By Debo Adesina
The times are tough.
It is therefore just appropriate that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has shunned all forms of celebration of his 72nd birthday.
He has great dreams. And a proverb says a man who wants his dream to come true does not sleep. That is a proverb Asiwaju has lived all his life and is living even more, now! That is one man who, literally, never sleeps!
The least we can do as Nigerians is to join hands with him by staying awake to our duties and responsibilities as citizens. An appropriate birthday gift we can give him, everyday!
Nigerians must deploy their long-held values of hard work, resilience in battles, love of one another and unity of purpose as a people to overcome the challenges the nation currently faces.
Nigeria needs the best energies of all Nigerians, talented, patriotic, young and old, men and women, across all divides in order for the dreams we all nurse to come true. No one wants to harness all these more than President Tinubu.
When we are conscious of the fact that we are enriched by our diversity as a nation, blessed by our resources and united in our pursuit of the goal of being the African lodestar, Nigeria’s journey to a great future, which has begun anew with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in charge, will be quickened in pace.
The banner of Renewed Hope he waves is comforting not only in its symbolisms but in the substantive actions he is taking to make Nigerians look forward to a greater tomorrow.
By jettisoning short-term conveniences and taking the necessary tough path towards life-long prosperity, Nigerians have only one thing to say in tribute to the President and to themselves: tough as the times are, we get you! How might we help?
With a President Tinubu, who intrinsically believes in and genuinely works for prosperity for all, the flight may be a bit rough now but the landing, in good time, will be smooth. And the journey will be worth the turbulence we may be facing now.
I once wrote that the laws of economics have never been truer than they are now. Nigerians’ needs are unlimited but the means of satisfying those needs are extremely limited, much more so than was envisaged when he took over power some months ago. So, sacrifice is not something we have the luxury of weighing, it is a choice already made for us by history and our quest for a good place in it.
The great luck our nation has is: President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is nothing if not courage personified and compassion embodied! A man of ideas and action, no one wants the best for all Nigerians more than he does and no one is willing to burn the midnight oil in the quest for solutions more than him. These, no doubt, are very tough times for Nigeria. But these are also times calling for the best and boldest in all of us as we have a country to build and a dream to fulfill.
President Tinubu is asking us, all Nigerians, to get out of wringing our hands over Nigeria’s challenges but, with individual commitment and a high sense of responsibility on the part of all, setting those hands on the plough, in the belief that no one ever commits fully to hope anew, takes the tough but right actions, and fails!
All Nigerians, as much as we can positively affect our spheres of influence, should be committed to renewing the hope of all, in the words we speak, the deeds we do and in the faces we show the world!
There are many things for which Nigeria needs monetary resources. But beyond that, to renew our hope and build a prosperous nation for all Nigerians, the President has found the appropriate currency: the courage, the will to act and his signature compassion to do the best in the interest of the greatest number.
As he turns 72, President Bola Ahmed Akanbi Tinubu’s commitment to building a rainbow nation in which all find shelter and all prosper is crystal clear!
Let every Nigerian ask for his or her part in the job at hand. And just do it!
-Adesina, former Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of Guardian Newspaper served as Ambassador of Nigeria to the Republic of Togo