No. We do not want to start this New Year on such a glooming foreboding note. We know that the elections are capable of provoking such outcomes with blood-letting and cannibal rage. But it is not in that sense that we talk of the battle field that the elections will ignite. We talk about a battle only as a metaphor, merelyas a way of bringing out the preparation of politicians, political parties and all stakeholders in the power contest that elections rake for us in our type and variety of liberal democracy. We are concerned that it will be a fierce contest like throwing daggers and using none. We are all, as Nigerians, especially the electorate, sharing premonitions of a war that is bloodless—a game fairly executed with the end of choosing our representatives truly, fairly and freely, such that we can all dance back to our various tents slapping ourselves at the back and settling down in the hope that we have fought on different sides of the battle and we have chosen the best from among ourselves who will carry the mantle and the gauntlet and lead us into the future out of the tornadoes into the calm seas where we shall sail in a boat that will row us into an assured future where we will have a share, a stake and a fair deal.
I am saying this because we truly do not need a battle of the other kind—the one that the Boko Haram people have carried unto us – government, sects, communities, individuals and all. It is not the kind of battle that Boko Haram took to Chibok and carted away over 200 school girls in April last year (we are yet to find a clue to the whereabouts and conditions of those innocent little girls before their prime and their careers rudely terminated.). And that is not the end of the story. In the same vicinity of Chibok, some other citizens, numbering just a little below that figure, were abducted, some three months back. Nothing has been heard of them also! A while ago, some twenty Boko Haram warriors, not done with their human loot in the Chibok environ, armed themselves to the teeth, and attacked a small village called Kautikari and killed at least fifteen people. They were in sauntering, in a victory mood, in their Toyota Hilux and motorcycles with war songs on their lips. What do all these mean? There is no surveillance around the area—as we should have hoped for in a place where we were supposed to be struggling to rescue our abducted girls some eight months ago. The residents were defenseless and undefended. This is at a time, when, at the last count by Human Rights Watch, the Boko Haram war and battlements have taken away nearly 30,000 lives. What does this grim picture of carnage by fratricide paint, in official peace time, when , as graphically depicted by peerless Olatunji Dare, the country is not caught in the paroxysm of a civil war or ravaged by an epidemic or natural disaster on a biblical scale?’ No, I am not, by any stretch of the mind or the imagination, mentioning battle in that vicinity of raw killing, brutish life-taking. We have too much of that already in ‘peace time’ Nigeria
Hence, the battle that is coming must be different, must be saner, must be calmer, and must be the type that wears the garment of the dove, not of the hawk. It is an election, not less imbued with passion, struggle and tempest in the quality of the desires that possess the hearts of those who seek power to rule over us and those who have taken to the field on their behalf to win our hearts. It is important that the terms and purpose of this battle be spelt out clearly and in no uncertain terms as opponents prepare and map out their strategies in the battle that is less than five weeks away. They need to come out even and squarely with us that their agenda for the battle is to win our hearts and not to cut our heads; it is to prepare to repair our damaged present, our manacled bodies, not to maim us further.
In this new battle—if it will be new in a true sense of the word—the key proponents and opponents at the same time are the two leading parties and their flag-bearers. They are the PDP and the incumbent President, Goodluck Jonathan and the APC and Muhammadu Buhari. What kind of battle are these men of destiny and their parties willing and preparing to wage in this season of elections? Is it a battle which will transform our country into greatness as we truly desire and deserve to have or into decimation, decline and disintegration? What comes out of this election is a factor of what these political actors and their political structures bring to the battlefield. In a way, as I said last week, we the electorate, shall also or should also, from yesterday, begin to tell the powerseekers the kind of election that will be acceptable and unacceptable to us and the manner of leadership choice that must emerge. For truly, a people gets, should get, the kind of government they deserve. But in so anticipating, the people should earn it. We have begun to miss this since yesterday, the moment when, either out of material or mental poverty or both, we have made choices of candidates clearly on account of how much money they had brought to the delegates. At the just concluded primaries-even as low as at the state Houses of Assembly, choices have been inflicted and accepted, on account of who brought the bigger purse among the candidates. How many cars and motorcycles were brought to the delegates and the traditional rulers and the parties’ shameless leaders, at units, wards and zonal levels.
Now, as we move hurriedly (and there is very little time to catch the votes between now and February!}, filthy, ill-gotten lucre, should not be the incentive from the politicians and should not be the attraction of the electorate. This battle that is coming must be fought with clear-headedness, on vital issues of concern to the future of the citizens and clearly stated and canvassed ideas on how the country will be reconstructed for the better. How will the front men address these issues in this battle?
More Reactions to Outings
If Nigerian state were as bad as you painted in ‘For the peace and love of Yuletide’, the media would be dead let alone alive to paint the gory tales, a choice heaped on the country by a desperate politician, itching to rule over his human herds a second time as a civilian president, which boomeranged into a colossus consuming innocent lives, with relish. Ye, some media columnists jettison that fact while taking an innocent inheritor of past leadership debris, in the saddle now, to the crucifix. We can only take solace in the prediction of the Bible that at the end of time, strange things would be happening. The signs are awash all over the globe. So, why bother about mere suspicious penmanship… Thanks all the same for calling on the leadership and followership classes alike to sustain love and oneness of Nigeria in their relationships. Wise advice.
(Lai Ashadele:07067677806}
Thank you greatly for your write on For the peace and love… You got every part of your argument right. But I doubt if the President, his Vice, state governors, National Assembly members read/understand write-ups like this! God save this country.
(Austin in Minna, 08036174396)
With reference to your piece on Tambuwal, the PDP are just making noise, when the Governor of Ondo crossed to the PDP, they all welcome him. Commendation should go to Mr. Speaker for showing appetite for progressives,
(Ola Olakunle, Abeokuta, 0803538964)
Your elucidation on Tambuwal was very cogent and accepted. He can’t steal another man’s belonging and go home and want to have peace. Let him try his much popularity with the APC. It is now clear now to all Nigerians that even Neophyte in the North want to be President of Nigeria. They arrogantly do not want to undergo tutelage.
( Chief Laz Okpara; 0806526919)
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