Happy Birthday Mr. President! – By Ibraheem A. Waziri

I have to look your way Mr. President on this your and our very important day. It is only a word I have; a reflection, sort of, about your and our realities.

In matters of leadership or ruler ship, many times, the lots being led, understand and interpret more accurately the trajectory of events upstairs than the lords, the influential players. Just like how nature has held it better, by the evidence of time and tenacity of practice that shows the lords as understanding and interpreting better some indices as they relate to the people at the lower social station.

This is why the middle class is needed. Defined by the austerity of the lower class and the knowledge and exposure of the lords at the top, we easily traverse around all sentiments and spectrum. We obtain most the effective emotional wherewithal to interpret all trajectories better. It was from our likes that the famed Niccolò Machiavelli was created or made.

In this, it is my convictions now, that in Nigeria, the signs are not too good for the government in power or Mr President as the President. Many months ago we wondered why the party left its five governors and the one time Vice President, Atiku Abubakar to defect to the opposition party, even when we knew that all of them could settle for at least one less than the much they were demanding. Why did Mr. President refused to bend or slowdown in that regard is the question of Nigeria’s centenary that analysts will continue to remember for the rest of our history!

Then few weeks ago Mr. President was reported to have told the PDP governors that are on the last leg of their tenures to budge in their states and give way for him alone to determine their successors on the party’s platform. This is one step for making them less stakeholders in the affairs of their first constituencies and their party. This is likely to ensure more defection to the opposition or less commitment or even a secret anti party activity against PDP in the forthcoming election.

Sunday, November 23, 2014,  I read on the Daily Trust Newspaper  the minority whip of the House of Representatives saying, about 200 members have signed and shown consent to pursue the active impeachment of Mr. President. Also on November 29, 2014, Weekly Trust Newspaper reported that about 60 senators have shown consent for the same exercise.  For whatever reasons the legislators are doing this, the aggregates of the interpretation shows that the house did not find Mr. President compromising enough, in a democracy, where they believe they are relevant or indispensable.

 Even if this round of fire is quenched, it is still a bad sign for Mr. President at the eve of an electioneering year. Democracy, no matter how poor, is for those who are publicly seen as humbled. It was that state of humility almost to a fault that guaranteed Obasanjo the seat in 1999. In 2003, he was sighted bowing down before some of his subordinates. In 2007 Yar’adua looked harmless, down to earth and by some indices very weak. In 2011 Goodluck Jonathan, looked the same. As it appears now it is only in 2015 that Jonathan is preparing not to wear the needed garment of extreme humility. But power has its tradition and etiquette. With it everything is crushed. But whoever holds it hard or embrace it too much, end up having them crushed by it. They say pride or arrogance comes before a fall!