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Why President Buhari must demand loyalty

By Bukola Ajisola
13 September 2017   |   3:44 am
Alhassan’s insubordination is not an isolated case under President Buhari’s watch. The president seems to project an autarchic attitude to the fidelity quotients in its cabinet.

President Muhammadu Buhari

Sir: Loyalty according to the dictionary meaning, is “a feeling or attitude of devoted attachment and affection.”

According to Minna Antrim, “love often wears a mask in order to test loyalty.” This is somewhat corroborated by Edwin Louis Cole in his philosophical quip “Confidentiality is a virtue of the loyal, as loyalty is the virtue of faithfulness.”

Mark Twain was more pragmatic in one of his intellectual prognosis, “Loyalty to the nation all the time, loyalty to the government when it deserves it.”

Now Mark Twain’s wisecrack seems to approximate the frontiers of tectonic loyalty in a tripod; loyalty to the nation, loyalty to the government and loyalty to the incumbent ego altar who is the commander in chief as it applies to Nigeria.

It would amount to a political suicide of a ruinous proportion for any president wishing to achieve any success in governance to exhibit nonchalance on issue of loyalty.

The minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Aisha Alhassan showed a crass inadvertence to a reducible minimum of loyalty expected of a serving minister engaged at a time the nation is passing through one of her challenging times which demands  that all cabinet members put their very best into deliverables cognate to their ministries and parastatals and not to be so careless as to publicly embrace political frolicsomeness.

President Buhari should learn from the President of the United States who takes loyalty as an article of faith, needless to say that President Donald Trump’s obsession for loyalty has kept him afloat in the Oval Office for which he has demonstrated little leadership experience.

Alhassan’s insubordination is not an isolated case under President Buhari’s watch. The president seems to project an autarchic attitude to the fidelity quotients in its cabinet.

It remains a mystery till this moment what motivated the DSS to transmit an adverse report on the Acting Chairman of EFCC to the National Assembly without presidential input.

The same presidential docility that gave the DSS impetus seems to have been explored by the minister of Women Affairs albeit with more brazenness.

The president must quickly put his house in order by allowing officials with questionable loyalty a timely exit, otherwise the little time remaining for his cabinet to impact the nation will end up in political horse trading and tectonic failure.

Bukola Ajisola.

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