By Paul Onomuakpokpo
Since the failure of
the President Muhammadu Buhari government became intolerably manifest, a
noticeable feature of discourse in the public space is its polarisation. In one
camp are those who argue that the present status quo is precisely what the
country needs and in the opposing camp are those who seek its replacement with
a political system that existed in the past. Indeed, the Buhari’s years have
been marked by the citizens’ hankering for the past and the rejection of the
present. Having appropriated the past as the only means of corporate survival,
they want to make it not only the anchor for the present but also the future.
Clearly, we are not witnessing this laudation
of the past for the first time. Ever since the oil boom evaporated and the
country has been afflicted with a governance crisis, the Nigerian people have
often sought to recover a past that they consider a golden era. They do not
seek the co-opting of only some useful values from the past into the enrichment
of the present and the future. No, they want a wholesale displacement of the
past with the present and the future. In this regard, their march to their collective
destiny has often been disrupted by prolonged moments of contemplation of the
desirability of replacing their present with the past.
