Expdonaloaded News; Before the new administration takes off

Since Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) emerged the winner of the March 28 presidential poll, he has played host to numerous visitors in Abuja seemingly on a daily basis. This is expected because victory has many off-springs, cousins, brothers and sisters. But nobody ever visits the loser.

The loser has no relations and friends. In Nigeria, the loser is an orphan. He is alone in the world and suffers the pains and agony of loss alone. Even his most trusted friends forsake him and may not remember to call him on phone. For the losers, take heart for there is still another election day. Just as 2015 polls are over, the 2019 election year is fast approaching.
While members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) are singing songs of victory, the same cannot be said of members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that lost the plum office they had on a platter of gold for a whopping 16 unbroken years. I doubt if any other political party in this country can have such hold on power again at the centre taking into consideration the increasing awareness of the voters. The PDP camp is mourning despite injunctions by President Goodluck Jonathan that they should be celebrating.
I do not think that the PDP should mourn or celebrate. Rather, they should sit down and analyse how they get to this sorry pass and plan well for 2019. They should stop this blame game of this side caused their failure or the hate campaigns did this or that. The blame game, which is escapist, is cowardly and cannot take the party anywhere. Will those advancing the reasons for their failure say exactly the same thing if the PDP had won the elections? I have my doubts.
Many factors were responsible for the failure of the PDP in the polls. But, some of those that caused PDP to lose the poll can be found in the ranks of those that believe and even utter to the chagrin of Nigerians that the party will rule Nigeria for 60 years and later modified it to 100 years. The hate campaigns may have its backlash of doing the opposite of what is intended, the PDP apparently approached the 2015 polls as a highly divided house and utterly unprepared.post by expdonaloaded.blogspot.com.. There were high level betrayals and shift of loyalty among party members. The PDP probably went to the contest with cracked walls hence the centre could not hold. They took the election for granted hence the colossal failure. But, rather than dissipate energy on who caused what and who did what, the party should learn from the hard lessons of the fall from power to ensure that the mistakes of 2015 are not repeated in 2019.
Pardon my digression and back to the topic of the day. If the transition committee set up by Buhari is a peep of what to expect from his administration that will take off on May 29, then it is safe to conclude that he intends to run a government of technocrats. Some of the names in the transition committee are well known tested managers of men and resources. If Buhari will stick to running a government of technocrats and putting square pegs in square holes and not leaving governance entirely to party loyalists, campaign managers and foot soldiers, I think Nigerians will expect better days ahead. I say this because some state actors including some governors run their governments with mediocres, either because they are friends, cronies or party members.
But this is not to say that those who fought for his emergence as the president-elect will not be recognized one way or the other. While Buhari may be tempted to choose members of his party for his cabinet, he should go beyond party leanings and choose credible Nigerians he believes he can work with irrespective of their party affiliations, their faith or where they come from. Nigeria does not lack human resources and experts in various fields and sectors of the economy.
Perhaps, some of our best hands may be found here and in Diaspora too. Those whose services are direly needed should be attracted home to assist in nation building and development. He should choose those who will put Nigeria first before any other consideration in their private and public conduct. His cabinet should be an admixture of old and young hands, men and women and never an attempt to recycle some people. Positions should be assigned to his ministers and advisers according to their expertise. All primordial sentiments should be put aside.
Last week, I urged the incoming administration to think of how best to fulfill their numerous campaign promises rather than embark on probes upon probes that will naturally lead to nowhere as our past experiences had proven..post by expdonaloaded.blogspot.com.. Not that sticking to integrity and probity is not good, the incoming administration has no time to waste because of the way it has raised the hopes of Nigerians.
Any failure to deliver would be an anti-climax and that should not be contemplated at all. Buhari has stated that his government would renew the search for crude oil in the Chad basin, which some critics have considered a wild goose chase for now. If there is evidence that oil can be found in commercial quantity in that region, let the quest be pursued with less haste so that we do not end up spending huge chunk of our scarce resources on oil exploration alone. If not, it should be jettisoned while greater effort should be channeled to agriculture, the surest way to create massive jobs in the country. In fact, if our agricultural potentials are well harnessed, it will be the second revenue earner after oil for the country.
It may even surpass our oil earning. Although the president-elect has not said anything concrete on his take on the recommendations of the National Conference convoked by the out-going president, it is in the best interest of the country to implement them. The restructuring of the country and devolution of power top the recommendations of that confab, the incoming administration should not throw them away.
Apart from curbing corruption in governance, the social inequity of our lopsided federation of 36-state structure and 774 councils and lack of accurate demographic data for planning and other ills of nationhood should be addressed and urgently too.