Where is Nigeria’s Thatcher?
An English grocer and Methodist preacher’s daughter emerges as Prime Minister through the impossible maze of a highly snobbish clique of snooty parliamentarians. All this in a post-war era dominated by a few amongst an untouchable royal, land owing class and the rest, living under socialist provision of plebian housing, education and paltry inefficient services. In addition to government domination of services, powerful unions existed to sustain the status quo and hold any change agenda to ransom thus ensuring a surely declining productivity that made Britain the sore in Europe in terms of competitiveness. Until Thatcher.
A chemist – not from the inner circle – perhaps with many style flaws and no class, but possessing a precise scientific clarity at the level of principles and vision. She knew borrowing was not the way to wealth nor could you tax productivity to carry inefficient systems. Because of her revolutionary thoughts, she had few and fast decreasing allies from the party …who still regarded her as “ a house maid completely out of her place” until after a record 11 years in power, a palace coup was deftly arranged to forcibly thrust her out permanently in the cold.
When Sir John Major, a man with no prior intentions or vision to lead, took over, he assumed his role in shock that Thatcher was actually gone. The woman who almost single handedly built a modern economy from a near basket case, and had led the party to win three elections had been replaced by a crew of irritated and frustrated party cronies who said it could not be done, only to see Thatcher do it … and in their tenure. The most painful victory for adversaries is that which is in their presence. Tyrants normally kill their opponents, in Thatcher’s case her enemies brought her the morning papers… and many would have preferred to be dead. But the people kept voting for her … helped by her courage in standing up and firm during the Falklands Crisis and her role in the collapse of the Iron curtain etc. Sadly, It was said that Thatcher never got over her forced bitter exit and betrayal … she was quoted as saying “ I will not forget and I will not forgive..” ..we can only pray that she did.
You knew where you stood with Thatcher. A believer in Christian ethics who on her arrival as Prime Minister on 4 May 1979 at 10 Downing Street, said, in a paraphrase of the “Prayer of Saint Francis”:
“…Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope…” Britain would soon discover she carefully chose her words and completely meant what she prayed.
When Thatcher wanted to say no she said “No … No …No” as the European union, same-sex marriage advocates, unions and others in opposition would often hear. Her scientific background endeared her to embrace only facts, empirical evidence and sound analysis … always openly disdaining the empty thoughtless echoes of traditionalists.
John Major once said Thatcher was made for her mission and the problems she was born to solve. Other critics will add that she was not as prepared for her victories and failed to manage as well the success she had earned and the “goddess-like” adulation that came. Still, I sense there is a Thatcher, God has prepared for every country situation … an unlikely rebel with strange ideas, no obvious political mentor affiliation, saying things like “Nigeria can and will change … and this is how it can be done. ” someone … a loose cannon to the status-quo who will overturn the “no-go-areas” positively and irreversibly once and for all.
Thatcher was sacrificed for a conservative party that could not reverse her policies…and the entire modern world who later leverage her privatization models …humbly learning from her mistakes. There was no gratitude from the new thriving entrepreneurial middle class that emerged only because she tore down the inefficient government monopolies and embraced free market economic policies that created wealth opportunities for people who had expected to be plumbers because their parents were plumbers. The unions, relatives of government miners who fought her till their death (many suicides) and their friends, with fortunes linked to the inefficient dinosaurs that had to die, hated Margaret with a fiery passion … even hosting parties at her funeral. Indeed it seemed more convenient for all to just let her memory quietly fade off even as the head of a bronze statue erected in her honour was chopped off by pained vandals.
Change happens not because people talk but only as someone changes things. Change can hurt … almost unbearably for some … many even dying in delusion that things will remain always in their favor at the expense of an urgently needed national reconstruction. And as for those who prefer to pretend Nigeria has such herculean and complex issues that defy normal solutions …or who tell us our problems are a product of the “end times” or play games with debates, task forces, committees and dialogues …all I can say is “just wait a bit …Thatcher is coming …”
2Ki 7:18 And it came to pass as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, Two measures of barley for a shekel, and a measure of fine flour for a shekel, shall be to morrow about this time in the gate of Samaria: 19 And that lord answered the man of God, and said, Now, behold, if the LORD should make windows in heaven, might such a thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof. 20 And so it fell out unto him: for the people trode upon him in the gate, and he died.
