I WANT to use today to passionately appeal to the critics of President Muhammadu Buhari to show some understanding. His expected conversion from a well-rounded dictator to a full-fledged democrat cannot be automatic. The man retired from the public service 30 years ago as a soldier and military head of state. Nothing in his credentials indicates that he had had training in democratic practice and attitudes before he began the quest to return to the presidency in 2003.

Although the revered Prof. Soyinka had announced to us that the intervening time (between 1985 and 2015) recreated Buhari for democratic competition and even put him a notch higher than other competitors, I still insist, actually on behalf of Buhari himself, that a dictator does not become a democrat with the sheer passage of time.

And let us be sincere for once. We did not vote for Buhari because he had become a democratic. We voted for him to essentially do a job, which is the ridding of Nigeria (by any means possible) of the evil of corruption and terrorism. The man has been doing what he was hired to do. We are now the ones impeding him with the sophistry of ‘rule of law’, ‘due process’ and all-what-not to create windows for thieves to run away with the big money they have stolen.

In 1984, Buhari did not have these problems doing the same job. He just collected all the thieves that operated in the Second Republic into jail and asked for every kobo stolen to be returned. But, Nigerians, ever impatient, did not give him the benefit of time to clinically finish the good job he had started. He was pushed out and almost immediately the journey back to corruption began. Alarmed, the APC, on behalf of Nigerians, literally begged Buhari to return and lead the way to the Promised Land.

Regarding the job at hand, Buhari is not reinventing the wheel. As it was in 1984/85 so it is now. He knows how to achieve results in record time, Nigerians are the ones worrying unnecessarily. They want him to apply new methods to tackle a familiar problem at this old age. It is like telling a 74-year old man who had been left-handed all along to start doing things with his right hand.

Put differently, it is naïve to expect the snake to bring forth short offspring and even more naïve to expect the snake to change character, because it has changed skin. Buhari should be left alone to freely apply his expertise to do the job we have assigned him. Although he has named the judiciary as part of the clog in the wheel of the anti-corruption drive, Buhari can still approach a court of competent jurisdiction for an injunction to perpetually stop Nigerians of whatever description – critics, civil/human rights activists, free thinkers, fiery lawyers, opposition politicians and so on – from condemning the strategies he has adopted to fight corruption.

Come to think of it. Nigerians knew who Buhari was/is before they contracted him to kill corruption for them. To tell him midstream to change from Buhari to something softer and less serious than himself is a breach of the original contract, which is actionable. In fact, if push comes to shove and Buhari comes under pressure to change from himself, he should sue Nigerians for breach of contract and claim huge damages in billions to add to his most modest assets and become a billionaire in dollars like Dangote. There are so many Senior Advocates of Nigeria out there to do the job for him.

The point here is that corruption must be killed and anybody offering to protect corruption under the guise of ‘rule of law’ will be killed along with corruption in Jesus Mighty Name, I pray! Amen! Whether we like it or not, Buhari must operate his four-year contract with Nigerians, which could be renewed for another four years if corruption refuses to be killed after the first four years.

No matter the degree of provocation, Buhari should not contemplate abdicating the throne for corruption to take over. That is not the way of good leaders. Good leaders keep sailing in spite of prevailing turbulence until they anchor safely. For instance, Moses neither abandoned the Israelites in the wilderness nor returned them to Egypt, because they were stubborn and difficult to lead. Instead, he pleaded with God to show infinite mercy on the world’s most recalcitrant race. Even when he went to the mountain top to have good time with God, he refused to be carried away by the bliss up there. He still returned after some time to put the unruly camp of Israel in order.

Buhari cannot do less. He is the Moses of Nigeria. He should not resign from the presidency in anger, because the judiciary and legislature are introducing the jargon of ‘separation of powers’ and ‘due process’ to frustrate genuine efforts at killing corruption, which could kill all us if nobody picks up courage to kill it as he is doing. What is important is the death of corruption and the means with which this is achieved is not as important. Let the end justify the means.

Some idle people are saying the economy is also being killed by the lethal weapons deployed to kill corruption. In fact, they say the economy is in danger when corruption is still breathing and kicking around. What does it matter if the economy dies today and corruption dies tomorrow? Surprisingly, many people are still not getting the point that Buhari is making. I mean, can’t they understand that Buhari does not see any economy? He sees only corruption with or without his reading glasses. To him, corruption and the economy are one and the same and so one cannot get killed without the other dying too.

Perhaps, Alhaji Lai Mohammed may need to come in here to push the message more forcefully across to Nigerians. He should tell the people that every other thing, especially, a buoyant economy and virile democracy, will be added unto their plates once corruption and the present sinful economy are killed and buried. In fact, something novel is already evolving from the side to take the centre stage of the political economy as soon as the vacuum is created.

Instead of taking, taking and taking and getting bloated with corruption, Nigerians, in the new order, will be paying, paying and paying taxes until they become fiscally trimmed and disciplined. The new economy has been designed to run almost entirely on taxation without production. If it succeeds by the special grace of God, and it becomes established beyond all reasonable doubt that taxation can thrive without corresponding production, it will be Nigeria’s wonderful contribution to the world on macroeconomic management.

With this, Buhari does not only look good for re-election in 2019, but could actually be pushed for the Nobel Prize in economics in the years ahead. And so, instead of shouting about the economy that is dying alongside corruption, we should liberate our minds to embrace the new invention of wondrous public wealth without work.

As for those expecting Buhari to pull new tricks at old age, they should think deeper. Things don’t work that fast. Buhari retired or was retired from the army in 1985 after 24 years meritorious service that got him to the very pinnacle – Commander-In-Chief. If it took 24 years to get conditioned as an autocrat, by inverse logic, it should take far more than eight months to get reconditioned into a democrat.

Let’s therefore bear with Buhari. ‘Due process,’ ‘rule of law,’ ‘separation of powers’ and all of the other sweet songs we love to sing to underscore true democracy shall come as the migration from autocracy to democracy gains momentum!