Why I Joined The Movement -By Abubakar Suleiman

I am back.

Where I went and why I have been so quiet is a topic for another day, one that I fully intend to report on. Suffice to say I have been reflecting a lot on the dramatic turn of events in global politics, from Brexit to Trump, Canada to Gambia. It’s fair to say the world is now a more dangerous place than it was a year ago, especially if you are a woman, a Muslim, an African, a black person or you are from the poorer part of the world.

If we thought we needed some urgency in the race to save country, we understated it. We need to do far more, much quicker and more accurately. In truth, we may very well have our last chance to avoid a violent uprising and prevent meaningless descent to the abyss. And this is also true for all of Africa, for most of the Middle East and for South America. The poor are no longer welcome, certainly not in England and America. Well, to be honest, not everyone in those places dislike imigrants – I believe the majority are still very decent people who have sacrificed for those who need help irrespective of their color, their creed or their country.

But today, I am not going to talk about the rest of the world. Today, it’s all about Nigeria and the urgency to do something, to do more, to do it differently and to do so now. Like many, I was actively involved in campaigning and the voting out of the last administration. I did so because it was corrupt, inept and incapable of solving the many problems that plagued NIGERIA. Besides the plunder, the PDP, by failing or neglecting to end the insurgency in the North East, took us down a very dangerous path, one that could have resulted in a full scale civil war. I will do it again if faced with the candidates we were presented with. I am not one of those with regrets, not one of those who think the recession we are facing is a result of the ineptitude of the current administration. Let’s be clear, I do hold them accountable for all their failures and many of these have long term consequences for us as a society.

I wouldn’t be saying anything new if I dedicated this post to the myriads of poor decisions by our leaders, both past and present. Others, more eloquent than myself, have done justice to that. I am here today to acknowledge the limitations of all the tools we have deployed in our honest attempt to uproot the vested interests who run this country, to accept that our unrelenting effort to unseat the corrupt and incompetent leadership of Nigeria has not been very successful.

In a democratic society, our options are limited to paying our taxes, campaigning for candidates of our choice and voting at the general elections. Well, at least that’s how many of us defined our civic duties. I had personally hoped that by demonstrating the power of the people to unseat a president, we would have started on a journey of empowering the people and compelling our leaders to pay attention. It’s too early to determine if we have succeeded, too soon to conclude that we have failed.

Like everyone else, I watched the American election, mystified, horrified. I watched a billionaire-reality-TV clown become the most powerful man in the world. Epic is an understatement. And now I watch the delicate global balance that was crafted over many decades by some of the most gifted leaders of the world slowly disappear, to be replaced by an uncertain future in which the only certainty is that we, Nigerians, Africans, will be worse off.

And the alarm went off. When you mobilize your army on social media to ‘influence’ the election in favor of the preferred candidate, it’s already too late, it’s already won and lost. No matter who wins the election, vested interest wins. If you are lucky to be governed by a forward thinking elite with empathy, well, it shouldn’t matter so much. If you have vampires for leaders, it makes all the difference.

You can’t change the country by voting in a general election, you can only do that by altering the line up of candidates at the general election. Those who make these calls are the ones with true power. Donald Trump would not be president today if those who wanted him deemed it beneath them to join the Republican Party and make him their candidate. You will never get the kind of leaders you desire if you wait till 2019 to flip a coin between two thorough flawed candidates, likely old, probably sponsored by money bags, and most certainly not the best we have to offer. That’s what your vote buys – the right to decide which of ‘them’ will be president, not ‘who’ will be president. Of the tens of millions of potential candidates, you are limited to two, maybe three. That is not choice, that is not freedom.

Well, that will never change a country, certainly not this country. So we have a president and a vice, generally perceived as decent but the institution that put them there know no other way. Graft and Nepotism are their standard tools and they have no intention whatsoever of dealing with the big issues, no capacity for it.

These are the puppet masters we must confront, these are the real enemies we must defeat. And you don’t defeat them at the general election unless you take them out before the election. To replace the ruling elite, you must confront them at the point of selecting the men and women who will stand for the highest offices, you must stoop to the level of partisan politics and make sure that when Nigerians step out to vote, they will have far better options than Hillary and Trump, than GEJ and GMB. If we don’t do this, we might as well give up on rescuing this country from those who have mismanaged it since inception, we might as well brace ourselves for a hard fall.

And so I am calling on each and everyone to take time and reflect on politics, to ask if it’s too much for us to come together and create a platform that will ensure we never have to choose between two uninspiring candidates that are paid for by the same people who got us here.

I ask you to reflect on the work that was started by a few inspiring young Nigerians. Audacious and bristling with the energy of youth, a movement to challenge, not just the dominant parties, but the entire concept of partisan politics is well on the way. You don’t have to take my word for it, go to http://www.anrp.org.ng/#sthash.AV9Sa4J2.dpbs. Make sore you read the manifesto, the constitution and the FAQ and then make up your mind.

Those who think picking up a party membership card is beneath them may be forced to pick up asylum forms if things don’t get better. After what just happened in America, I doubt that it is a good idea to count on others for your safety, for a home.

And who is to say the rest of the world isn’t headed that way.

Abubakar Suleiman – January 2017