My Inauguration Day Message to Nigerians

 

Constitutionally, May 29 (before being changed to June 12) was celebrated as Democracy Day in Nigeria and also often marks the onboarding of a new democratically-elected president in Nigeria. The date is sacrosanct.

Today, regardless of whatever, HE Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR is installed as the 16th head of state since 1960 and the 5th democratically- elected president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria since 1999.

No doubt, he is a product of the most controversial and keenly contested presidential election in the country's history.

Nevertheless, aggrieved parties are seeking legal redress in the Supreme Court hoping that the Apex Court do the right thing.

While that seamless process to seek electoral justice is on, I call on you my brothers and my brothers, regardless of your state of origin, language, religion or creed to not lose faith in our country Nigeria but to continue to wish our country well in all her endeavours.

As president, he is empowered by law to execute and enforce federal laws and appoint federal executive, diplomatic, regulatory, and judicial officers. We pray and wish that he makes the best choices in all of these.

If you can recall, on Wednesday, October 26, 2022, I wrote you about two things I considered important as political parties, as at then, began unveiling their manifestos in preparation for the presidential elections the following year. Those were Power and Unemployment.

I had opined that any candidate who presented an achievable plan in place to solve these two disturbing issues was good for me.

And, for such a candidate to be able to solve those issues, he needed to have demonstrated experience, wit, political will, diplomacy, justice, public sympathy, connection (foreign and local), business and management acumen, etc.

Even to date, I still feel that's what we should look for in the incoming government.

Nigeria is the only country we can truly call our own. As the British proverb says, “One's castle is one’s home”. Nigeria is our castle.

Let's not give up on our motherland.

Let's not wander like droves of bees in a strange man's land as though our country is the worst of places on the planet Earth.

Remember, tough times don't last. But only tough people do. My parents were born during the early days of the Nigerian civil war and their parents (my grandparents) would narrate how difficult it was to properly feed them as babies at such a dire time when thousands were dying of starvation.

We don't want that to happen again, I believe. So why not sheathe your swords?

Let's join hands and rebuild Nigeria.

Nigeria must survive.

Nigeria shall rise again. 

I beg you in the name of God (Allah), the most beneficent, the most merciful, the most compassionate and the One whom it pleases that Nigeria should remain as one indivisible entity despite the ugly past we've shared as a people.

May we have peace and may our country prosper in this new political dispensation.

May God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Amen.

~ Victor Bassey