Nigeria 2023: The Politician and Sheikh Rochas

…I am not a candidate of rotation or zoning, I am a candidate of justice, maybe the Southeast or the South has not been able to present their matter very well before the rest of Nigeria. I am sure if you tell to a Muslim, a northerner, and say to him remember my friend, my friends from the North and my brothers of the Muslim Ummah, that remember the principal cardinal point upon which Islam is built is justice. Prophet Muhammed sallallahu alayhi wa salaam” acknowledges the fact that in Koran Chapter 16 verse 90…saying 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 it’s like the turn of the southeast, a northerner will come out, it is simply saying to the Igbos who are you, that’s the feeling, or a southwest, our brother from the southwest will come out, I want to be a president; you should not be. It’s simply saying to the Igbos who are you? We must never do that so that the children yet unborn may not feel they are not part of this country. It’s under the view of the basis of justice that I speak for this, to give Igbos a sense of belonging other than that I qualify to run with anybody who cares to run, but when there is not possible, we can shelve that, but I appeal to my party the APC they should allow plain level ground. Igbos must understand that power is not given, power 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, In Shaa Allah, I will once a month X-ray the issues around the forthcoming General Elections in the world’s largest black population and democracy. Kindly note my use of the phrase In Shaa Allah. 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 ten more to go.

While I ask us to meditate on the lines 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, an occasion was going to be celebrated. The lambs were on our farm, the farm itself was on a steep hill, and as we chased the lambs to pick one, all of them would be running helter-skelter. On more than one occasion, some of the lambs have run steep to their death. And on such occasions grandpa would say to us, “if you must run, never run like a lamb run like a wolf”. Have a direction he meant, do not run like a lamb!

All these men and women that 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, and in cases 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, for those that want to be president, are they men of character or simply actors cheered on by hallelujah boys while they quote copiously from religious texts, why are they so desperate to ‘rule’ govern or administer a nation at a low ebb.

Do we have any candidate that is bent on changing the narratives without ethnic parapoism and religious hullabaloo, the conversations around dichotomies, like any party with northern candidate will lose, or it is the turn of Lagbaja and Okonkwo…I ask, is it not scary that some 92% of the 2022 revenue will go into debt servicing and IMF projects, and with no solutions in sight, men without the know-how of moving forward are all talking justice and fairness?

Are 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 have hardly been better than the average commercial sex worker moving from one party to the other, are they looking at the cost of leadership, or it is just about that insatiable greed for power, and lust for wealth, without any semblance of justice and fairness geared towards addressing our gaps in systems and structures, all the drama, and acting on tax, state police, farmer/herder warfare etc.

When the sheikhs and pastors amongst them speak without direction, I dare ask how do they feel seeing a nation so touted to be the heaven of all manner of potentials suffer in the hands of a (s)elect few of them 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. No plan, no focus except a strong objective to loot. They sing all manners of spiritual songs, preach all kinds of homily as 2023 beckons but like a man born in Lagos, grew up in Lagos, works in Lagos, is elected into office and the next thing; he embarks on a familiarization tour of his very own backyard. Naija is a nation where the players in the power game are a three-course meal of deceitful, lying and magical people because the more you look the less you see, they serve you deceit as appetizer, lies as 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, for how long— Only time will tell.