The Watchman
It’s August 2022 and we are on another vigil towards 2023 and an opportunity to make a choice towards the management of Nigeria for a minimum of the next four years.
At this moment, the permutations are wild. Peter’s
Obi’s candidacy has thrown up the strongest opposition against the status quo,
against which many young people are revolting.
To other political parties, it is also an opportunity to steal some
limelight in the run-up to the elections. I have chosen a side. I am OBIdient!
The most common argument against the PO (as we often abbreviate) candidacy is that his approach to politics is naive, in total disregard to the politics of hatred and bitterness usually perpetuated. Well, since PO cannot be faulted in that regard, the attention has shifted to his supporters and supporters of the other front-runners are wont to transfer that aggression, to force the perception that it is business as usual.
PO’s candidacy in the two months since his official
declaration, has stirred the waters, and I have learned things about the
process of Nigerian politics and electoral system than I have probably ever
known all my life. The camel that broke the straw was the delegate system, the
effects of which were more evident in the primaries of the APC and the PDP, in
constricting and reflecting the will of the highest-bidding aspirant than of
the people.
A growing number of naysayings have been thrown at the
PO campaign which have been successively debunked in the process of time. Two
months feel far longer than the 7 years of misruling under the PMB government.
‘He has no structure’ is the rallying cry of all naysayers although by now that
horse has been beaten to death already. PO’s response as being progressively
attested to with each passing hour, is that 100 million impoverished Nigerians
are the structure
Bola Ahmed Tinubu aka BAT is contesting under the APC amidst
an escalating spate of security and economic woes. His most notable campaign
slogan, emi lo kan has firmly entrenched in my mind, that he is
in the race to actualise an ambition he ‘graciously’ sacrificed in the
successfully executed overthrow of the PDP in 2015. The APC administration at
this point has served only to prove that the primary success of its birth is
still its sole accomplishment – to seize power. Not much thought it appears,
was given to actually governing the people over whom the power tussle was
fought. The people have since only been collaterally damaged from that tussle.
A serious contender for the mandate of the people would not have disregarded
the likes of Professor Yemi Osinbajo to fly its banner and lend some credence
to the implausible argument that it has any intent to write the wrongs or
redeem the image of incompetent leadership that has been the hallmark of the
past 7 years.
In his own
words, PMB is eager to return to Daura after his tenure expires in May 2023
while implying that he has no interest in presiding over this nation in the
time left. We are in the middle of a crisis and left to PMB, utterly
rudderless. I pray there is a country to recover when those elections do
happen.
Atiku Abubakar on the platform of the PDP, is set to claim
an elusive candidacy going on 30 years since. For all his claims of
inclusiveness, he and the PDP failed to respond favourably to the pulse of the
intended governed, by conceding the ticket to the eligible geopolitical zone by
the existing gentleman zoning agreement. The PDP has presented weak-to-nonexistent
opposition to the (mis-)ruling party, and in no way, dispelled the
conviction in many quarters that both APC and PDP are Siamese twins.
Omoyele Sowore of the AAC alludes to more than 30
years agitating against the government, and by this qualification being the
sole candidate who stands spotless from the system he now seeks to upset. His detailed
manifesto from at least four years ago, almost seems to take the back seat in
his campaign, if that is what I would call the impassioned railing against
other presidential aspirants.
Rabiu Kwankwaso would have been largely unheard of
save for the media moment he and his NNPP got due talks of a potential merger
with the Labour Party, an attempt he unsuccessfully tried to milk further when
said discussions fell through.
The candidacy of Professor Kingsley Moghalu never saw
the light of day, after being scuttled via the same deplorable delegate system
as was employed by the APC and PDP. An hitherto unheard of Dumebi Kachukwu
secured the ADC presidential ticket.
The entitlement stinks to high heavens. And the
unacknowledged fact is that only the Peter Obi candidacy speaks to service. He alone
has categorically stated that he is not desperate to be president. He has
aligned with the people in opposition to the incumbent hegemony and all of a
sudden, the ‘structure-less’ one is the main opposition contender. Perhaps
these and many other facts, are more ignored than unacknowledged because the
path PO has chosen is unprecedented in decades of Nigerian
politics, if ever.
But in fairness, the PO campaign is barely two months
old. There is still so much to unravel. So much to analyse. Plenty to speculate
about.
One thing is paramount come 2023, God, save Nigeria! Give us a clean break from mediocrity, and may we be established in the true path of progress.