A former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana, has advised Nigerians to be patient with President Muhammadu Buhari as he settles down for the business of governance.
Gana said that it would not be right to criticise every move being made by the President whose government was just 30 days old.
The former Information Minister during the Ibrahim Babangida regime said this during the presentation of two books authored by the Director, Defence Information, Maj. Gen. Chris Olukolade, in Abuja on Tuesday.
The books are with the titles “Issues in the Mobilisation of Public Support for Military Operation in Nigeria” and “The Voice of Battles of the Nigerian Military.”
Gana stressed that while Nigerians were intelligent and patriotic, they had the weakness of being impatient.
He urged the citizenry to give the President the opportunity to study the situation in the country to be able to make decisions that would impact the nation positively.
He said, “Although we are very intelligent, we are patriotic but one of the things that is ruining Nigeria is that we are not patient at all. We are very very impatient and anybody who is impatient would not make solid things.
“Even if you are looking for a wife and you are not patient, you do it anyhow. But when you are looking for a great lady, you have to wait because the best takes time to come. Nigerians, you are too impatient.
“Already, he has done just about 30 days.
“One of the things I have learnt is that we should be patient. 30 days? Let him choose his priorities; let him study the situation, he has four years.
“You want to criticise every move? No you don’t do that. I thank God that I have seen in him that spirit of resilience and the ability to bounce back after failure.
“You know, it is after the fourth time that the man became President. He tried and we defeated him, he tried again, we defeated him, he tried the third time and we defeated him, but when he came the fourth time, he defeated us. If you must succeed in life, there must be the spirit of resilience and confidence in you.”
Gana said that a leader must display a spirit of resilience, courage, focus, discipline and passion to be able to make the expected impact in the country.
He also advised Nigerians to give the expected support to the military, stressing that it would be wrong to play politics with the Armed Forces.
He called for financial, psychological and moral support for the military, which according to him, had been given “a monopoly of legitimate violence” in the society.
He lamented that the ‘legitimate violence’ given to the military was being hijacked by the insurgents in the North-East and other youth groups in other parts of the country.
He said that corruption was a grave threat to national security and called on Nigerians to declare a total campaign against the malaise.
The Chief Guest of Honour at the event, and a former Head of State, Gen. Abdusalami Abubakar, who was represented by a former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Abdulrahman Danbazzau, said that Olukolade performed well in the area of providing relevant explanations to Nigerians about the ongoing operation in the North-East.
In his comment, Olukolade called for support for the military, adding that the two books were dedicated to the personnel of the Armed Forces who devoted their lives to the defence of the country.
Dear Prof, I support PMB, but there are certain actions he needs to take early in his tenure. We've seen, for example, that he has yet to decide who the DPR boss would be and George Osahon whose tenure expired only handed over to his deputy who is now acting. We also see that PMB didn't seem to have thought about who would succeed Prof Jega as INEC Chairman - the lady Pharmacists who has taken over is only acting by default, and I, like many others, do not believe she has the strength of character to lead INEC. These are not good signs from the President. And, by the way, when will he stop the petroleum subsidy - something he knew he would have to do even before he won the election? He does not need any long study for that! And the longer he waits, the more the NLC will oppose him when he eventually does it. If he had done it a month ago, there would have been no fuel queues anywhere in the country now.
ReplyDeleteBuhari is a worker but not a leader.A worker is that person that you give assignment and does it to your satisfaction without your supervision.While leader is that person who is on top of affair, taking god decisions suitable and benefits of the corporation even in eratic situation is always right and being consultted
ReplyDeleteJerry G don change too. Mallam, whr do u belong, Democrat or progressive.
ReplyDelete