By Fabian Ihekweme, PhD
After 62 years of the formation of Nigeria as an independent entity, the country has continued to face existential and identification problems borne out of recklessness of corrupt leadership and sheer mediocrity.
How else can one describe a nation blessed with incredible human resource and huge deposits of natural and mineral resources as evidently and abundantly found in every part of Nigeria?
Nigeria is blessed to the extent that other countries that are equally rich and blessed with comparable mineral and human resources envy her.
History has shown that nations with homogenous population often derive strength from their traditional and cultural affinity than nations living in distinct values and understandings in hetreogenous settings. But the same history still holds that nations with diverse nationalities have the potentials to be great if they can succeed in harnessing the advantages in their diversity. Countries like India, Brazil, Namibia and even Rwanda lately, have succeeded in turning their ethnic diversity into gold mines of opportunities. But the leadership of Nigeria uses its own diversity only to empoverish the common man, creates imaginary hate syndrome and tensions amongst the ethnic nationalities.
In essence, the behavioural pattern of every given society, reflects the kind of leadership prevalent in that environment .
After 62 years, Nigerians are still suffering from untold hardship, penury, deprivation and acute hunger in the midst of plenty. Virtually, every sector of the Nigerian system has been wrecked and looted down by corrupt and unproductive leaders who came to power with the sole purpose of plundering and looting our collective wealth.
After years of successive military regimes from 1966 to 1979, the 1979 constitution ushered in a new civilian government, the 2nd Republic headed by Alhaji Shehu Shagari as President, but that period of democratic interregnum lasted only till December 1983. Shagari was overthrown by Gen. Mohammadu Buhari citing monumental corruption as the main reason for the military intervention. Buhari himself was in turn overthrown by Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida who ruled Nigeria and opened the floodgate of what we know today as institutionalised corruption.
IBB survived a couple of Coup attempts before he exited. He constituted an Interim National Government on the 27th of August 1993 with Ernest Shonekan as the interim President but left him with a hyena as his Defense Minister. And on the 17th November 1993, General Sani Abacha kicked Shonekan out in a bloodless coup that lasted just about 32 minutes.
Abacha, in a desperate bid to succeed himself after many years in power, was eliminated and that paved way for Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar who finally midwifed the current democratic experience we have today.
From the reviewed political and historical perspectives, it has become very simple therefore, to trace the very root and rude causes of our underdevelopment and backwardness despite huge natural, mineral and human resources within our disposal.
Nothing else comes to mind except the failures of successive leaders, be it military or civilian in the governance of Nigeria.
Nigeria had had and still having ruthless impunists and criminally minded schizophrenics and psychopathic disorder coupists as leaders.
They have succeeded in sowing seeds of ethnic and religious disaffection and animosity in the country. They have also brainwashed the little minds and gullible ones amongst us and infact, deployed all tactics including terror against our land.
The leadership of this country has continued to incite and fund rebellious and hate related upheavals in the country. This situation has advanced unabated without any end in sight. These bad leaders have not left any stone unturned in their nefarious activities of funding and masterminding reckless killings and kidnappings of innocent Nigerians especially defenceless women and children in our communities. Poor Muslim and Christian children are being slaughtered on a daily basis while the Children of the rich continue to enjoy heavy protection, chilling in the comfort of their palatial homes provided for them by their corrupt parents.
After 62 years as an independent nation, politicians are still promising to provide water, electricity, free education, good roads, health care services etc. Is that not witchcraft?
In all of this, the poor masses and the common man are always at the receiving end.
Every election period, they shamelessly come out to tell us to vote along ethnic and religious lines.They have continued to brainwash our people to vote for candidates of their tribes and those sharing the same faith with them, yet poverty and hunger refuses to differentiate between a Christian and a Muslim. What a wicked world? The most annoying part, is that after the elections, you will never see them until the next election season approaches, then you will start seeing them resurfacing with the same story line and mindless incitement. Are we cursed or what?
As at today, there are over 20 million out of school children in Nigeria according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), yet these same impunists still have the audacity and the impetus to open their mouths to talk about voting them back to power so as to continue with their brazing impunity and looting. Chaiiii! Chukwu Okike, the hour has come….
Nigeria has technically collapsed. The economy is in shambles, there is complete absence of means of production, the rule of law is completely kaputt and the means of distribution of goods and services has completely broken down. The citizens are merely surviving and existing on a daily basis and the country is currently living on a borrowed time. If nothing is done urgently, we may be landing ourselves into Chinua Achebe’s prediction in his memoir titled “There was a Country”
The 2023 political season has presented yet another opportunity and a rare hope of rescuing and recovering Nigeria from the hands of our enemies. The bitterness and the hopelessness of Nigerian people especially the youth from all spectrum of Nigerian society has renewed our strength and determination to rise up against these unproductive elements that have held us hostage over time.
Nigerians have decided to throw the Presidential candidates of the two legacy political parties PDP’s Atiku Abubakar and APC’s Bola Tinubu into the dustbin of history. Both candidates represent the old order of impunity and dishonesty. They are likened to termites that had eaten deep into our collective heritage and patrimony.
How do we save Nigeria from getting completely ruined in our time? Is it by voting clueless men and spent forces with proven dubious dispositions? Is it by hiring septugenarians with dead brain cells? Is it by voting a President that will end up in hospital beds in Europe and America all through his tenure?
I think 2023 provides us with the last chance to either vote for competence, capacity and honesty or allow the impunists to continue with their brazing highway robbery, which obviously will spell doom to the country and hasten up the dismantling of Nigeria as an independent country.The choice is ours.
We have identified Peter Obi as the only candidate amongst the frontline and leading Presidential candidates who can unite Nigeria and bring us out from the depth of poverty.
Let’s therefore, shun politics of ethnicity, religion, nepotism and other man-made vices and in place, reinforce our hope and trust in Peter Obi.
2023 Presidential Election is about the collective wellbeing and survival of every Nigerian in the North and in the South. It is not about religion and ethnicity but about competence and patriotism.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must get it right this time. We know that Tinubu is hoping on his rigging plans and strategies. We know also that, Atiku is heavily depending on his contacts with very powerful elements in Buhari’s government to manipulate the election in his favour. However, we still want to plead with the two legacy political parties and President Buhari not to set Nigeria ablaze. This election cannot be rigged. This election must not be rigged. Any attempt to subvert the Will of Nigerian people in the forthcoming Presidential election, hmmmmm the consequences would be better imagined. Let us respect our electoral laws and do the right things. Nigerian Youths are determined and ready to defend their votes.
INEC adhoc staff especially the Youth Corpers are also advised to stay away from anything that will put their lives in the harm’s way. Parents should advise their children who will serve as INEC Adhoc staff not come to their polling units with a dubious and compromised mindset rather with a patriotic mindset. Nigerian Youths are not joking, they are determined to take back their country. This is of course the last fight.
My entire family including the extended members and I will be voting for Peter Obi because we have found him worthy of our votes. He has an enviable track record of competence and capacity and a proven record of integrity. Peter Obi is physically fit and mentally sound. He is psychologically very stable and smart. He will hit the ground running from day 1. And I strongly believe, that Obi will be President for every part of Nigeria. Obi will unite Nigeria and restore law and order.
The choice of Obi’s running mate, Yusuf Ahmed-Datti, has already defined the character of the man Peter Obi and his preparedness to fix Nigeria. Datti is a very thorough breed, a professional to the core and a political technocrat. Infact, his complementary services as the would-be Vice President and even his constitutionally guaranteed duties to Peter Obi’s Presidency will quicken the restoration of law and order in Nigeria, as well as jump-starting sustainable economic development in our country. The combination of Obi-Datti therapy remains the only prescription to administer life into the spines of a country lying helplessly in the intensive care unit of Nigeria’s political hospital in a desperate search for a permanent cure. May the Will of God prevail.
*Authored By: *
*The Coordinator, *
*Big Tent Independent Presidential Campaign Council, Imo State. *
