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The Silliness Of Blaming The North For Atiku’s Loss -By Peter Oyebanji

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On the 23rd of February, Nigeria’s presidential election held across the country’s 36 states. The highest position in the country was contested by over 70 candidates and was not subjected to two, unusual. Although, the poll was not unusual, but we had an election in which an average Nigerian recognized more than two candidates, praise the lord! 

The election has happened and Nigeria has decided. Although, there are reservations. Why I’m not going to rant or write about things that unfolded during the election is because I expected them, just the way I’m expecting the elections that will be held in some states this Saturday to be dramatised or at least, attempted to be dramatised. The country is not sane.

However, a debate sprang after it became obvious president Buhari will be doing another term. It wasn’t a debate that was suposed to happen, at first. We just witnessed a disgraceful election and all we could passionately do was a blameshift. Blaming the northerners for voting a northerner in an election where the major candidates are northerners and in a country where one of her biggest problems is ethnicity. Oh no! It doesn’t make any sense.

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Peter Oyebanji

When you consider the fact that all the major ethnics have been guilty of this at various times, the reasoning makes one perturbed. In 2003 election, General Olusegun Obasanjo representing the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) had over 90 percent of the votes in the south west, his region. In 2011, Goodluck Jonathan representing the PDP had over 95 percent of votes in the south east and south south. In 2015, despite Goodluck Jonathan’s underwhelming performance, he was voted overwhelmingly in the two regions. No ethnic is sackless.

That is how it has always been with Nigeria, it has always been about which candidate will be behooveful to one’s region not about the candidate that can give good governance. Our ethnicity is complicated and only enlightenment can bring us to deal with this complication but how can we achieve enlightenment with this current educational system? Well, let us ask Solskjaer.

In the past two years, some states in the North have not been able to provide 200 students for the “common entrance” examination and all a bunch of educated Nigerians could do was blame them for voting a candidate they think is not worthy of presidency, seriously? When you consider a fun fact that Lagos State, the most sophisticated state in Nigeria has been tied to one man since 1999 despite the opacity of the state’s finance, you would really want to trash that trend again and again. There are many non-northern states in Nigeria that have been tied to a particular person, whether in form of human or party despite profuse reasons to manumit themselves A blameshift is not what we are supposed to be doing, especially when we just had elections that make mockery of democracy.

Lower classes in North aren’t the problem, neither are the ones in the south. Corrupt politicians are there to be ousted, Nigeria is in her worst state ever and the only solution we have yet is prayer. There are lot of things the energies can be channeled into instead of apportioning blames for our current predicament. And if you’re really gonna blame the loss of another corrupt politician on anything, blame Canada.

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Peter Oyebanji is a student Journalist at Obafemi Awolowo University. He can be reached through
Twitter: anderpeter2                                                                    Gmail:adewuyipeter50@gmail.com 

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