Nigeria is witnessing a political shift. The people are in preparation to test their power and resolve. Before now, they were largely complacent about what happens in the polity, and often displayed voting apathy.
The zeal to go out in the sun and in the rain to get their Permanent Voters Card (PVC) is something new and refreshing in a polity where many people, especially the youths often take the back seat in the choosing of the leaders and governance of the country.
For a long time, the politicians have collectively been at the forefront of the decision making of who becomes in charge of governance of the country. The outcome of their long term management is what resulted in the sad situation of the country, entrenched division along ethnic and religious lines and poverty.
Poverty, sickness, hunger, low development, poor education, insecurity, inflation, corruption, dilapidated infrastructure and food insecurity and more are what the people got in nearly 62 years after independence.
The political leaders play up ethno-religious sentiments in their bid to capture power. They plant hatred and strife in their march to consolidate power. They are brazen in their display of wealth garnered through bribery and corruption leaving public infrastructure and social structures desolate.
They use the youths as thugs in desperation to grab power and amass wealth. The middle class is vanquished while the upper class wallows in the celebration of wastefulness while the low class swims in poverty.
There is an illusion of different political parties where people think each has good intention to lift Nigerians out of poverty. They create an illusion of hope as people often think of a brighter ray of hope after each election. The political parties share members as they easily decamp from one to the other. They are the uniparty as these politicians move from one party to another as their interests align. They think the same. They rig themselves into power. They look after themselves. They have no ideology. They protect their interest, making people dream to be a part of it, in order to escape the ugliness of being in squalor.
While the politics of the political leaders take a portion of the blame, the permanent workers in service take their blame as well. The established system corrupts even the saint.
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For their selfishness, they unite to keep Nigeria down in order to continue to rape the country. Everywhere you look is a testament of long years of failure.
Just look at what they have done to Nigerians in; jobs, security, education, health care, manufacturing sector, power generation, SME, and much more.
Sooner, the people have realised that there is no difference between these political parties and the political leaders. We are all victims of their brazen desperation to keep Nigeria as the poverty capital of the world.
It is time to separate the wheat and the chaff.
People in their various hamlets hold conversations. In their inner minds, they ruminate. In their circles they yearn for a better Nigeria where the society works for all. They yearn for revolution. They want to take power and give it to who they want.
They do not mind the ethno-religious inclinations. They want to get out of poverty. They want their voices heard.
To those who still think of a special day and time for revolution, it is before you.
The people, championed by youths are organising to taste the power of their resolve. To install a government they want and is answerable to the people. They want to take back their power – the peoples’ power!
The next election is about a choice to continue in the sad old ways or to explore a new way. It is about voting out the entrenched old guards or the installation of the young. It is about continuing uniparty with rehearsed ideas or installing a new ideology. It is a vote for power to remain with the politicians or with the people. It is about the future or the dark past.
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It is left for you to be part of the history that returned power back to the people or it will remain in the hands of the failed politicians who brought the country to its current doldrums.
What is your resolve?
The next step to truly return power to the people, where it should and truly belongs, the people must rally against the constitution foisted on them with a non-existent preamble of “We The People” – that at no time sat or voted to adopt the constitution. A new constitution which truly is from the “we the people” should be instituted.
The people should be part of choosing who becomes any party’s flag bearer and not be hamstrung by the choices made by a few highly influenced delegates.
The road to return power to the people from the established and entrenched political class is arduous but can be done. It takes the peoples’ resolve without being blinded by ethno-religious sentiments.