2023 and The Thorny Path Ahead

Eddy Odivwri

Politicians are a wonderful people. They see what we do not see, and hear what we do not hear. Were it not so, the struggle and fretting for the political space will not be as tense and tedious as it is today. The quest for power is an opium. It seizes the politicians and they dare any cloud, no matter how stormy it appears. They believe that soon as the cloud clears, they will be on the other side of bliss. Were it not so, why should a normal person be in this high-scale struggle to become Nigeria’s President at a time when the nation is clearly broken and disabled? They are executive gamblers, hoping against hope, in entering the race, just in case it “clicks”. Many of them know they are not presidential materials. But it will be for ego brace up to aspire to become a President. Many others just want it to be part of their Curriculum Vitae, by way of being introduced as one of the also-rans in Nigerian presidential race.   

There must be something we do not know which the platoon of presidential hopefuls are angling for. Is it just acquiring power for the sake of the title? At a time like this, what really should be the attraction of wanting to be Nigeria’s president, if the intent is genuinely for service to the nation?

 It is true that Nigeria is such a great country with enormous resources and boundless prospects. But do many of the aspiring presidents know that the future of Nigeria is  deeply mortgaged?

Do they know that the economy is largely running on tax credit? Do they know that big corporate individuals and multi nationals in the country have been compelled to pay their five year taxes ahead of time so the Buhari administration can finance some of its running projects like infrastructure developments? Do they know some of the roads being built by the Buhari administration are being financed with tax credit?

Do they know that over 80 per cent of the Nigerian crude—the main stay of the economy is being stolen everyday and we have not been able to either catch the thieves or decide on how to even catch them? Do hey realise how much we have borrowed fromn China and other countries? Do they know the weight of our local and foreign debts?

Do they realise that never before has Nigeria been as divided and polarized as we are today?  Many of them are apostles of tribalism and ethnicism. A man like Gov Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State who also wants to be the President of Nigeria is the same man who had argued that Fulanis not only own everywhere in Nigeria, but that all Fulanis, whether they are in Nigeria or Mali, are entitled to the Nigerian commonwealth.  He was at the Channels TV the other day struggling to explain why and how every Fulani man is a Nigerian. Such Bunkum!   He also wants to be the President of Nigeria.

In a nation filled with distrust and mutual suspicion, there is a great deal of work to be done by whoever succeeds President Buhari. Mr President has done poorly in the task of uniting the country. In an attempt to protect and project his Fulani brothers, so many national values and practices have been subverted and the fault lines are now so very deep and pronounced. The hitherto unknown Miyetti Allah, association of cattle breeders suddenly became a major organization in Nigeria. They acted as the mouth piece of the Herders whilst the herders-farmers clashes lasted. And the government merely wrung its hand in ill-managed helplessness, with its rounds of tepid press statements that made little sense.  Beyond the euphoria of craving for the number one seat and office in the country, lies the real task of rebuilding the nation.

It will neither be tea party nor a tik-tok joke. There will be real work to be done. The task of rebuilding the country will be enormous.

It was bad enough that Buhari failed many Nigerians. But it will be far worse if whoever succeeds him does not radically begin programmes and schemes that will redeem and rescue this nation from the precipice. Already, many nay-sayers are predicting that Nigeria will collapse.

How many of the guys strutting for the presidency have half the requisite capacity to pull the nation out of the cesspit of decay, degeneration and disintegration?

What Nigeria will need beyond 2023 is a leader, not a politician. A leader who will be devoted to saving Nigeria, one who does not have to be politically correct in his actions. A man or woman crazy in a way. Just an administrative surgeon, to redesign the Nigerian structure and system in such a way that we can begin to get the country back into shape and form. I am not certain which will be more severe: the post-Buhari damage         or the post-war damage in Nigeria.

The coming leader should be ready to truly do battle with the ever-growing colony of corruption in the country.

None of these many aspirants declaring here and there for the presidency has been able to articulate in clear terms what they will do to solve the choking problems facing us: the inflation in the economy, the plague of insecurity and then the cancer called corruption. In between these issues lie  all that are troubling us in this country

For they who are able and willing to dole out N100 million or N50 million to buy presidential nomination form, they may not truly understand that there is huge hunger in the land.

Nigerians really need to hear what they will do to lighten their burdens. Beyond the rhetoric of political shenanigans, let them tell us how they will pull this nation back from the brinks.  The task ahead is huge. Very huge. We cannot afford to elect another clone of Buhari in any form or guise.

Canticles…

Even My Gateman Wants to be President

Eddy Odivwri

 (clapping his hands like a tale bearer) Hey, truly wonders will never end, especially in this country.

What wonder have you seen again?

It was the “consultation meeting” my gateman had with me last Friday.

Your gateman? You mean Abu?

Yes-o! He calmly came to the office last Friday after the Jumat prayers and sough to have an audience with me. I had thought he was coming to remind me of his salary and the pending Sallah festival. But alas, it was none of that.

Abu, looking strangely comported said he had come to “consult” me. When I heard that word, I raised my head and looked him in the eye, asking again: consult? And he nodded his head.

So what was the consultation about?

Abu said immediately after the Jumat prayers, his friends and allies pulled him to a corner and told him to join the presidential race. That they have been watching him and that he has all the attributes and characteristics of a president.

I asked him if he knew what he was saying. He nodded in affirmation.

I asked again if he meant being the president of all the National Association of Maiguards. He said no. That he is talking about being the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria

I asked if he knew the financial implication of the gamble. He said his allies will raise the required N100 million to buy the APC presidential nomination form. That some dance groups and trumpeters have also been arranged with some videographers in tow, to accompany him on Friday, that is today, to go and buy the form. He sounded collected and calm, beginning to behave like a presidential material already.

It was when he confirmed that “oga it is true “, that I remembered to close my mouth which had been wide open in the last three minutes.

So what did he say are his qualifications?

I asked him too. But launched into some syllogical arguments. He explained that he finished secondary school, even though he failed WAEC. He explained that the law did not say you must have certain number of credits or passes in WAEC exam before you can be president. He argued that many of the people who have already declared are people who have been crooks and arrested-and-released thieves before. That many of them have had several cases with the EFCC, that some had stolen huge money (even in foreign currency) and hid same in some Government House, while others have running cases both in the courts and with EFCC while a few others have actually gone to prison and managed to wangle their way out of prison and they are all now struggling to become the leader of the country. He said his allies have assured him that given his publicly known poor background, that the Nigerian electorate will trust him and vote for him instead of past leaders who not only stole the treasury blind, but neglected the poor when they got into power. He even cited the case of one of the aspirants – a sitting governor– who was among the first two to collect the N100 million nomination form whereas the workers in his state were writhing in hunger and crying that they celebrated Sallah in empty stomach, even after fasting for 30 days.

You mean Abu is this politically enlightened?

I was shocked my brother. He went on to argue that even if he does not win at the end of the day, it will not be for the lack of courage to dare. But that his conscience would have been satisfied that he offered to serve. And that it will count for him some day. 

Did he also say he will return to the gateman job if he fails to get the party ticket?

Again, I asked him and guess what he replied: we cross that bridge when we get there. I now asked him if it was not wiser to plough the N100 million in a business that will change his fortune in life forever. But he shocked me with his reply: “Life is a risk sir!”, he said, adding that his friends and association members would not have given him that huge amount for business, because there is huge prospect of experiencing parvenu when you go into politics and government service.

(straining his right ear) …Prospect of experiencing ‘par-what’?

Parvenu—running into sudden huge wealth. It happens only in government. Or how do you think these politicians are able to raise N100 million as if it is N50,000! Are you not shocked that the N100million bill, rather than deter unserious aspirants, have turned out to be a huge attraction to all kinds of aspirants—serious and unserious? Last Wednesday alone, five aspirants (Fayemi, Oshiomhole, Badaru, Bakare, Akpabio) joined the race. If and when all of them collect the form, the APC would have made over N500 million in one day. Even Dangote is not even as resourceful or lucky. Can you just imagine how wealthy the APC will become at the end of the nomination exercise?

So how does Abu intend to attend to the delegates at the party primaries? Does he also have bullion van of U.S dollars?

He sounded so confident that since there are more poor people in Nigeria, and that since he is an alumnus of the Talakawa Academy of late Aminu Kano, he will surely be the darling of the electorate. He said his simple message is to restore the lost glory of Nigeria. That he will not join the maddening crowd of boastful aspirants to confuse the voters. That his knowledge of poverty will make him more sensitive to the needs of the ordinary people on the street, arguing that if thieves can have the prospect of being elected, then he twice has the chance of being elected, no matter how perverse the society has become.

But Abu is from the northern part of the country. Will another northerner succeed Buhari, the Baba of the north?

Abu said zoning is dead. He asked me if Yahaya Bello of Kogi, Atiku Abubakar, Aminu Tambuwal, Bukola Saraki, Bala Mohammed and now Mohamed Badaru are not from the north, and yet in the race? He said “you lose nothing trying your luck”.

How can he say zoning is dead? Zoning is alive and kicking. We cannot sacrifice it. Not at this point. It is too sensitive an issue to be trifled with. Tell Abu and his ilk that zoning is not dead. Tell him that already the Igbos are suggesting that they will seek nationality in another country if their zone is not allowed to produce the next president through a zoning arrangement.

All of that can and shall be worked out. What holds me in stitches is that even my gateman wants to be the president.

Why not anyway? He is qualified. His people are solidly behind him. The more the merrier.