2023 Elections, Hopes And Fears, Nigeria’s Rebirth -By Abdu Abdullahi

Nigeria, this beloved country of tremendous endownments and resources, is passing through the worst turbulent times of its history. Like a dying patient, it is struggling very hard for survival after it had been injected with the vaccines of bad governance by the quack political doctors, who are incapable of diagnosing the symptoms let alone the deadly infection. The laughable thing is their demonstrated pomposity and notorious insistence on being the most crafty as the condition deteriorates!

This year’s elections, therefore, are like a clinical operation in a democratic theater for the convalescence of Nigeria or otherwise. Twisted emotions of hopes and fears are already and consistently hiked unabated as the day of political reckoning gathers momentum to finalise who will be the outstanding political therapists to recover and reposition Nigeria appropriately. The attractive stage we are about to observe must ensure eroding the scams of those who mix morality with factual lies and wrongful truths to attain the status of political lords.

It is this judgement day that is putting many politicians asunder and the voters watching with keen interest. It is this golden chance that the voters ought to manipulate and assert their arrogance, kingship and real power to bestow on Nigeria the journey of a fresh and healthy living. It is the right time to discontinue paying political subsidy to those politicians who are not passionate to subsidize our lives through selfless services for which they are mandated and will be accountable to both Allah and the people. It is the material time to save the next generations the dooms and ruins of poor selections of leaders.

We would have to be influenced by the more realistic word ‘select’ instead of ‘choose’ in matters of elections because the former is politically indispensible owing to the fact that it is more discerning, while the latter is contextually dormant and too mild that cannot invoke the required political spirit of thoughts and scrutiny. In this busy election era and process, voters should cunningly select between re-writing a new history for Nigeria or consolidating on the eerie and shocking narrative. In summing the protracted dooms, our dysfunctional systems that have inflicted untold hardships on the masses are the products of mainly corruption and unjingoism perpetuated with impunity overtly by the reactionary pundits.

The fiece assault on these mechanisms has resulted in institutional collapse, consummate decomposition of national development and the country has inevitably been rendered the republic of mass dislocations and destructions. And the eventual remnant of this is the evolution of two distinct nations within the same polity. But a country of two conflicting nations is not feasible and unfit for consistent sustainance.

We must fight those who facilitate and condone inimical disparities between the secured and the unsecured ; between ubiquitous deprivation and conspicuous ostentation; between a juggernaut political class conquering national vision and a systematic and overwhelming assail of the wretched of democracy. We must sack the political country where nothing is functioning except corruption, the only kingmaker that has remained unconquerable, the long time evil of the land albeit a loyal ally of millions of Nigerians. Who will not often find it unbelievable that we will stand on this despicable position?

Against this backdrop therefore, 2023 election is the father of all elections in the history of polls in Nigeria for obvious reasons. Nigeria is yearning a paradigm shift from adversity to prosperity. Nigerians, for the first time, are fervently praying for good leaders regardless of party affiliation. It is also a sign of protest that ethno religious and regional dichotomies will not be a catalyst for voting behavior. Some electorates have become politically wiser and will outrightly denounce the syndrome of ‘ stomach infrastructure’. It will also be to the credit of the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC) that an improved technological devise for curtailing rigging is going to be operated to enhance election validity.

But on the other hand, there are elated fears of rising insecurity which may hamper the smooth conduct of the elections in some parts of the country. There will also be the danger of votes buying by unscrupulous Nigerians. There will be a demonstration of public apathy by some of the electorates as their yearnings and aspirations have been decimated. As usual, the menace of political thugs will not be a forgone conclusion.

We are already witnessing the highest climax of character defamation amongst most of the opposing sides. I find it extremely difficult to understand the political value of character assassination. It will also be a season of the merchants of religious chauvinism as they have started deploying their weapons of faith destructions that the presidential election will be a referendum between Muslims and Christians to establish numerical power and so on and so forth.

2023 polls can be defined in terms of what Nigeria deserves and what certain aspiring politicians do not deserve in connection with power and its misuse. This paradoxical hypothesis best suits the general atmosphere of the elections vis-a-vis the rapid drifting of the country to an unknown destination. If Nigeria’s tomorrow is worth preserving and revering, then the next election will be a political bulldozer to wreak enormous havocs on the enemies of progress. If on the other hand, the country is surrendered to the politically unfitted rulers, there will definitely be a more complicated illness and Nigeria’s chance of survival cannot be guaranteed.

By historical revisitation to generate great lessons therefore, next elections will be a trial of political errors of the past to eschew the mistakes of tomorrow on the part of the voters. It is often said that machines never make mistakes, but they make errors. This is succinctly modelled in the sense that voters should not be liable to committing mistakes that they will regret forever in the next polls and they will be persecuted if they allow the ghost of yesterday’s errors to reincarnate, horrify and rob their constructive voting idiosyncracy in the next elections.

Nothwitstanding the encroaching agencies of hopes and fears on our political space, 2023 election stands as the rebirth of Nigeria through the effective utilisation of votes by Nigerians.