NIGERIAN politricians are chameleonic, especially when mired in inescapable crossfires. Thus, those who port to another party would condemn the former party vehemently and praise the new vociferously. During the campaigns, APC had no patience with patience. Everything was fast-fast, now-now.

They were in such a hurry for immediate results that even certified devils were welcome. They raised the impatience quotient of Nigerians by promising everything and anything starting from September 30, 2015. They then completed their disdain for patience by driving Patience away from Aso-Rock. So, with an impatient political party, making immediate-effect, outlandish promises and Patience out of the way, the frenzy of impatience overtook the land.

Today, the most sought after currency in the APC circles is patience! The language now is ‘take it easy’ or ‘we are not magicians’. So, where and how do they want us to get the patience? In fact, the Ogbuagu of Aba (how quickly we forgot that title!) now says we should be VERY PATIENT! Yes, we should be patient indeed. When PMB turns Nigeria into a sole-proprietorship because he can only work with saints and the saints are nowhere to be found or the few available are only from his backyard; when those who cook for us (kitchen cabinet) are overwhelmingly from the North, we should be patient.

This is not minding that those in the kitchen may poison the food before it is served! We should be patient because there are still 4000 pending appointments (Chairman, Institute of Sports; member, Forestry Commission, Ambassador to Liberia, etc). When we experience managing by directives, and when the government is crawling instead of running as promised, we should be patient.

When others are retired with ignominy and hounded, while the Comptroller General of Customs honourably resigned and is replaced by a tired soldier in a professional organization; when they deny the very promises upon which they rode to victory, when they campaigned as propagandists and they are still ruling as propagandists, we have to be patient. When they now rule with body language (which is subject to several interpretations), the talk-do gap is widening and the government is overflowing with explanations and justifications, we must have recourse to patience.

When the Nigerian Stock Exchange lost N2.3trn in 100 days and Boko Haram terrorists slaughter 800 people in 100 days, and when there are no policy directions, we should be patient. When the age of our President’s ideas appear antiquated because he is thinking 40 years ago, and when we are warned that you cannot have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday (Charles Kettering), we should continue to be patient.

When they make the magical claim that corruption is down by 50 per cent without any new institutional arrangements, without any minister of justice, we should also be silently patient. When the government is about to probe, probing, or threatening to probe, talking about the inherited rot and looking back rather than forward, we should be patient. This is not minding the fact that a driver that looks only at the rear mirror will surely crash (Ben Bruce terms it ‘rear-view mirror effect’). When PMB announces that he would draw a line from 29/5; and then extended it to GEJ only and then extend it to UMYA, but goes ahead to canonise OBJ, we should be patient.

When PMB becomes a global President, trying to compete with Obasanjo in travelmania, and announces his intentions to the global audience, we should be patient. There should be no worry when his announcements and justifications about appointment of ministers (noise-makers who add no value), devaluation, appointment of Northerners, discussion with Boko Haram are done in the US, France, Ghana or through BBC. Those complaining about clueless 100 days should be patient; 100 days is too short to assess a change-prone president, after all our people say that you cannot assess the market by the morning hours.

Electioneering, elections and politicking are over. And instead of focusing on governance, the change masters are still concentrating on politricks. They are busy engaging themselves in savage fighting whether in the NASS, in Bayelsa, over appointments (as Tinubu wishes to corner Ogun quota or as Obasanjo covets APC slots) or when there is an elected VP (Osinbajo) and an unofficial VP (El-Rufai), or between the Executive (by proxy) and the legislature (cases against Saraki, his wife and Ekweremadu). We should be patiently patient, even when my brother, Joe Igbokwe, has made it clear that Saraki is being dealt with because of his intransigence. Patience should also be our watchword even when the budget and by extension the economy is in coma, when PMB practices ancient economics that fights a pick-and-chose war against corruption without any economic blueprint, or when we concentrate on Noth-East/Boko Haram while Plateau is being turned into a Rwanda or even when the executive, legislature, judiciary and security have been conveniently Northernised.

Abraham Ogbodo complicated matters when he argued that we should rather be asked to endure because Nigerians can endure anything. But endurance is worse than patience because only those who endure to the end will reap the rewards. The question is: when will the end be or do we endure to eternity? However, I have a better idea. In September 1988, Bob Mcferrin released an all-time hit, ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’. The awesome song was an advice that worrying doubles our troubles, distorts our visage and scares others away.

He then suggested a cure-all recipe for all troubles: don’t worry, even when you have no place to lay your head, when there is no cash and no girl. Thus in our case, whatever PMB does or fails to do, even when the change agenda appears amoebic, the response should be: don’t worry, be happy. So, rather than asking us to be patient, they should pay the appropriate royalties to the gifted musician and ask the NTA/FRCN to make that song their ringtone!

Meanwhile, rather than ordering us to be patient, endure or be happy, I offer a two-pronged consultancy to those involved. Our impatience quotient quadrupled because they drove away Patience and communicated impatience. The simple solution then is to bring back Patience (Goodluck need not tag along) and re-communicate patience (Admit that they mis-communicated. Discount all the immediate effect bouquet and then re-communicate patience, gradual process and realism.) Furthermore, they should beg us to be patient, and not order us, saying in effect, ‘you ought to know that you should be patient’. As a patriotic and change-prone Nigerian, I will not charge for this consultancy; but I won’t mind the post of Adviser on Body Language!

Muo is of the Department of Business Administration, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye