Let Us Pray And Work For Tinubu To Succeed, By Dele Sobowale

May 12, 2024

“God, give me the courage to change the things I can change, the serenity to accept the things I can’t change and the wisdom to know the difference” – Irish Prayer.

I campaigned on this page for eight years against Buhari once he revealed his true colours with all his appointments – mostly Northerners, Fulani, in-laws and close associates. He exhibited bigotry and narrow-mindedness. He demonstrated till his last day in office that competence and character were not important elements – as long as you were Muslim and called Mohammed, Muhammadu or Abubakar.

For eight years, the man drove the Nigerian economy steadily towards the ditch. Thus, as far as I was concerned, the 2023 election was a referendum on Buhari’s government and the All Progressives Congress, APC. To some extent, I really did not care who the APC candidate would be; because voting for him amounted to endorsing eight years of Buhariism. To me, anybody who voted for APC in the election has no reason to complain about the hell in which we find Nigeria now.

Tinubu’s emergence did not change my mind much. His Muslim-Muslim ticket was ill-considered; and the fact that he received only 37 percent of the votes vindicates the belief that majority of Nigerians were not in support. But, the framers of the Nigerian Constitution remain the only people who forgot to call for a run-off election if no candidate received 50-plus percentage of the votes. They were SANs. That said; after reading the judgment of the Court of Appeal, it is my conclusion that the election is over.

Given the erratic verdicts handed down by the Supreme Court, there is very little doubt in my mind that only the greatest miracle of the new millennium would alter the judgment. Only God knows when next we will have Justices respected by the majority of Nigerians at all levels of the judiciary. The case is closed and each of us is now called upon to determine what we want to do about it. My mind is made up on the matter; not because I like it, but because this is a situation I can’t change. Tinubu is the President now.

START WITH PRAYERS

"Whenever a man prays, he prays for a miracle; every prayer reduces itself to this: Great God grant that twice two be not four” – Ivan Turgenev, 1818-1883.

I have already started with prayers for his success. Every morning, in our prayer house at Massey Street, Lagos Island, it is mandatory for us to pray for the President – whether we like him or not. Today, 99.99 per cent of Nigerians are suffering – unlike at any time in the nation’s history. Most of the problems resulted from eight years of Buharinomics – a most destructive form of economic management. Wishing any President to fail amounts to wanting to commit suicide. We will perish before the man does. That is why we pray.

Prayers for Tinubu have taken on additional intensity because no previous Nigerian Head of State, HoS, military or civilian, has ever been confronted with deadlock, so total, as we are experiencing now. Nigerians, in the future, would be wondering if this was a democratic republic. Start with this information just reaching us.

"Nigeria’s debt jumps by 75% in three months, hits N87tn” – Report, September 15, 2023