By Igo Chinda
2023 is appearing to be a very decisive year in the history of Nigeria. President Buhari would complete his second tenure as President and then there’ll be a change of baton to a newly elected President.
But is this why the year is looking to be decisive in the history of Nigeria? Certainly not. Never before, since the inception of our nation, have we been faced with so much challenges through all the regions so to speak. Even the challenge of the civil war can be easily argued not to be anywhere close to what the country is experiencing now as the war and its challenges were localized and did not spread all through the country. The South East and South South Regions of the nation suffered the debilitating effects of the war. Now, the entire nation is facing the crippling challenges of economic crunch, security insurrections across the nation, and heavily dipping distrust of the citizenry across government institutions and towards national leadership, and towards one another. We have almost become a nation at war with itself on all fronts and one with its people existing on a battle of survival of the fittest.
Top of this challenge is the heavily eroded ethno -religious TRUST for one another, which stems from the distrust towards government and its institutions, and our leaders. As a result, we have lost our place of pride in the committee of nations. This has brought us At The Brink of our continued co-existence as a nation. With this therefore, our nation needs serious social and political re-engineering and appeasement to get back our place of pride in the comity of nations.
Therefore, who mounts the saddle of Leadership come 2023, will determine, to a great extent, what becomes of Nigeria post 2023 as we appear to have strapped ourselves to the guillotine.
What needs to be done.
Nigerians must realize and tell ourselves the truth about the state of affairs of our nation and pick someone willing and capable to provide solution to our challenges. The stakes are high and we are all stakeholders in the success of failure of Nigeria as a nation.
Who Can.
With President Buhari, a northerner, completing his second term, there’s strong agitation that power should shift to the South. This rotation is an unwritten understanding that appears to have come to stay as it was one of the major agitations that led to the defeat of President Jonathan in 2015. This therefore, is a strong joker on the table.
With this at the fore but without prejudice to it, we need to rise above ethic and religious conflagration, Nigerians need to pick someone with nothing less than the following qualities:
● Honesty
● Courage and resilience to put in place and follow through policies that will better Nigeria
● Mentally and physically energetic
● Proven track record of responsibilities
Nothing short of the truth, majority of Nigerians yen for a leader to take them off the guillotine strap. But only a few, minute few, who are as the gatekeepers, determine who eventually represents the people in elective capacity (principle of “militocracy”- a situation were one person or a few persons who vies for what position and it so just, as an order given). These gatekeepers therefore, in the interest of the continued survival of our nation, need to tell themselves the truth the most as their actions and or inactions can spell doom for us as a nation. They should present to Nigerians candidates that meet these qualities as the least. We can’t afford not to get off the strap and so must be guided.
Let’s get Nigeria out of the brink of collapse and onto the pedestal of re-engineering and progress.
