My New Year resolution

Over the years, I have not really cherished the idea of having New Year resolutions. Two reasons are responsible. Firstly, I have a strong faith that the affairs of men are divinely ordered. Therefore, whatever one intends to do and eventually turns out to be is beyond human influence and comprehension. Secondly, I hate to follow the crowd when it comes to taking personal decisions. Whatever I have to do should be based on my strong convictions and not premised on sheer sentiments on the basis that other people are doing. I remain a man of principles and ideals.

As I’m now getting older by the day and becoming not-too-healthy, coupled with a confession that I can’t remember my actual age, I should be more pre-occupied with meditating on what happens afterwards; when I’m long gone from here. I should feel more concerned about what type of legacy I should be leaving behind for generations to come.  What should be uppermost in my daily reflections should be the future of my dear country and the well-being of fellow human beings. That is why I’m beginning to feel that making New Year resolution and taking hard decisions should actually come with age and experience. It is on this basis that I’m determined to, henceforth; take crucial decisions and actions that, if I should have any cause to repeat, would be the same. Why can’t I then take the bull by the horn? For my remaining years, I must stay on the path of truth, fairness, equity, justice, courage and peace.

Here we go! I shall tag this year’s resolution restoring my glory. I don’t think choosing this theme should portray me as someone having any lost glory at all. Far from it. Never should anyone insinuate that I live in past glory. Rather, I remain a respected, patriotic, law-abiding citizen and an elder statesman in this country and even beyond. Frankly speaking, I’m beginning to feel that the great respect and honour bestowed on me by our people appear to be waning by the day. Not because I have done anything evil or bad. After all, many people still accord me much respect for being upright, disciplined and nationalistic. That’s the beauty of human world, where someone would always appreciate you.

I think why people feel dissatisfied with me is that they believe that I no more have a mind of my own. It is being said that certain cabal, mafia and vested interest had hijacked governance from me and that I’m no longer seen as being in charge of affairs. It is for this main reason that many people are not too happy with me, even though they longed to have me as their preferred and chosen leader during the last election. My poor response to herdsmen attacks is heavily decried as an impediment to attaining peace and security.

That was why we came out on tops. At that time, I recall the great solidarity and support that my fellow country men and women accorded me. I was greatly astonished by such an overwhelming solidarity. To say the least, the passion and goodwill was much and massive. Suddenly, and in less than two years into my tenure as the leader, the level of apathy and resentment appear to have reached the climax. My country people seem to be terribly angry with me for performing below expectations. I cannot afford to let them down with such an unpleasant impression; I have to do something in the New Year by restoring my glory.

To begin with, I urgently need to seek the face of the Almighty, to guide my plans, utterances and actions as we begin a brand New Year. I should take some few days off my normal routine; to enable me have deep reflections on what I should do to make the people happy with me by delivering good governance and the urgently required quality leadership. I summon the courage to inject fresh blood into the machinery of government that many have complained of being too slow, dominated by tired hands, not being sensitive enough to people’s plight and bereft of tact and strategy to revamp the depressed economy. I’m carrying out this purge without further delay, as there’s no going back. Some of my personal aides and officials would have to be dropped, especially, those that had caused me great embarrassment, debased my government and tarnished the country’s image by their costly actions and inactions.

Taking this bold decision would require my complete, objective and sincere response. I have to jettison religious, ethic, tribal and parochial sentiments by doing the needful, if we ever get it right as a nation, under my watch. We need to say the truth. Many experienced professional and technocrats would be invited to give their support as change agents. Apart from my personal aides, cabinet members and other appointees would be replaced with young, agile, qualified, experienced and resourceful persons. I owe my nation this administrative purge. Our country is seriously sick under my watch. This has to stop.

As many people would agree with me, appreciable level of success can be credited to our programmes in waging war on corruption and recovery of looted and illicit public funds, even though some would say such drive is selective. I don’t care, even if this is my only achievement, it will be vigorously pursued. People’s commonwealth and stolen heritage must be recovered. I will not close my eyes to the suffering of my people. I ensure that we do something fast, to shore up our battered economy, reduce unemployment, stop the lingering fuel scarcity that has become national embarrassment in the last few weeks including the Yuletide season. The situation has almost turned into a scandal, most especially, being an assignment directly under my supervision. This is shameful. I cannot tolerate this any longer. I daily hear that many people are dying of hunger and misery.

For those calling for restructuring, I seek the sincere advice, opinion of patriotic citizens and well-informed people on how the nation can truly be restructured without necessarily causing negative consequences or uprising, which had been my major fear. As my New Year resolution, I spend much time on how to transform the nation in such a way that everyone would see and feel the difference between federalism and unitary system. Why the camouflaging? It’s high time we gave ourselves the right identity and stop living in delusion. I do something about this genuine agitation by the people.

As time is fast running out and there is still lot of work to do, I rather face the task ahead of me and be wary of detractors that are already calling for my participation in the next year’s general elections. The bitter truth is that three key issues could work against me: number one is age. I’m too old to cope with the demands of this office in the years to come. Secondly, my health challenge is another. The third reason is the perceived non-performance of my government and by extension, my political party; even though some are still insisting that our administration is the best thing that had ever happened to our country. Who do I believe now? I think I better forget about vying for the return to this hot-seat and look after my health and family. I owe my spouse a big apology for not heeding her wise counsel. It’s not too late; I’m restoring my glory. This is my new mantra till I leave office.

Why do I need to put too much burden over my head, again? What difference would I make in the next dispensation? The problems seem to be increasing by the day; what sort of country is this? I don’t want to record any casualty for myself on this thankless job. I think I should look for a younger person that may be up to the task, to give the number one position a trial. I summon the courage to tell those that are close to me to forget about my return to that office and to let me be. That is what they had told past leaders that there’s no one like them. The nation waxed far stronger without them. There are others that may even perform better, if given the opportunity. After all, I was once privileged to have a taste of the highest office in the land for a short time. What else m I looking for? I feel that quitting the stage now is apt and honourable. This is a hard decision that I take as part of my New Year resolution by restoring my glory.
Kupoluyi wrote from Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB).