Mr. President, please allow young people to run in 2027, by Hakeem Baba Ahmed

Your excellence, Mr. President,

I had hoped that I would have had the opportunity to meet you one against one for the first time since you approved my appointment as a special councilor on political issues in the office of the vice -president about 18 months ago. He would have offered me an excellent opportunity to offer what he could have been the only significant advice that I could give you directly in exchange for the salary that you paid me. I had also hoped that an audience with you would provide the possibility of explaining why I insist on the resignation, despite the efforts to dissuade me by the vice -president, some ministers, key officials of your administration and a series of people I keep in the utmost esteem. Well, all that is now history.

However, please allow me to thank you for approving my appointment and for the privilege of serving my country once again as a public officer. To be honest, for someone at 70 who has not made a campaign for you, is not a member of your party and who had gained a certain reputation for the criticisms supported for the eight years of your predecessor APC of a deeply harmful governance, your approval that I should become part of the impression of a will to tolerate inclusion and diversity, as well as some concerning merit. I am particularly grateful to the vice -president, who did everything to convince me that staying on the spot was a better option of the resignation.

I must be honest in saying that I had many doubts about accepting the invitation first. Your “Emi Lokan” mantra suggested me a worrying desire to drive, guided mainly by the impulse to satisfy personal ambition. I heard that after Bohari’s misadventure – for which the country continues to pay a high price – the last thing we needed was another leader guided exclusively by a personal research of power. Many well-intentioned people advised me that I would not have inserted myself in your administration for various reasons, the most common you could end up like Buhari 2.0-o worse-and I would pass from being a voice critic to an active or silent collaborator.

It was tempting to sit and wait, or to criticize yourself if you have not been able to provide the leadership that the nation needs or praise me if you managed to turn the country. In the end, I thought it was better to help to turn off the fire than to curse those who lit him. I joined your administration as a consultant with the eyes well open, at the cost of precious relationships and under intense hostility from the “politicians” of social media who assume that every appointed politician is in it for personal gain (read: a lot of money, most of them stolen).

My long career in the Federal Public Service has taught me that the office of the Presidency has a longtime tradition in dealing with the vice -president’s office at the best of hypotheses as a constitutional responsibility and, in the worst hypothesis, as an appendix suspects constantly planning to take the number one position. When you pushed the nation in depth with your inaugural announcement on the removal of subsidies, some of us with experience in the design of the policies and the public administration knew that the country would need the best hands to manage enormous changes and transition.

You inherited a seriously damaged economy and a seriously stressed population. Without a clear and supported vision and unable to translate the momentum of May 29 into a constant leadership, your administration was destined to face turbulence. The idea of ​​four more or eight years of scarce government after Buhari’s era was too alarming to contemplate. You needed some basic elements to be successful.

First of all, you needed a clear vision of your goals and the challenges you had to overcome. Unfortunately, it seemed that I was too busy chasing political domination, relying on your old Lagos circle to integrate a vision that was missing. Your renewed agenda of hope is not a vision: it is a series of country promises, not a structured governance strategy worthy of your experience, however dated. You needed to appoint men and women who shared a convincing vision, not only party members and simply faithful political Jobbers. Your initial appointments reflect more political than quality. Although there was some improvement later, the effort was warm. At present, more than half of your cabinet is no business that manages an administration in charge of improving safety, means of subsistence or public trust.

You had to embody and support personal integrity, good health and strong commitment to the needs of your office: work, equity and humility. Yet your leadership style behind closed doors, your apparent indifference towards the complaints of ethnic prejudices in the appointments and the perception that the country is frequently managed from abroad while attending personal issues, have created the image of an isolated leader who directs an island administration.

Your internal and secondary circles do not reflect the discipline or inspiration necessary to transform Nigeria. Pandering to political interests at the expense of good government has deprived you of the tools to have a greater impact. You had to act as a democratic in a federal system, something with which even the best global leaders fight. It seems that your experience in the Lagos government interpreted the Kingmaker and resisting struggling premature power sockets did not prepare for the complex needs of national leadership, jumping personal interest with the challenges of inclusive governance and station.

You had to create a balance between the past you wanted to reform and the future you hoped to model. Instead, you have created a situation in which citizens discuss if life under you is worse than under Buhari or rather only in economic jargon that does not reflect their suffering. You needed to build a team guided by urgency, purpose and a profound understanding of the scope of your mission, not a content with the routine and mediocrity inherited from the past. That team has never materialized.

You needed a strong strategy of involvement, capable of building national consent or at least neutralize hostility. Instead, you have appointed a crowd of spokesperson that often confuse rather than clarify your policies. You have ignored legitimate dissent, choosing instead of designing a flexible legislature, thus robbing the nation of a robust democratic discourse. Your record on security and institutional reform is not impressive.

These are hard truths, Mr. President, but few will also tell you their diluted versions. Now your administration is pushed towards the priority of the 2027 elections on governance. But improving governance, revisiting priorities, refining policies, instilling tax discipline, facing complaints, fighting insecurity and corruption and promotion of national unit should be your goal.

Two years are a long time: you can still get a lot. But if the attention is shift now to the electoral ambitions, you risk losing the momentum of governance and public good will. If you win again without reforming your style and strategy, you can spend more four years by preserving failure. If you lose, your inheritance could be swept away in an instant.

Keep what is missing from your opposition: the power to reduce the hardness of life for the middle Nigerian. Use it well. Look at 2027, yes, but not be consumed by it. The North is drifting from your leadership under the weight of economic difficulties, housing and alienation. The east remains politically disengaged, while the South-South is fragmented. The South -ovest has been warm and its privileged position could become a weight. The north -est is deeply injured and can no longer be taken for granted.

Mr. President, I urge you to reflect deeply on the inheritance you want to leave and how history will remind you. Insisting to run for a second mandate could be a serious mistake. Your name is already engraved in the history of Nigeria. Use time until 2027 to model the inheritance, do not extend your mandate.

Do aside, not for your opponents, but for a new generation of Nigerians who can carry on the nation with fresh energy and ideas. Our generation made its time. It would be a teacher if you and your party had produced the field to new voices and new leadership. In this way, you could catalyze a peaceful and historical transformation and inspire a new political culture rooted on the merits, unity and progress.

Mr. President, these and some other thoughts are what I would have offered you in person. You do not have the reputation to be excessively conservative. I hope you still have the fire to challenge the status quo. Perhaps this is the role that Destiny has prepared for you.

I offer this advice with sincerity and hope: believe that a leader can change the course of a nation. That leader could be you. Many who have worked with you say that you mean well for Nigeria. That’s why I ask, respectfully and firmly: Mr. President, please don’t run again in 2027.