Why Emerging Political Leaders Should Come Together

By Charles Area Fada Oputa

There are just a few people in this country who do not know that I always pitch my tent with the underdogs. Where I stand on any matter of public interest is common knowledge. Who does not know about some of my fights for the downtrodden, lending my voice to the voiceless and the vulnerable amongst us.

It is no longer news that I undertake to fight battles for the less privileged in our midst; the weak, fighting relentlessly to see that there is a better life and living for the oppressed.

I have always reiterated, shouting it loud on the roof tops, that the future of our beloved country lies in the hands of her exceptional youths. I have been privileged to meet a few outstanding youths of this country. However, I know that, that is only possible if many of these youths rise to the occasion.

I am in a dilemma, right now. I am confused. Somebody needs to give me a response fast! How did we get here?

What’s playing out right now in our political landscape is like a replay of 2015, when it seemed that Nigerians were dead tired of the government of that day and wanted it out by all means.

Buhari, by the outrageous publicity heaped on him by all and sundry, especially by the Jagaban was presented as the messiah to come and take all our problems away. All of us, including top, respectable, high and mighty in society queued behind Buhari, chanting “Sai Baba”, forgetting his antecedents; as if when people increase in age, they suddenly become someone or something else.

The only thing I see that all Nigerians are in agreement on today is that Buhari has failed. Failed woefully, criminally and fantastically.

However, the question of who in the new dispensation is going to take him out remains yet unanswered.

It seems to me that the people I support are only dogs, barking on social media but refusing to bite where it matters most; where their votes count. People who can’t even defend their votes, docile, arrogantly ignorant youths.

What I have always wanted and would always want is for the outstanding youths to be given a chance at governing Nigeria.

This was what led to the call for the Presidential Aspirants Coming Together (PACT) meeting held at my house, where we reached a consensus that all the new breed aspirants should unite in purpose to field a consensus candidate that we could present as a viable alternative to change the status quo.

After they left my house that day, I heaved a jumbo sigh of relief, excited much that we were finally heading in the direction of promised land. Little did I know that it was not yet “Uhuru” as events that followed raised questions of whether our youths are really ready to jump on this horse. They refused to come together and join forces to take out the enemy. What a shame. What frustration.

I’m saddened by the docility of these youths that I speak for. We call for sit-outs, throw up and on different campaigns/interventions every now and again but rather than have our youths join in significantly, all they do is rant on social media and that is where it ends.

Or could it be a problem of landscape? Some are even busy casting aspersion on a 67 year-old man like me who’s fighting their fight.

Isn’t it our youths who leave the country to become top rated professionals in their different countries of residence? Isn’t it this same youths that are making us proud in the diaspora? So who and what is holding them down in this country?

Why do we allow the worst of us to lead the best of us? Are all the good people in Nigeria dead? Where are the Civil Society Organisations? Why is it looking like the only opposition in Nigeria is the Our Mumu Don Do movement? What’s going on?

As it is now, the only person looking like a capable candidate to tackle Buhari successfully is Atiku Abubakar, and just like in 2015, people have begun campaigning about being a lesser evil. Give me a break. Lesser evil?

As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing like lesser evil because ‘Evil is Evil’. It has no other name and there is nothing good in evil. It is same.

This is where I am confused, frustrated may be: when will these our new, emerging aspirants come together to match the old breed in structure, experience and terror? The most painful part of all of this is that, it’s our stolen money that these people are using to fight us. See how they have weaponised hunger and poverty. Do we blame them, when we never wanted to hold them accountable, because most of us are corrupted by fear?

If I wait till end of November would I get a convincing, practicable response from the people I have eternally chosen to pitch my tent with?

Charles ‘AreaFada’ Oputa, self-acclaimed President of Frustrated Nigerians and leader of the Our Mumu Don Do Movement writes from Abuja