2023 Presidential Election: Is your voice for the right choice? A letter to ordinary citizens -By Taofeek Yusuf

As the race for the presidential seat continues among the major contestants and the date of the 2023 general election in Nigeria draws near, I put it on myself to volunteer my thoughts as a victim of bad governance of many years.

Since I was born over forty years ago, I never had a taste of good part of Nigeria although it was still relatively better in the early 80’s. I only heard a feel of its radiance history through oral traditions of my parents, some late professors in my University and other old Nigerians on national television.

Each time the pages of the glories of the ‘old Nigeria’ are flipped unto my face in the news or flashed through my mind in reminiscence, I practically sob. It happened again most recently when I watched one Prof. Tomori, a cotton-wool headed patriotic elder statesman broke down in tears on channels Television while delivering an emotional speech in December 2021 on covic-19 sanctions imposed on Nigerians by Canada and UK. The video is till online for the inquisitive audience. I remember I shared it across the various WhatsApp platforms I belonged. His version of the stories of the true Nigeria of prosperous economy, safe, kind and hospitable society, equal access to quality education and health cares, mutual opportunities devoid of tribal discrimination or prebendalism was not at all different from what I have always heard from those who were born into those fortunate generations.

Today, like many others of my generation, I am a Nigerian in diaspora in search of what a bad governance of my country could not provide but is found elsewhere in a lesser blessed nation with a working system.

Greeds and abysmal performance of leadership have produced angry, bitter, toxic, wicked and dangerous populace. From landlord to tenants, from commuters to passengers and from buyers to sellers, Nigerians appear to have lost their sense of mutual national identity and in fact, humanity.

Offline or online, it is a crossfire of aggressions, abuses and lack of respects. I have never seen such a level of loss of decorum and civic conducts among people of the same nationality. Just before the End SARS protest in 2021, some Nigerians youths abroad were mobilizing resources to support the mob action using the social media chat platform in another country, the few patriotic voices cautioning against such acts were called names and assaulted until a few of them had to exit the platform.

The question to ask is whether the outcome of such event has added salts or sugar to the history of the Nigerian state thereafter. Aggregated actions are more effective than aggressions. Of such actions is participating and voting correctly (PVC) in an election to peacefully, legally and orderly change the leadership. Such civic ‘protests’ harm, hurt and humble the aggressors and give victory to the aggrieved without bullets, bloods or tears.

In the Merchant of Venice, one of the five (5) literature texts I studied religiously to pass my GNS 201: Literature in English at the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, a Nigerian to his fellow Nigerian brother is like a case of  Shylock to Antonio. The former will not show no mercy and is ready to take a pound of a flesh for the unpaid loan for which the latter is not a direct beneficiary out of vengeance and frustration. The coming election is literally a search for a Portia, a ‘well-meaning’ arbitrator of ‘questionable’ character who would restore hopes by stopping the wicked with conviction and protect the helpless through a wise and fair intervention.

Indeed! Only a few, if any, of the candidates aspiring to take topmost excutive seat of our nation can pass the integrity test in deep examination and analysis. As always, it is a choice among altervatives without options. Nigerians only need to identify the most well-meaning or the most repentant of all.

This is a blessed nation without any problem. The only problem Nigeria has is the system that makes the emergency of good leadership difficult and renders an accidental good leader non-performing.

While approaching that process again and I would not be privileged to participate, I wish to contribute by counselling my countrymen to choose rightly for the sake and on behalf of all of us and our children. If you are in Nigeria while reading this and you have got your permanent voters card(PVC), kindly be my audience.

Before then, I have the following five assumptions to make: 1. You love our country. 2. You belong to a class of the suffering masses who are tired of bad governance in leadership. 3. You are an ordinary citizen, not a politician or member of any political party 4. You want the best leaders for our country at the local, state and federal levels. 5. As humans, you may have tribal or religious sentiments but the serials 1-4 are more important to you.

If these are not true with you, I am afraid this counsel may not be for you. You may not need to read further and just simply press the exit button here. The politicians and member of political parties already have their candidates. They do not need to be patriotic about their choices. The choice does not need to be right or correct. Only their interests matter.

They are Nigerians but do not share our feelings as ordinary men and women outside their class. We share the same tongues but their languages are different. They are not opponents of ideologies. They are only opponent against their ambitions, desires and interests. While we masses fight for survivals of our nation, they do to gain political power, relevance, appointments and contracts for themselves and cronies.

All the major political parties are one and the same. They are like eggs, larva and pupae of a butterfly. They only change name at the stage of their metamorphosis. Do not be swindled off introspection by their narratives.

I weep when I see the acrobatic dives and chameleonic conversion of all men who act as the spokesmen for the leading candidates. At some recent points in time, each one of them was a campaigner for the candidate they are opposing and de-marketing today! They were vehement in their support and defense for these candidates as the best choices for the prospects of our dear Nigeria then. How can someone who is extremely good suddenly become extremely bad in one breathe for the same job?!

Where is patriotism? Where is the love for the country? Where is the sincerity? To expect these from a Nigerian politician is like expecting the cattle to enter through a needle’s hole. Nigerians are the enemies of Nigeria. I begin to see that being a Nigerian politician is an allegory to choosing to be a candidate of Hell.

Be that as it may, my impression is that votes would count and the choice of common citizens would be fairly reflected in the 2023 elections. This is so going by the events of the recent past in gubernatorial election in states like Edo and Osun won by opposition. The introduction of BVAS and electronic transmission of results have proven to be game changers. It is like power to choose leadership is being transferred to people. As the confidence in the electoral process is being restored, the surge in the enrollment of the voters to participate in the coming elections is understandable. Thanks to the government under President Muhammad Buhari.

Dear compatriots, I wish to awaken our conscience to vote along the sense of 3C’sA: competence, capacity, character and ability. Competence is the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully. Character is the mental and moral qualities distinctive to a person. Capacity is the potential or qualification to do a task with no guarantee that the person will be able to do so successfully. Ability is the potential to do something with high chance the person will do so successfully.

Although as humans, sentiments for the candidates based on religious or regional divides would always remain a natural instinct in us. However, these sentiments should not be more important than the 3C’sA metrics if truly our intelligence and emotional quotients are optimal. The crises of Nigerian state are beyond these primordial priorities. Neither the insensitive leaders nor the victims of their misrule, the frustrated masses exclusively belong to one region or religion. Evidence is yet to show that people who share these identities with the president are entirely immune against the degree of poverty, hardship and death (PhD) that had defaced our national image over the years.

Using these 3C’sA criteria, my preference of all the candidates is Tinubu. The emotional intelligence to assemble the right team and identify the right people for the right task is the major distinction of a leader. A leader does not succeed or fail just on account of his own strength, age, health or wealth. His success depends on the quality of persons in his team. Only Tinubu is a known team builder who has a known team. Going beyond these metrics, I have used the personality of the current president as the bench mark. As a former head of state, Baba Buhari has the competence. As an intelligent man of high integrity with no blemish of corruption, he has the character. As a retired general in the caucus of elder statesmen, and a former governor and minister who also has an advantage of age and experience in his favour, he has the capacity.

With all these, one expects that he should seamlessly delivers on the three mantra of his campaign: the security, economy and corruption. Although he tries his best (which is left for the posterity to judge), eighth years down the lane, the job seems not to be satisfactory enough. The expectations of the majority were not met. A ex-military war general again commanded the armed forces to lead the fight against insecurities for almost eight years and the war ended half won, half wounded! Let me at this point salute the courage of our Nigerian security forces for their sacrifices to defeat the armed enemies. I pray the faceless civilian saboteurs and collaborators would also be defeated.

One thing I see missing in the metrics is the ability as defined above. I make an analogy with four people who got enrolled for PhD under the same advisor at one time. They all had qualifications, capacity and competence evidenced by their previous experience in the University, research publications and masters theses. However, two years into the program, all of them doubted their ability on the position. One left without completing while the rest attempted to quit at one time or the other but they managed to complete their degree in different circumstances. One cried profusely. Another groaned and grumbled silently while the third would always complain and lament about his situations to others. All deserved pity but they all applied based on their obvious capacity. The ability in the job distinguished them.

When the challenges are overwhelming and the circumstances demand extraordinary energy and strength, men of capacity are no longer equals. This in my impression is the case of Nigerian presidency. The weak joints in Baba Buhari’s government is in his lacking of the requisite political experience of a typical politician under civilian rule. President Buhari may appear to have a good intention, the manipulations and abracadabra of politics in the system is beyond mediocre or baby politicians.

There are Nigerian ‘landlords’ who someone called the establishments. They are like propellers that drive Nigeria in the direction they want and can reduce the president to a mere arm-chair title holder incapable to exercise his executive power absolutely.

Buhari’s experience has shown that Nigerians need to look for an astute political giant at the topmost level if there would be any survival for our dear country in the ongoing contest of the titans.

There are highly sophisticated, deeply experienced and desperate politicians in the Nigerian space. So far, we have seen how they dealt with two ex-heads of state and two ex-governors who had been on the president’s seat since the return to democracy in 1999.

I think it is time to try someone like Tinubu that adds the legislative experience of a senator with the knowledge of the executive power as an ex- governor.

This is the highest profile of most of the ‘wizards’ in the national assemblies. Only the president is higher than this status politically. We can remember a two-term ex-governor who as a senate president referred to the incumbent vice president as an ordinary ex-commissioner!

Coincidentally, Tinubu’s deputy is also in this towering political class. A better and stronger combination had never occupied the executive seats at Aso Villa to engage with the Red or Green Chambers of the parliaments of the Federal Republic in governance transactions.

The Buhari experience has shown that good intentions, character and competence are not enough. Political experience is the utmost ability which can make all these credentials functional and effective. This is the difference that Tinubu as an old professional politician would bring to the table.

Lagos is a microcosm of Nigeria. Unlike any other, it is a cosmopolitan city with huge diversity along ethnic and religious lines. It is not like any other state which are predominantly monoethnic, and mono-religious in their setting. The experience of an ex-governor of such a small state is not a fair yardstick to measure the ability to preside over a conglomerate of nations of huge diversity called Nigeria.

As a former senator, an ex-governor, a political strategist, a godfather, kingmaker and a veteran from Lagos who had fought many political battles in the oppositions and won, Tinubu is beyond manipulations of the Machiavellian schemes of the politics in the governance at the highest level if there is a will to change the statues quo. Without being a beneficiary of Tinubu’s political influence in any way, I urge you to understand the fear of these ‘eat all-grow none’ politicians when they say a man who had served under democracy and had built several leaders for the same democracy would be an emperor under the democratic system! While not saying he is a saint or 100% sincere and patriotic in all his political mathematics (because no politician is),he has an overall edge above others in the cumulative assessment of the requisite credentials. Your choice may be different from mine though but I pray, at the end, God choose the best for Nigeria.

I have read the manifestos of the major candidates. If election is won and over, how much I wish the winning candidate can dialogue with their party and supporters to agree to reserve the 20 percentage of the slots in the nation building to all the presidential candidates of other parties. This would go in long way in fostering national unity, showing patriotism and reflecting a genuine commitment to serve and save Nigeria from the palpable tensions, anxieties and doldrums.

If I have to suggest the most important things to fix first by the incoming government before implementing its manifesto, I will suggest four. One, the unified national Identity to be enforced for all official dealings, registrations and transactions. Two, house numbering and street addressing integrated to the central system that makes every location easily traceable by individuals or government officials across the nation. Three, a stable electricity and four, effective phone number registration accompanied with strict policies on the use of mobile phones. Then, the government can begin to address the major problems of education, economy, corruption and insecurity. Developed nations had leveraged on these four basic issues to resolve critical national crises. Mutual handshake between the local, state and federal governments is crucial to this objective. The entrenched culture of political victimization, denials and frictions among these tiers of government due to silent wars of differences in political parties or ideologies should be discontinued in the overall interest of our nation building and national development.

God bless Nigeria.

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