A Letter; There Is A Life After Election! -By Abubakar Muhammad Usman

As a Nigerian like you, I wrote this to all of us. Together as one we need to be, to bring about our long awaited dreams to be accomplished. A country like Nigeria, where citizens forget their right to vote and to be voted for and cast their votes for the sake of some pennies, and later, come to suffer for years their cries unheard!

As we know, any candidate before us, will make thousands of promises that we have been hearing from the politicians before today’s once, but why can’t we remember how we have to suffer if we did not elect the capacitive leader?
What we need to look for from the candidate, no matter how politely he addresses us, is that, his characters. Because, whoever stands before us as a candidate who seeks for our votes is a polite one. Have you experienced that?
Let us not be deceived by words, because words are normally for dramatists, despite some leaders fulfill promises, but few.

Lastly, we, Nigerian, need unity before realising our dreams – dreams we have been spending nights with, dreams we have been singing and waiting for their realisation. We have to look for the right candidate ourselves, not be directed by someone to vote for somebody for some pennies and be forgotten after election!

I pray to see the Nigeria of my dreams in our Nigeria; where leaders are for anyone, erasing the spell of words “godfatherism”, “who you know?” and “who knows you” in any field of work and studies.

Abubakar Muhammad Usman is a poet, essayist, and a story-writer from Funakaye, Gombe State Of Nigeria. His write-ups have been published in Daily Trust, Opinion Nigeria, Nigerian Tribune, Applied Worldwide Nigeria, and elsewhere.