The President’s Speech is Quotidian, Sterile, and Passionless, By Segun Showunmi

We have found ourselves in a most embarrassing place as a people. It is clear that our hope and aspirations as Nigerians are misplaced under a sterile, quotidian and passionless leader in President Muhammadu Buhari. There is no point expecting anything grand for any leader that is not moved by the national and international agitation of his people in the face of all that we have seen by way of protests across the country and in other important international capitals. It is made worse by the fact that we lost lives and properties on a scale that worries all Nigerians and the friends of Nigeria. 

Are we too sensitive to have expected empathy, or are we over ambitious to have anticipated some action? Are we excessively ignorant to have been hopeful of anything inspiring? I suppose the answer is yes, for nothing in the modus operandi of the Buhari presidency suggests that the much-awaited speech could have been any other way but quotidian. 

I will advise that calm and peace must return to every nook and cranny of Nigeria for what is the point in a protest that does not elicit any form of urgency. The only protest left must be a call to action for all persons to use the instrument of elections and the voting rigour to punish those who have demonstrated clearly that the lives of Nigerians do not matter to them. The job of the ever conscious Nigerian Youth is done for now, for indeed, you have been heard loud and clear, and you have also heard them loudly and clearly without equivocation that they do not care and will not mourn, neither will they sympathise, nor will they stand with the people. 

Take heart, if tomorrow comes they will get their deserved recompense.