Friends, Nigerians and countrymen, spare me your time. At last, the moment has come for us to determine whether or not things should continue as they are. Which direction our nation should go lies in our hands as we go to the polls on Saturday. The electorate, as in any election, have a crucial role to play in Saturday’s presidential poll. In our hands is the fate of the contestants and our dear country. If we vote right, we will be paving the way for a better and brighter future. But if we vote for the wrong candidate, our action will haunt us forever.
Besides, generations unborn will not forgive us for mortgaging their future. How we vote and who we vote for will go a long way in shaping and building the Nigeria of our dream. At this critical stage of the nation’s life, we need a leader that can take us to the promised land – a land flowing with oil that will be beneficial to all and not only a few because they are in power. We are a blessed nation; we are blessed in resources – there is hardly any part of the country where natural mineral cannot be found and in abundance too.
All we need do is to tap these resources and make life worth living for the people. With the right leader, this can be done. That right leader is the one we should go for on Saturday. There are many contestants in the race, but President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and his arch-opponent, Gen Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) stand shoulder above the others whose names voters cannot even readily recall. On Saturday, there will be no fewer than 14 names on the ballot, but the votes will be going to only Jonathan and Buhari.
What we are experiencing in the countdown to the election has never happened before in the history of elections in the country. It is as if we have never had an election in Nigeria until now. The tension is so high that you can cut it with a knife. What about the hate campaign? Oh! that is another kettle of fish. This is why the world is worried about the election. Global leaders are afraid that there may be trouble because of the way our politicians are going about their campaigns. The ruling PDP, its candidates and their supporters are the most guilty of this. Taking a cue from the party, its supporters have gone wild across the country, unleashing terror on the people.
Under the guise of rallies, they shut down towns and cities, hindering movement. In some instances, they vandalised vehicles, destroyed the campaign posters of opposing candidates, with the police looking the other way. In some states, the president was stoned, perhaps by those who feel that they have had a raw deal under him. No matter how bad such people may feel, that was a wrong approach. They do not need pebbles to make their grievances known. Their voter’s card is their stone and they should use it wisely on Saturday. They can throw all the stones they want with their vote that day. This symbolic stone throwing will have more meaning than pelting the president’s convoy with pebbles on the road.
Pelting the president’s convoy with stones will not yield anything, but with our votes we can throw him out of office and bring him the person that will make our country the pride of Africa. We are called giant of Africa, but deep down us we know that to be a misnomer. How can we be giant of Africa when we cannot cater for the citizenry? How can we be giant of Africa when millions of graduates are roaming the streets for job? How can we be Africa’s giant when we cannot generate enough electricity for industrial and domestic use? How can we be Africa’s giant when the value of our naira keeps depreciating? The naira, at the official market, currently exchanges for N199 to the dollar; at the black market, it is around N230 to the dollar. Giant of Africa indeed! How can we be giant of Africa when the real sector is virtually dead? Because of the epileptic power supply, many firms are either not operating under full capacity or have relocated to countries where the environment is more conducive.
Nigeria has never had it so bad. Jonathan has a lot of baggage going into this election, but his supporters do not think so. To them, Jonathan has done well and so, he should be given a second term. I do not know their yardstick for measuring Jonathan’s performance, but if it is the same as that of other Nigerians, surely the president cannot be said to have done well at all. Those against his return believe that he has done nothing to better the people’s lot. The only thing he has done, some believe, is the rebasing of the gross domestic product (GDP) to accommodate sectors hitherto not captured. This is what his loyalists are touting as his achievement. What is an achievement in the rebasing of the GDP? It is nothing to crow about because it does not translate to more jobs or better life for the people.
That the rebasing made Nigeria’s economy the largest in Africa does not in anyway deviate from the fact that it is all an economic jargon to bamboozle the people that Jonathan is working. If indeed Jonathan is working, it would have shown in the number of the unemployed taken off the streets. If indeed he is working, it would have shown in regular power supply. If indeed the president is working, it would have shown in the resuscitation of the real sector. The last six years of Jonathan have been nothing but suffering for Nigerians. So, this election is about who can deliver the goods between Jonathan and Buhari. This is why the election must be peaceful for us to make the right choice.
If we get the right leader, it will be to our own good, but if we make the wrong choice, it will be to our eternal regret. Buhari has done it before – as a military leader he restored order and sanity in the land. He was a no-nonsense leader, who acted the way the times then demanded. In the mess we now find ourselves, we need such a person to nudge us on to the path of greatness. Nigeria has a lot of potential. We are a nation of can-do people, but we lack the national leadership that will make us blossom. If honest Nigerians cannot make it under six years of Jonathan, while marketers are robbing us through fuel subsidy, what hope is there that if he gets a second term things would be better? Things can only get worse under him. What we need is a leader to propel us to greatness, not one that will promote divisiveness as Jonathan has been doing.
As former President Olusegun Obasanjo said at a lecture to mark his 78th birthday in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, last March 5, ‘’there is nothing they have told us that is impossible but all they have said boils down to one thing and one thing only – leadership. And until we get it right, anytime we do not get it right, we cannot get any other thing right; don’t let us deceive ourselves, whether it is security, science and technology or innovation or the development of the economy or education they all boil down to leadership and at all levels. May God give us the leadership that occasions like this deserve in Nigeria…’’ Come Saturday, we will have an opportunity to pick such a leader. So, let us vote right; let us vote wise because no amount of stoning will later correct a wrong choice.
NATION
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