The Presidential election has come and gone. It has been won and lost after numerous intrigues, shenanigans and grandiloquent rhetoric by the two dominant parties - the PDP and the APC. Armageddon was in the air and every one could feel it. Those who could afford it voted with their feet - as far away as possible from their estimation of the flashpoints.

It was therefore a huge relief to all when the predicted post- electoral violence failed to materialize largely because President Jonathan who lost the election displayed remarkable spirit of statesmanship by calling Buhari to concede defeat. Jonathan lost to Buhari by more than two million votes. That singular act of statesmanship by President Jonathan was all it took to prevent innocent blood from being shed as the different regional factions of the elites feuded over power.

There are several lessons from the election.

One is the transient nature of power. When you are the man of the moment it always seems that everything has frozen in time and that you will be in the spotlight forever. But the truth is that one day, the baton will inevitably be passed on to another person who will do his or her own public dance before also bowing out. The ephemeral nature of power should serve both as a restraint on power wielders and as a prod for them to strive to leave a lasting legacy before their time is up in that dancing square. In the next few weeks we will be sure to read of several aides of the President distancing themselves from him or ‘revealing’ how their ‘good’ advice to the President was never heeded. For instance in an interview on The Street Journal published on 1 April 2015, former militant and national leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, claimed he had predicted two years ago that Jonathan would not last in office beyond 2015 “because of the ‘greedy’ politicians in his cabinet’.

Two, I have a strong feeling that Jonathan will be more beloved out power than he ever was as president. With his Gowon-like humility and unassuming mien, a lot of assignments will be waiting for him as peace ambassador around the world. It is true that Jonathan is not the most inspiring leader in the world. But did Obasanjo not become a world statesman by a single act of voluntarily handing over power to elected civilians in 1979? If I were Jonathan I would actually feel relieved after being in executive positions for 16 consecutive years since the current democratic dispensation started - as deputy governor, governor, vice president, acting president and president. At 57, Jonathan is still relatively young and should be relieved that he will have more time to himself. He can set up a good think-tank, write his memoirs and play the statesman - travelling to different African countries as peace ambassador.

Three, Buhari’s victory reminds one of the aphorism that perseverance pays, or that a quitter never wins and a winner never quits. Before the election on 28 March 2015, Buhari had made three unsuccessful attempts at the Presidency. He succeeded in his fourth attempt at 72. Abraham Lincoln, often rated as one of the best American Presidents, had numerous failures in his career before he was suddenly elected President in 1860 at the age of 51. Though Buhari holds the record of being the oldest person to be elected President, his age pales when compared to India’s Morarji Ranchhodji Desai’s, who was appointed Prime Minister in March 1977 at the age of 81.

While I join other Nigerians in congratulating the President-elect, I will also like to add to the cacophony of unsolicited pieces of advice Buhari is likely to be inundated with. I will like to summarize what I will consider the immediate challenges facing the President-elect as follows:
Managing expectations: Among Buhari’s diehard supporters - meaning those who have been supporting his presidential aspirations since 2003 - their expectations are sky-high. . With such high expectations, Buhari has to find a way to manage these expectations because the truth is that there is no magic wand to solving the problems of the country. True, a good leader can help solve many of the systemic and institutional problems facing the country, there are other variables other than vision and incorruptibility that can determine how successful a leader is in implementing his programmes. Buhari will also find a way of reconciling his convictions with the interests of the forces that helped propel him to the presidency. How will he reconcile his eagerness to do what he believes is right with the imperatives of subjecting such convictions to the sluggish wheels of the democratic process? Just as he has to manage the high expectations of his cultic followers, he has also to contend with the scepticisms of others who remain suspicious of his authoritarian past and whether he can function as a democrat without abridging our current democratic gains.

Eschew triumphalism: The President elect should endeavour to be magnanimous in victory. People who worked on the other side had to do what they had to do - just like the APC team had to do what they needed to do to get him elected. Part of being magnanimous in victory is to eschew all temptations at witch-hunting or revenge. For instance a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Adamu Aliero, reportedly called on security agencies to arrest Femi Fani-Kayode, the director of media and publicity of the Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organization, for falsely claiming that the PDP had won the presidential election in 23 states. Aliero was said to have made the call on March 31, while responding to questions from journalists in Birnin Kebbi, the Kebbi state capital, on his victory at the senatorial election in the state. “His arrest for further questioning will be a clear indication that the security agencies are truly unbiased participants in this electoral process.” Just as a call such as Aliero’s needs to be ignored (both sides were actually claiming victory before the official results were announced), the President-elect must resist any effort to be appropriated by any cabal under any guise.

Uniting a polarized and fractured nature: The President elect should immediately start the process of uniting a polarized and fractured nation. The country’s fault lines have grown deeper and Nigerians distrust one another probably more than at any time since the end of the civil war. Elsewhere I argued that he greatest challenge facing the country is the crisis in our nation building and that this has led to massive de-Nigerianization (i.e. people and groups feeling alienated from the Nigeria project and consequently delinking from the Nigerian state). How do we re-start the stalled nation-building process? I believe this should be one of the priorities of the President elect, because unless he has a united country, every action and policy of the regime will be viewed suspiciously through the spectacle of our fault lines.
Do not shrink our democratic space: In the last sixteen years or so, Nigeria has been able to exorcise the ghost of two jinxes - inability to transit from one civilian regime to another and inability to transit from one party to the other. From all indications, our democracy is deepening. Nigerians will like to ensure that our freedom of expression, including speeches that ‘shock and awe’ is not tampered with. This is especially important given the President elect’s military background and authoritarian past. Our democracy will continue to grow only if there is a vibrant marketplace of ideas that sustain it.

Re-think the fight against corruption: The President-elect has the reputation of being incorruptible and is therefore expected to wage a vigorous war against corruption. My opinion is that unless the strategy is re-thought such that corruption is recognized as largely systemic and a symptom of a more fundamental problem (rather than a question of moral lapse), you will spend all energy fighting the cancer and still fail - as happened with the General’s War Against Indiscipline and its successors including EFCC and ICPC. If every regime since independence promised to make fighting corruption the cornerstone of its regime and yet the problem lingers, then it is time we revisited our strategies for fighting corruption.

Insecurity - From Boko Haram in the Northeast, kidnapping in the south east and south-south and armed banditry in the southwest and other places, Nigerians want their persons and properties to be protected from physical harm. It is estimated that the Boko Haram insurgency alone has claimed some 20,000 lives since 2010. As a former soldier, expectations on this front are very high.

Other challenges
There are several ‘micro’ challenges facing the country - from unemployment, to falling standards in our education institutions to epileptic power supply. These problems can be tackled but they can only be tackled more effectively, if the ‘macro’ challenges mentioned above are effectively dealt with.

Source:http://dailytrust.com.ng/daily/columns/thursday-columns/51141-buhari-dawn-of-a-new-era

Dailytrust 's got bad editorial team. Saying armageddon was in the air and then saying Jonathan's singular act of statemanship prevented bloodshed. Anyway, i got the message...