As a keen reader of speeches of global statesmen and women, I bear witness that what differentiates President Buhari’s weekend 56th Independence Anniversary speech from the controversial “Change Begins With Me” campaign speech is the commendable authenticity of the former. Citizens including yours sincerely are always eager to listen to their elected Presidents and governors alike, not hired unelected and often unelectable speech writers. The point can’t be overstated; elected leaders must own their speeches by talking to us from their hearts even while well nurtured paid speech writers can do some quality control. Many thanks to President Buhari for owning his independence speech beyond the embellishment of speech writers who through detached sentences hitherto alienated him from us. The strength of Buhari’s 2016 Independence speech lies in its brevity as much as his personal engagement with all Nigerians through spoken words. There was once an independent Nigeria (apology to Chinua Achebe!) which used to organize independence parades. Buhari’s speech would have resonated better in a rally than in a tube-channelled national broadcast. Out of the 2000 plus President’s words, I counted scores of “I” conveying profound presidential appreciation of the pains of Nigerians observing independence anniversary in a recession. Witness this: “I know how difficult things are and how rough business is”. As a wage earner, who miserably lives on minimum wage of-you-know-how-miserable Naira devaluation has made it, President Buhari spoke my mind when he reminded us that “All my adult life I have always earned a salary and I know what it is like when your salary simply is not enough.” Although I had thought the President would announce the logical policy measure; constitute presidential tripartite minimum wage review! It is however refreshing that the President who understandably lives on subsidized food and housing provided for in annual national budget also appreciates that “In every part of our nation people are making incredible sacrifices”, and even said so. There is no doubt that the president deserves the cooperation of all to make a difference for the better. Remarkably too in this speech is a refreshing reminder that things might be bad and even in many instances worse, they can only get better and that indeed some things might have fallen apart, many things are certainly also falling in place. Again the optimism contained in president’s independence speech is a refreshing departure from the seemingly wholesale hopeless pessimism inherent in “Change Begins With Me” speech.
Today we seem to have taken the absence of serial bombings in north east for granted. It was good the President reeled out the score cards on the security front with appreciation to the gallantry of the Army and the police. Same with agriculture. I agree with him that “Nigerians should thank our gallant men of the Armed Forces and Police for rescuing large areas of the country captured by insurgents”. The President rightly acknowledged the resurgence of new criminalities namely kidnappings, armed robberies and Niger Delta militancy which serially blew up gas and oil pipelines undermining Crude oil production. However the president sounded more academic with warnings than being presidential on the new insecurity.

Just as the president did relocating the high command to the North East, it’s time we witnessed the impact of the presidential activist initiatives on Niger delta with respect to engagement with the communities to isolate and apprehend the criminals.
Nigeria at 56 must move from lamentations of electricity power supply system collapses (which according to the president totalled 16 between March and July 2016 alone!) to guaranteed security for uninterrupted electricity supply to fuel industrialization, economic recovery and diversification. Talking about electricity, President Buhari must avoid the pitfall of past recent leaders who engaged in self-praise to celebrate in president’s words “three thousand three hundred and twenty four between March and July 2016 alone in June 2015 …five thousand and seventy four megawatts in February 2016”! In a country of some 170 million people and miserable 5000 megawatts always under the threats of militants, Nigeria suffers power poverty when South Africa with 50 million people generates as much as 50000 megawatts! It is not yet Uhuru with power supply until our leaders replace the phrase “For the first time in our history the country was producing five thousand megawatts” with “this is the last time Nigeria will witness power outage on account of insufficient power generation and power distribution.”
It is reassuring to hear and read about improved budget funding to critical sectors like roads and housing as well as railways and dams. However it’s all about “dualization” with respects to roads, “rehabilitation” with respect to railways. At 60, in four years’ time Nigeria must think and act big to think outside the box (or is it cage?) of perpetual underdevelopment and just like China did at 60 years of independence anniversary commission landmark development projects beyond repairing obsolete infrastructure. That calls for development planning. I agree that the President”…ran for office four times to make the point that we can rule this nation with honesty and transparency” though he also must appreciatively acknowledge that millions of Nigerians kept fate with him with their votes same four times! Yes we need core values of diligence and integrity in governance as contained in section 11 of the 1999 constitution. But beyond that we need sustainable national economic development plan. President sounds romantic about globalization but we must learn to engage the world with a development plan which is missing now. China and Chinese-Export-Import Bank featured in the President’s independence speech. Let it be clear that China just like USA is engaging with Africa within the context of its overall development plan (now 6th five-year development plan). Happy independence!