I am not a candidate of rotation or zoning, I am a candidate of justice, maybe the South-East or the South has not been able to present their matter very well before the rest of Nigeria. I am sure that if you say to a Muslim, a northerner and say to him remember, my friend, that the principal cardinal point upon which Islam is built is justice. Prophet Muhammed acknowledges the fact that in the Koran, Chapter 16 verse 90 says, verily God commands justice and fairness.
It is for the reason that I think Nigerians may not know that at this crucial point when zones have ascended the presidency of Nigeria and when it feels like it is the turn of the South-East, a northerner or a brother from the South-West will come out. It is simply saying to the Igbo who are you? We must never do that so that children yet unborn may not feel they are not part of this country. It is for the sake of justice that I speak of the need to give the Igbo a sense of belonging. t I appeal to my party the APC to allow a level playing ground. The Igbo must understand that power is not given; it is taken. You must go out and reach out to people as you speak and negotiate power because no one will give you power. But let justice reign. When all this is done, ladies and gentlemen, as I declare to run for the office of the president of the federal republic of Nigeria come 2023.
-Sheikh Owelle Anayo Rochas Okorocha
And the crowd cheered on…
Last month while writing on ‘Nigeria 2023: Candidates wey no sabi’ I had promised that for the next 12 months, I would once a month X-ray the issues around the forthcoming general election in the world’s largest black country and democracy. I am not a politician that feels that all is figured out…and I am not one of the owners of Nigeria that determines who gets what at their disposal. But this is number two and there are 10 more articles to go.
While I ask the reader to meditate on the words of ‘Sheikh Owelle Anayo Rochas Okorocha,’ let me tell you a story. When I was a kid, I remember my maternal grandfather would tell us to get a lamb for slaughter. Often it meant that an occasion was going to be celebrated. The lambs were on our farm. The farm itself was on a steep hill and as we tried to pick one, all of them would run helter-skelter. On some occasions, some of the lambs ran to their deaths. Grandpa would say to us, “If you must run, never run like a lamb. Run like a wolf.” He meant that we should have a direction and not run like a lamb!
These men who want to be president of Nigeria, do they realise that the nation has ticked most of the boxes of a failing state? Are they aware that currently non-state actors in many ungoverned spaces are almost as powerful or more powerful? Do they understand that Nigeria as a state is nowhere near justice or fairness and that everyone feels undone?
Do we have candidates that know the direction towards cohesion? Are they all about running like lambs? Are those that want to be president men of character or simply actors cheered on by hallelujah boys, while they quote copiously from religious texts? Why are they so desperate to govern or administer a nation at a low ebb?
Do we have any candidate that is bent on changing the narrative without playing the ethnic or religious card? Is it not scary that about 92 per cent of the 2022 budget will go into debt servicing and IMF projects, with no solutions in sight? Men who do not know to move the country forward are all talking about justice and fairness.
Is there any of the candidates that possess a workable blueprint on the cancerous hand of ‘villagepeople’ on our education, especially the ASUU brouhaha. Men that are hardly better than the average commercial sex worker move from one party to the other. Are they looking at the cost of leadership? Or is it just about that insatiable greed for power and wealth, without any semblance of justice and fairness geared towards addressing the gaps in our systems and structures?
When the sheikhs and pastors among them speak without direction, I wonder how they feel seeing a nation so touted to be the heaven of all manner of potentials suffer in the hands of a select few who refer to themselves as politicians and leaders.
I am not an unrepentant pessimist or see no-good critic. Politics is dirty, but then there is principle and integrity. In Nigeria we have suitcase carrying politicians who have neither plan nor focus except a strong objective to loot. They sing all manners of spiritual songs, preach all kinds of homilies as 2023 beckons, but like a man who was born in Lagos, grew up in Lagos, works in Lagos and is elected into office, the next thing he does is to embark on a familiarisation tour of his own backyard.
Nigeria is a country where the players in the power game are magical people because the more you look, the less you see. They serve you deceit as an appetiser, lies as the main course and magic as dessert. Now they are quoting the Koran, talking justice and fairness and acting their scripts while Nigeria burns with no direction. How long will this continue? Only time will tell.
*** By Prince Charles Dickson
About the Author
