opportunity he has? If I were a President, I would never be caught dead close to the Presidential Jets. Now, while no President has died as a result of a plane crash worst has happened under our watch. A minister of Justice has been killed under the watchful eyes of the police and no justice was ever dispensed.
Though some have claimed the president to be the most powerful in the land after God, the rate at which he is rendered powerless is astonishing. Generally, with the battery of aids, a president is expected to boarder less with the mundane things of life but national security and progress. However, the body of idiots at his bequest leaves more to be desired. We are not guaranteed they don’t dissuade the president from thinking at all. The way things work; these people are sworn to no oath and answerable to no one. Yet, they are the handlers of our nation.
The Femi Fani-Kayode’s recent character revelations give a pointer to the horrors President Obasanjo had to put up with during his tenure. If Jonathan’s administration harbors a likeminded fellow like FFK then disaster is close
One should be worried about keeping one’s sanity in and out of office as a president but I wonder if there are no people counselling the president against such thoughts. The president has a so many important decisions to make that he must spend more time than most of us acquiring the information with which to make them. His staffs prepare a news summary for him, but do they include the juicy item? If not when does he read all the good stuff that bare the soul of the nation to him.
The President should have a Villa Psychiatrist examine the mental state of all his advisers at every given opportunity. How do you even sleep at night knowing that your doing/undoing has cost someone his life in some distant village in North-Eastern Nigeria but some persons come to tell you the problem didn’t start with you?
Does the president not fear for his loss of focus when he prescribed the creation of nine more schools in a region with declared apathy for western education? If I were a President, I’d call my personal physician and say, “what’s wrong with me, anyhow?” If not for anything, for the sake of what the former occupants are going through in post-office realities, one should be on guard against sycophancy.
While one ex-President, who by all accounts should know better, played to the gallery in a matter of national progress the other President chose to dance to the ‘guillotine’ claiming the victim. While all he needs is charge forward in the discharge of his presidential duties.
There must be something about this job that makes those in office so clueless while those outside of government are bursting with ideas. Confusion comes for a feeble mind when those who were once in power die to have another taste.
Certainly, being the President of Nigeria is one of the hardest things to do or be.
For one, they beg you to become one but soon after everyone, including your godfather, are breathing down your neck ready to draw your blood.
The people are clueless about their own expectations from the leaders but by some stroke of chance would know it when it is done—how does one measure performance in this instance?
Some realities that lead to yesterday’s decisions suddenly vanishes today often demanding policy reversal—most times, it goes to show how confused one is even when one is fully aware.
Since we are in the era of letter writing: open and its numerous ripostes; permit me, to suggest a consideration for the other alphabets too, for with a simple alphabetical listing we could tackle the nation’s problems a letter at a time!
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