Recently, President Muhammadu Buhari was quoted as saying that he would not end up as a failure in office.

The presidential remark, which was made during a meeting he had with his security team, is akin to personal soul-searching.

By his statement, it clearly shows that Buhari is sensitive to the perception of the populace to his style of leadership and is ready to make adjustments to avoid ending up being seen as a failure at the highest level of governance.

We commend him for showing concern for his public perception and making a verbal commitment to make it better, which shows that he has an eye on what legacy he will be leaving behind when he finally leaves office in 2023.

The President’s concern will, however, remain just rhetoric until he is able to translate his words into action. With less than two years left to render an account of his eight-year stewardship to Nigerians, how will the country’s helmsman implement all the people-friendly policies and programmes that he was supposed to have deployed his energy to at the outset of his administration?

Given Buhari’s customary slow pace of governance, will he be able to overcome the nightmare of being described as a failed leader, given the limitation of time to commit to immortality the policies and programmes that will be transformative of the lives of the populace?

Certainly, he is the only person that can answer these posers. Undoubtedly, Mr. President is in a tight corner, which he advertently or inadvertently boxed himself into.

How then can he be anticipating an impressive scorecard from Nigerians, when actually he has pursued some policies and programmes that have enhanced the fortunes of one or more two geo-political zones at the expense of others?

The nation’s leader could be compared to a person who has written their memoirs and submitted the manuscript for consideration for publication. All that the editor and publisher will do is to process the manuscript into a publishable material, reflecting what the owner and writer of the memoirs has put down as their thoughts.

What are the issues, policies and programmes, either proposed, passed and signed into law or being implemented by the Federal Government, and for which it will forever be criticised for?

They include Grazing Reserves/Routes, Water Resources Control Bill, military siege of the South- East and South- South, limitation of free speech through the ban on Twitter, registration of online media outfits, harsh surveillance of the broadcasting sub-sector of the media industry by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) and further crippling regulation of the print sub-sector of the same industry.

Others are the lop-sidedness in the appointments to sensitive public positions, reluctance to restructure the nation, discriminatory distribution of cash to the vulnerable, fertilisers and other inputs to farmers, inequity in the execution of capital projects including the standard gauge rail lines and the unwillingness to unmask and prosecute the sponsors of terrorism.

The categorisation of some terrorists as bandits, the baptism of others as repentant terrorists and reintegrating them into society, including reportedly the security agencies, as well as the recent signing of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) also constitute some of the issues, policies and programmes for which an evaluation and a scorecard will be issued on the current administration.

Of course he cannot escape not being held responsible for the dire economic situation of the country, which has not only seen the naira fall to its worst ever levels against the United States’ dollar and the British pound; but which is also asphyxiating millions of Nigerians and making their lives a daily struggle for survival.

The referred contradictions have combined to cast President Buhari in the mould of a sectional champion, who has consciously or unconsciously created two separate entities in a country with persons in a particular section of the nation having a false sense of superiority as first-class citizens while others, amidst a similarly unproven air of inferiority, regard themselves as second or third-class nationals.

Such manifestations are not likely to earn an administration and its presiding officer a deserving impressive grade, no matter how less rigid the evaluation turns out to be.

New Telegraph notes with dismay that since injustice, inequality and unfairness have developed wings under this administration all that is required is to review the policies and programmes responsible for such institutionalisation. This should be backed with a comprehensive administrative, political and financial restructuring.

Such will enable the different parts of the country to utilise their resources for their developmental priorities while prompting others, especially the dependent ones, to strive harder to develop their revenue-earning but dormant sectors in order to attain self-sufficiency.

The judgement of history awaits every human being at the end of every phase. It cannot be wished away. Neither could a mere wishful thinking take the place of the inevitable judgement of history.

For the country’s number one leader, this will surely come at the end of his tenure in 2023. To successfully pull through the judgement of history, Mr. President will need to heed the enduring advice of one of the world’s greatest orators and a former Prime Minister of Britain, Sir Winston Churchill, who said: “Willing is not enough. We must do it.”

Update news