I use this title from Charles Dickens’s book. Although I don’t claim to be someone like him, this title describes how I and many Pakistanis felt when Imran Khan came to power. We all have high hopes for him. I know he’s human, but he’s made some mistakes that are sometimes inexplicable. Great hope is still there, but they are getting a bit of a beating.

Take for example how he treated his finance minister, Hafeez Sheikh. Khan is fortunate to have him on his team and he is one of the few in the political environment who really knows the subject of public finance and macroeconomics. He took over a moribund economy and revived it with great opportunity. What did he get for the pain? He was humiliated by his boss – namely Imran Khan. Knowing that Imran is not a fool, why did he let this happen? After losing the senate election, which looked very costly, Hafeez respectfully submitted his resignation to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister met him and insisted that he stay. Hafeez agrees and the conventional wisdom is that Imran will create a vacuum in the Senate where Hafeez will win the by-election. His ministers came and said that Hafeez was not going anywhere and that he would remain finance minister. And then just weeks later, Imran released him from his portfolio. What’s with this guy, Imran Khan? He said one thing and did another. He was never a man who would go to great lengths to humiliate someone. So why did he do it?

My feeling is that a person behaves erratically when he is told what to do, sometimes against his better judgment. It’s just a feeling. I’m not saying Imran was told what to do and what not to do. When the founder of the UAE, Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, was asked about the future of his country, he said, “My father rides a camel, I ride a Mercedes, my son is on a Land Rover and my grandson is going to ride a Land Rover, but my great grandson is coming back on a camel. . “

Why is that, he was asked? And the answer was memorable, “Hard times create strong people. Strong men create easy times. Easy times make people weak. Weak men create hard times. “We all went through this. Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan was a man who once famously said,” Give me agriculture and I will give you a civilization. “There is surprising depth to this statement. But I say it only to persuade Imran to give more importance to agriculture. We lost our civilization and Imran must act before it’s too late.

I asked Imran Khan: “Was Hafeez Sheikh thrown under the bus by you?” Several months earlier, Imran appointed him as Minister of Finance in order to carry out his duties properly. And what happened not long after is inexplicable. It is the Prime Minister’s job to protect Hafeez Sheikh and his economic team from political con artists outside and especially within his party. Imran should know by now that he has a snake in his pavilion. It is ironic that as the captain of the Pakistan cricket team, he was often the matchmaker, but as Prime Minister, he either turned a blind eye or was completely unconscious.

Hafeez Sheikh wanted to run for the senate elections from Sindh, but he was forced to do so from Islamabad against a candidate from the PPP, the former prime minister. The PPP and Gilani stirred heaven and earth to ensure that he bought the allegiance of many senators and then Hafeez Sheikh lost. Namely when he does the honorable thing and resigns despite what odds he stands in a system where there is no honor and in a country where there is no honor. Imran Khan refuses to accept his resignation and tells him that he is badly needed and must stay. He needs to renew Pakistan’s understanding with the IMF to get a new stage. Once he had done that and the IMF money had arrived, he was shown the door. His junior minister, a boy so far not tainted, took over. He now heads the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) and the first thing he did at the first meeting he chaired, was agree to open trade with India and start importing sugar and yarn. This is for a country that was once the king of cotton in the region. Oh, what a fall my countrymen are, a fall that could have been avoided so easily. Shireen Mazari, Minister of Human Rights, spoke out against this in Parliament. That’s when we knew there would be a minor uprising in the cabinet. And it happened. When the matter appeared before the cabinet, he quickly rejected it. Imran Khan was left with an egg on his face. I hope it’s not Indian eggs. Imran Khan said in the past that he was good at making teams (which is still being debated), and that he would create a world-class team that would win games. We know that America is trying its best to bring peace to South Asia and they are trying to gradually improve India-Pakistan relations in areas such as trade. They used the UAE and Saudi Arabia to take control of Pakistan, India and others to carry out additional normalization. This was where Imran Khan could be told that he had to open a trade with India. But it’s sad that she agreed, even though she would harshly deny it. Don’t tell me that the UAE and Saudi Arabia managed to persuade new child finance minister Imran to commit cowardly acts. He looks like a good kid so far and let’s hope he stays well and learns from these mistakes. So that great hope does not fade away. Now, Imran Khan says that he wants good people to be on his team then why is he so lured by such disgusting people to be put in his cabinet.

I hope Hafeez Sheikh is all right. He is a person who is so competent and full of integrity that he cannot go without a goal in life. He will, God willing, be fine. I hope Imran is well too, but he has to try and get Hafeez back in his circle because he will bring a rare commodity into his team which he so desperately needs. That, my friends, is wisdom. ([email protected])