We Can Start Remaking Nigeria In 2023 by Austin Isikhuemen

As Nigeria approaches the 2023 general elections, there is a growing need for the country to start remaking itself. With various challenges, including insecurity, corruption, poverty, and poor infrastructure, Nigeria needs leaders who can drive positive change and promote sustainable development. The upcoming elections provide an opportunity for Nigerians to choose such leaders and set the country on a path towards progress.

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Why We should Start Remaking Nigeria In 2023

There are several reasons why Nigeria should start remaking itself in 2023. Firstly, Nigeria is facing several challenges, including insecurity, corruption, unemployment, poverty, and poor infrastructure, among others. These challenges have been lingering for a long time and have adversely affected the nation’s progress.

Secondly, 2023 presents an opportunity for Nigeria to elect new leaders who are committed to driving positive change and development in the country. The upcoming general elections provide Nigerians with the chance to choose leaders who have a clear vision for the nation and the capacity to execute policies that will promote sustainable development.

Thirdly, the current global trend is geared towards technological advancement, innovation, and creativity. Nigeria needs to align itself with this trend by investing heavily in technology, education, and innovation. This will help the country to tap into the opportunities that come with technological advancement and promote sustainable development.

Fourthly, the youth population in Nigeria is growing at an alarming rate, and this presents a great opportunity for the nation’s progress. Nigeria needs to harness the potential of its youth population by providing them with quality education, job opportunities, and empowering them to become drivers of economic growth.

Finally, Nigeria’s diversity is one of its greatest strengths. However, it has also been a source of conflict and division in the country. Therefore, Nigeria needs to promote unity and peaceful coexistence among its diverse ethnic and religious groups.

In conclusion, Nigeria needs to start remaking itself in 2023 to address the numerous challenges it is facing, take advantage of opportunities for development, and build a prosperous and peaceful nation that works for all its citizens.

• “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 a 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 by 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 actually 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 counterclaims, 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 a 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 to represent our country, with our mandate freely given, fit and proper persons that are neither integrity-challenged nor renowned for the 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!

Lagos, 25th October 2022 Lagos. 24th September 2022 – Austin Isikhuemen 

Download the first chapter of The Storytelling Series: Beginners’ Guide for Small Businesses & Content Creators by Obehi Ewanfoh.