By Sonnie Ekwowusi
It is no longer news that Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s running mate in the 2023 Presidential Election, Kashim Shettima, has recently said that Nigeria needs a new President who would continue from where President Muhammadu Buhari stopped, First, let it be stated that the unintelligible and scattered-brained utterances and remarks of Mr. Shettima since he became the running mate of Tinubu not only portray him as unfit to be the next Vice-President of Nigeria but also buttresses what the public already know about the APC: that the party has woefully failed Nigeria in the last seven years and therefore should be voted out of power in 2023. Out of the abundance of the heart, we have been told, the mouth speaks. Anytime Tinubu and his running mate Shettima open their mouths in public to speak, we are more and more convinced that the duo do not possess the lowest common acceptable character to be entrusted with the affairs of their fellow men in 2023. Regardless of the iniquitous baggage trailing the candidacy of Tinubu and Shettima, mere listening to the duo evokes a sense of repugnance, alienation and rejection otherwise how can Shettima be saying that we need a President who would continue from where President Buhari stopped. Where did Buhari stop, if I may ask Mr. Shettima?. In festering corruption?. Or, in insecurity?. Or, in wooden-headed?. Or, in cluelessness?. Or, in imposing a corrupt and incompetent ex-Chief Justice of Nigeria on the country?
The most significant achievement of the Buhari government in the last seven years is to drag Nigeria into the membership of failed States. This is not surprising. A country reapeth what it soweth. In the last seven years President Buhari has been sowing nepotism (Fulanization), Islamization of Nigeria, banditry, political failure, economic failure, incestuous narcissism and wooden-headedness. Small wonder we are harvesting chaos, anarchy and helplessness today. Imagine the most populous and most richly endowed African country joining insignificant countries such as Somalia, Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, South Sudan and Myanmar as a full-fledged failed State. The old image of Nigeria as a citadel of cultural and moral renaissance seems blurred. Amid the country’s abundant human and natural resources, there is insecurity, poverty, fear, suspicion, disorderliness, hatred and chaos everywhere. On social media, in the pulpit, lecturer rooms, market places, stadia and other fora, Nigerians soberly ask the following question: What does the future hold for us and our children? Amid the complete collapse of state machinery for protection of lives and property, anarchy has been let loose upon Nigeria. The Hobbesian bellum omnium contra omnes (war of all against all) characterized by barbaric abductions, assassinations, arsons, bloodletting, communal bloody feud, , kidnaps, banditries, gun running and so forth now reigns supreme in different parts of Nigeria including, for the first time, the hitherto peaceful Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. Amid the reign of mayhem in different parts of Nigeria, aggrieved ordinary citizens masquerading as “unknown gunmen” are now laying siege to different corners of the town and murdering their perceived victims. We now live in a country bereft of the rule of law. No law. No Justice. No peace either in men’s hearts because peace grows in the crannies of justice. While President Buhari is cluelessly junketing from one country to another, uncertainty, confusion, fear and apprehension rule our lives in Nigeria today. We now live in a free-for-all country where nobody seems to be in charge of anything or anybody. Imagine terrorists being allowed to blow open the Kudje Prison for their fellow terrorists detained therein to flee. In Nigeria we go to bed and wake up itching to hear the sad news of another abduction or murder. If the abductors are not on prowl trying to abduct their victims, the bandits are lurking in the corner to capture their next victims and kill them.
Is the foregoing the Buhari’s legacies which Shettima wants us to imbibe and continue to execute? The simple logic is that if President Buhari had sown the wind of corruption, nepotism, insecurity, Islamization of Nigeria, incestuous narcissism, stone-headedness and cluelessness, any President-elect who tries to imitate shall reap the whirlwind of corruption, nepotism, insecurity, Islamization of Nigeria, incestuous narcissism, stone-headedness and cluelessness on coming to power?. I still can’t understand why Mr. Shettima wants us to continue where Buhari stopped. In my part of the country, we only imitate successful people: we do not imitate a failure or a never-do-well. So, I can’t understand the point Mr. Shettima is making. Anyway, by the Grace of God, Tinubu and his running mate Shettima would not smell the seat of power in Aso Rock come 2023. In fact, voting out the APC in 2023 is no longer a civic duty or responsibility: it has become a moral duty. Why? Because Nigerians are being suffocated to death by the incompetence of this Buhari government.
At the moment Nigerians are no more living: they are just walking corpses waiting to collapse and die at the appropriate time. No food. No life. No employment. Only walking corpses are encumbering our streets and alley-ways. You can see how Buhari had imposed a corrupt and incompetent ex-Chief Justice of Nigeria on the country probably to destroy the remnant of good in the Nigerian judiciary. When the ex-Chief Chief Justice boggled his Senate screening exercise, I knew for sure that he was a disaster programmed to happen. What hasn’t this Buhari government done to undermine integrity in public life in Nigeria? This is why anybody voting for the APC in the 2023 Presidential election must go and have his or her head properly examined to ascertain whether or not he or she is mentally challenged. This Buhari government could be considered for inclusion in the Guinness Book of Record as the worst government on earth. So, beyond castigating APC’s Muslim-Muslim ticket, the electorate must not vote for the APC in the 2023 Presidential Election. Eleke the bird said that since men have learnt to shoot without missing, it has learnt to fly without perching. By the same analogy, since Tinubu and Shettima are hell-bent on continuing Buhari legacies of corruption, nepotism, insecurity, incestuous narcissism, Islamization of Nigeria, stone-headedness and cluelessness, the electorate should refrain from voting for Tinubu-Shettima in the 2023 Presidential Election.
The Osun State electorate has just made a bold statement by voting out the APC. The Nigerian electorate must follow suit in the 2023 Presidential Election. We have been enslaved for about eight years now. We don’t want another eight years of slavery. Oh! Lord, rescue us from the APC bondage. Oh Lord, let not our cries sink in silence at midnight. This is our land and the land of our ancestors. Protect us in it. Dislodge their plots and concoctions. They lay siege to the country expressways to kill us, we who are innocent, we who have committed no crime. Yet they want us to love Nigeria; they want us to dream of no other country except Nigeria. They want us to sing Nigeria’s National Anthem and recite her Pledge in order to feel proud that we are Nigerians. Yet they make Nigeria unlivable for us. In the last seven years the Fulani bandits, under the watch of the Buhari government, have been trying to dislodge us from the land of our ancestors. Yet this is our land. Poverty, hunger, and terminal illness continue to terminate our lives. Oh Lord, make haste to help us. Oh Lord, answer our prayers.
No man, no woman of good conscience listening to Shettima or reading Shettima can be at ease. Equally, no Street, no Broadway, no Village path in Nigeria can remain silent amid the stillness of death lying everywhere in different parts of Nigeria. With torn and bleeding hearts we may be smiling but we may not know peace until Nigeria is rescued from the iron grips of the evil politicians. Having been betrayed several times in the last seven years the Nigerian voters have no choice to vote out the APC in 2023. It is obvious that the Nigerian people have lost confidence in APC. At the moment Nigeria is being challenged on all fronts-politically, socially, culturally, intellectually and morally. The estrangement from pristine values finds dramatic expression in bullion-vehicle corruption, buying of votes, inordinate ambition to get rich quick at all cost, cheating, nepotism and fragrant violation of human rights and dignity.
In the last seven years we have been building a country with materially-rich political office occupiers who lack character. Many of our political office leaders have scandalously failed to live up to expectations in the last seven years. As I have constantly argued, we must restore the power of moral indignation in Nigeria. We must restore public shame in public offices in Nigeria. And the appropriate time to do that is in the 2023 Presidential Election. Before now our country had had some scoundrels in public office, but never before had a great number of scoundrels been in public office as in the last seven years. And the end of the vicious cycle is not in sight.
