Jagaban And The Great Expectations -By Ugoji Egbujo

Jagaban had promised to surpass his feat in Lagos. We have now seen his ministers.

He deserves the benefit of the doubt. Because when the biblical David set out to rescue Israel, he had gathered some of the most despicable people and reformed them. Amongst his army were rogues, pickpockets and morally bankrupt drunkards. The difference between David and Jagaban, however, is that David didn’t announce himself as a discoverer of talent. He had no access to the cream of society, so he used the dregs. His circumstances were forced on him. We might never know all Jagaban has been through. Another critical difference is that David understood his predicament. He didn’t pretend he had geniuses. That acute self-awareness might have shaped his attitude towards the mission as relied heavily on God.

Perhaps Jagaban needs no reminding of the qualities of the people he has chosen. He made good picks like Alake, Fagbemi, Adelabu, Edun, etc. But he has a bunch of mediocre folks. Amongst them is a certain loquacious former governor who lacks the capacity for decency and discreetness. The man has publicly professed his love for 40-year-old whiskeys. The public also knows he can’t keep secrets. In his penchant for exhibitionism and a quest for superciliousness, he flaunts 10 million naira-per-bottle whiskeys on garden tables in the govt house.

Jagaban must be informed of these details since he is on a self-imposed damage-limiting exile from social media, the only place where these things matter. Because having asked the poor to make neck-bending sacrifices to save a country in peril, he must advise this minister to drink his luxury wines behind closed doors. But if he must drink in the open on his lawns, then he should contain himself and not flaunt sybaritism into the faces of suffering masses whose degree of wretchedness has convinced the government that N8000 a month to households for six months would be great succour.

It’s been said that Jagaban keeps his word. That’s a virtue. In other words, with him, ‘agreement is agreement’. So he is bound to compensate those who helped him win the election and respect the compromises reached, whether ugly or beautiful. But Jagaban need not be reminded that faithfulness must begin with the electoral promises he made to the electorate. Otherwise, it might appear that the masses have been duped by a syndicate. He promised to renew hope. To begin that laudable task, the young men and women who work in our critical institutions must be inspired. Two of our most important institutions are the EFCC and INEC.

The EFCC had fingered some governors as crooks. Against these governors, the young men and women in the EFCC had amassed clear documentary evidence, implicating the respected rogues in grand theft and money laundering. If these fellows who have used the courts to thwart legitimate attempts by the young men and women to clean up the polity are allowed to triumph, these patriotic youth will become disillusioned. While Jagaban reserves the right to override the indictments by any agency against any nominee to high office, it might be advisable to tell these lucky individuals not to brandish the impunity awarded to them before TV cameras. So that they do not grate the sensibilities of a bemused public. So that sleeping dogs can lie.

Often the end justifies the means. So the EU report on the 2023 elections can be dismissed as the ranting of meddlesome interlopers. But from the EU to YIAGA to the United Kingdom, a certain state was implicated by all observers. During the electioneering campaigns in that state, naked violence and official subterfuge were brazenly employed to prevent other party candidates from canvassing for votes. On the 25th of February 2023, electoral malpractices happened in that state on an industrial scale. Of all the states in the country, that state has results on IREV that is so spectacularly different from the results announced by INEC for the presidential elections.

Jagaban knows where all the fingers are pointed. Those in INEC know the state in question. To restore and renew hope in the electoral process, those who exceeded themselves in the perpetration of these sorts of grotesque election malpractices can be rewarded but not with the pulpit. Agreed, we live in a banana republic, but we can’t compensate thugs with the oversight of any of our critical ministries. And if the renewal of hope must take place in INEC, the young men and women who witnessed some of the atrocities in the last election must be sanctified.

The best way to begin rehabilitating their minds will be to make them see remorse on the part of the state. But, if the linchpins of the electoral heist are allowed to brag about their rapaciousness, many of these youth will lose faith in the process and the nation. Perhaps Jagaban might have to advise a few of these ministers to resist the temptation of electoral chest-beating especially while kneeling in church at Thanksgiving to mark their appointment as minister.

Before Jagaban, Buhari had come to bring Change. Many months after he took the reins, he had no clue whom he wanted to work with. But because his lifestyle inspired hope, folks waited with expectations still. When the list of his ministers was released, village people yawned. Old wines in new plastic bottles. They had seen many of those folks before. But many who had implicit faith in Buhari persevered. Because there was a sprinkling of people of character and zeal in that list. When portfolios were attached to the names, expectations dipped. Because Buhari handed a critical ministry to a particularly inept charlatan. That fellow went on to become the centre of gravity of the administration. He stalled and ruined ideas using unscrupulous emanations as legal advice. With Jagaban we had great expectations on cabinet picks.

Jagaban ought to benefit from Buhari’s errors. Though biblical David harnessed rogues to achieve Godly aims, a rotten egg can send out a stench that would mar a party. The Senate could have helped Jagaban to edit the list dispassionately. But the Senate has been redesigned to serve as a virtual rubber stamp, and the confirmation process has since become a picnic. A certain lady on that ministerial list trained as a medical doctor. She fancies herself as a preventive health expert.

In the thick of the COVID epidemic, she had the responsibility to liaise with federal authorities to check the spread of the disease in her jurisdiction. Rather than abide by the oath of her profession and yield to proven medical science, she submitted herself to superstition and egotism. Alongside her often delusional governor, who loves jejune ideas, she declared that there was no covid in her state. But that wasn’t all. She accused the NCDC of attempting to import the virus into her state to sully their clean state. This irresponsible disposition to undermine a federal medical army, which was fighting a viral insurgency, was treasonous. Ludicrous as it was then, a couple of states had believed mangling data and registering no covid case was some great achievement.

So they suppressed figures and cooked facts without regard to the consequences on the populace and medical staff. While a belligerent village novice in Kogi could be excused, a preventive health expert who legitimised such a persecutory delusion should have been forced to undergo a mental reassessment. But since biblical David did wonders with all kinds of characters, Jagaban can proceed with the circus clowns in his team. However, it might be necessary to remind him that a covidiot shouldn’t be allowed to go anywhere near the Federal Ministry of Health.

All hopes are not lost. By the grace of God, David achieved great things with reprobates. Jagaban needs our prayers.