We Can Start Remaking Nigeria In 2023
Too many people are suffering
Too many people are sad
Too little people got everything
While too many people got nothing
Remake the world
With love and happiness
Remake the world
Put your conscience in the test
Remake the world
North, south, east and west
Remake the world
Gotta prove that are the best, yeah
The above was written about current day Nigeria by Jimmy Cliff. True? Not at all. But, do the lyrics fit today’s Nigeria? Absolutely! To clear your doubts or remove the blinkers caused by partisan considerations, take a deeper look at the chorus of the dirge with sprinkling of hope:
Too many people are suffering
Too many people are sad
Too little people got everything
While too many people got nothing
Does that not sound like today’s Nigeria? With too little having everything (oil blocks, illegal pipelines, private jets, high-rise apartment blocks, police platoon guards), while too many people have nothing? Only three groups of people can disagree with this diagnosis.
They are those benefitting from this quagmire, those that have been so dealt with by the system that they hardly know where they are anymore, and, lastly, those who know, feel it, but are afraid to say so because big brother and his informants and enforcers are watching.
One of the major political party’s responses to this dire situation is to tell Nigerians that their situation is not bad at all. That it is rosy, but they cannot recognize the near utopia they live in only because they are being misled by those they call “anarchists” because they dare to assert that things cannot continue this way.
They in fact claim, erroneously and with ‘buga’ impudence that their current situation is worth continuing as it leads to Eldorado. They are the ones that claim that there are PhD relics and that further education is unnecessary for those already capable of turning a rotten situation to a bad one!
How can we claim that there is poverty in the country when ordinary forms are bought for a miserly N100 million naira even by those that know full well they are going nowhere? Didn’t one party share millions of naira as ‘housing allowance’ to their big men who are landlords in Abuja and elsewhere? Their dollar war-chest gives them a false sense of invincibility.
There is also the other big party that claims it is unassailable.
With Dubai connections that some people misspell as Dubious, they could have taken this crown if their party did not become the infamous tower of Babel and if their valued jewel did not exit to a saner clime.
Then, the roforofo fights accompanied with claims and counter claims, many of them unsavory, with corruption and injustice undertones. With their accused potentate sitting put and his adversaries sticking to their guns, one can only wish them a rougher road ahead as they paper over cracks hoping cockroaches will not crawl out as they host their in-laws.
Some folks are already asking how, in view of the unmanageable messy situation, they can assure Nigerians that the dire straits they are would not get worse under their leadership. The answers attempted by their “smokesmen”, sometimes called spokesmen, are not satisfactory.
So, do we give up? Should Nigerians accept this fate that bodes ill for the present and future generations? If we agree that we cannot continue like this, in the old ways of politics of cluelessness and corruption, of treating education as unimportant and crude oil theft as national pastime for the big boys, of insecurity as an incurable burden we must endure, of impassable roads that bely claims of infrastructure sector as a success story, then we need a Presidency that represents a real change from the status quo. Let us see how Jimmy Cliff puts it:
Remake the world
Come on human dignity
Remake the world
Wipe strife and poverty
Remake the world
Get racism (ethnicity) from your sight
Remake the world
Be you black (South), be you white (North), yeah
Are we ready to walk this talk?
To make the dream of a secure and prosperous Nigeria, respected again across the world, a reality? To stop our Naira from being used as tissue paper, free-falling in value like a rolling stone. To make revenues from exported crude oil go solely to our official government coffers and for government to work for citizens again.
To stop the brazen stealing and connivance between those who should watch over our wealth and global corporations that pretend to operate with a strict code of ethical conduct but provides a platform where the rouge pipeline terminates. To have representing our country, with our mandate freely given, fit and proper persons that are neither integrity-challenged nor renowned for greed of global proportions.
I speak of Peter Obi and Datti Baba-Ahmed. The dazzling duo. They represent the future that starts next year. A future of a Nigeria that is not just tolerated but respected again in the global arena. Men that will not be sniggered at immediately they are called to mount the podium. That understand the language of commerce, education, modern trends in innovation, global warming, political economy and how to use econometrics to drive decision making for better results. A team that will not use our patrimony for patronage to assuage the insatiable appetite of rent seekers that have made Nigeria a country of the stupendously rich few and abjectly poor majority.
The Labour Party represents that vehicle, the train, bringing real change in its wake. Driven by Peter Obi assisted by Datti Baba-Ahmed, it has a surer chance of arriving at our desired destination without hiccups on the way. They will not be relying on diplomatic immunity guaranteed by the office they hold to travel to ANYWHERE.
We will be proud again to hear them speak and watch them walk. Labour Party’s Papa, Mama and Pikin is all encompassing, with inbuilt inclusivity and diversity. You couldn’t possibly be using a broom to sweep that well-laid rug or hide under an umbrella tattered as it is, torn and battered by cudgels wielded by angry men from Wike-dom.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, 42, on receiving President Peter Obi 61 or VP Datti Baba-Ahmed 53, would treat them with the respect accorded a pleasant young dashing daddy. Hi, Mr. President? How ya doing?
It would be a bit awkward receiving a grandpa at No. 10 Downing Street, with its slightly steep entrance steps, not knowing whether to shake hands or genuflect!
25th October 2022.
