Nigeria, my dearest beloved country with tremendous endowments and abundant resources, is sadly, passing through the worst turbulent times of its history.
Like a dying patient, it is struggling with deployed vigor for survival after it had been injected with the deadly vaccine of bad governance by quack political doctors, who are incapable, inexperienced, and extremely insincere in diagnosing the systems let alone the deadly infection.
The laughable thing is their usual demonstration of pomposity, crudity, primitiveness and very notorious insistence on being the craftiest creation as the condition deteriorates further!
This year’s general elections, therefore, are like a clinical operation in a democratic theatre for the convalescence of Nigeria or otherwise. Twisted emotions of hopes and fears are already and consistently hiked unabated as the day of political reckoning gathers momentum to finalize who will be the outstanding political therapists to recover and reposition the ailing nation appropriately.
The attractive stage we are about to observe must ensure eroding the scams of those who mix morality with factual lies and wrongful truths to attain the status of political lords.
It is this judgment day that is putting many politicians asunder and the electorates watching with rapt attention and keen interest.
It is this golden opportunity that the electorates ought to manipulate and assert their arrogance, kingship and real power to bestow on Nigeria the journey to a fresh and healthy living.
It is the right time to discontinue paying political subsidy to those politicians, who are not passionate to subsidize our lives through selfless services for which they are mandated and will be accountable to both their creator and the people. It is the material time to save the next generations the dooms and ruins of poor selections of leaders.
We would have to be influenced by the mere realistic word ‘select’ instead of ‘choose’ in matters of elections because the former is politically indispensable owing to the fact that it is more discerning, while the latter is contextually dormant and too mild that cannot invoke the required political spirit of thoughts and scrutiny.
In this busy election era and process, voters should cunningly select between re-writing a new history for the country and consolidating on the eerie and shocking narrative.
In summing the protracted dooms, our dysfunctional systems that have inflicted untold hardships on the masses are the products of mainly corruption and unjingoism perpetuated with impunity overtly by the reactionary pundits.
The fierce assault on these mechanisms has resulted in institutional collapse, consummate decomposition of national development and the country has inevitably been rendered the republic of mass dislocations and destructions.
And the eventual remnant of this is the evolution of two distinct nations within the same polity. But a country of two conflicting nations is not feasible and unfit for consistent sustenance.
We must fight those who facilitate and condone inimical disparities between the secured and the unsecured; between ubiquitous deprivation and conspicuous ostentation; between a juggernaut political classes conquering national vision and a systematic and overwhelming assail of the wretched of democracy.
We must sack the political country where nothing is functioning 24/7 and ‘respected’ except corruption, the only kingmaker that has remained unconquerable in Nigeria, the long time evil of the land albeit a loyal ally of millions of Nigerians. Who will not often find it unbelievable that we will stand on this despicable position?
Against this backdrop therefore, this year’s election is the father of all elections in the history of polls in the country for obvious reasons.
The country is yearning a paradigm shift from adversity to prosperity. Its people, for the first time, are fervently praying for good leaders regardless of party affiliation.
It is also a sign of protest that ethno-religious and regional dichotomies will not be a catalyst for voting behavior.
Some of the electorates have become more conversant, wiser and will out-rightly denounce the syndrome of ‘stomach infrastructure’ despite the prevailing circumstance.
It will also be to the credit of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that an improved technological device for curtailing rigging is to be operated to enhance election validity.
But on the other hand, there are elated fears of rising insecurity which may hamper the smooth conduct of the elections in several parts of the country.
Despite the naira swap policy and its after effect on the polity, there is the danger of votes buying by unscrupulous and nasty politicians who hate the survival of Nigeria in a genuine democracy. There will be a demonstration of public apathy by some of the electorates as their yearnings and aspirations have been decimated.
As usual, the menace of political thugs and their compromised security agents on the payroll of nasty politicians will not be a foregone conclusion.
For instance, in Bauchi State, the Sen. Bala Muhammed led administration is already witnessing the highest climax of character defamation, abuse of privilege and breach of security by those desperate to access power without an action plan for the good of the state or what power entails other than greed amongst the opposing sides.
Some of those masquerading as gubernatorial candidates in Bauchi State as of today if carefully examined are not more than undertakers on a deadly mission against the ongoing steady progress of the state piloted by a tested captain, Sen. Bala Muhammed.
I most humbly find it extremely difficult to understand the political value of character assassination, trading in lies and breach of the peace by opposition parties just to access power for end abuse.
It is also a season of the usual and newly recruited merchants of ethno-religious chauvinism as they have long started deploying their deadly weapons of ethnicity and faith destructions that the elections will be a referendum between Muslims and Christians to establish numerical power and so on and so forth.
The coming polls can rightly be defined in terms of what the nation deserves and what certain aspiring politicians do not deserve in connection with power and its misuse. Just imagine, a whole retired Nigeria’s Chief of Air Staff descending so low to be a gubernatorial candidate? What does he want to achieve in governing a state that he failed to achieve in the Nigeria Air force and what were his contributions to the development of the state he today, desperately wants to govern? This is a clear case of wonders shall never end!
This paradoxical hypothesis best suits the general atmosphere of the elections vis-à-vis the rapid drifting of the country to an unknown destination if caution and decorum are not applied.
If the country’s tomorrow is worth preserving and revering, then the coming elections will be a political bulldozer to wreck enormous havocs on the enemies of progress masquerading as politicians and their comrades in syndicate in the thieving business while pretending to be God fearing.
If on the other hand, the country is surrendered to the politically unfit and undeserved rogues, there will definitely be a more complicated ailment and the nation’s chance of survival cannot be guaranteed.
By historical re-visitation to generate great lessons therefore, the coming elections will be a trial of political errors of the past to eschew the mistakes of tomorrow on the part of the voters. It is often said that machines never make mistakes, but the make errors.
This is succinctly modeled in the sense that voters should not be liable to committing mistakes that they will regret forever in the coming polls and they will be persecuted if they allow the ghost of yesterday’s errors to reincarnate, horrify and rob their constructive voting idiosyncrasy in the coming elections.
Notwithstanding the encroaching agencies of hopes and fears on our political space, 2023 elections stand as the rebirth of Nigeria through effective utilization of votes by the electorates.
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues
