BY AKIN OWOLABI
The year 2023 must be the turning point for Nigeria for the rudderless ship of the country to ever sail. That magic year MUST, repeat, MUST be the time to commence Nigeria’s return to sanity, be the most momentous in the political annals of the geographic space named Nigeria. That year must usher in the very best of freshness in the body politics.
The Nigerian political landscape is today heavily stultified by spent forces, jaded, age-shackled gerontocrats and crass opportunists. That magic year should instill in Nigeria a refinement of immense proportion and this provokes the song that rang through the length and breadth of the country in the wake of the aborted foetus of the Third Republic. It rang thus :
Is on the march again {2ice}
Looking for Mr. President
Is on the march again
……….is our man oo
The missing lyric is deliberate because the realisation of the collective aspiration of democracy by hungry Nigerians was headed off by heady militocratic and opportunistic individuals. This time it must not be so. The march this time, looking for Mr. President, must succeed irrespective of the foul mood of the reactionary upper crust of the polity and frenetic gusto urge of those currently holding the country hostage.
A critical survey of those showing interest in the presidency leaves much to be desired except that some freshness is being scented in the person of the incumbent Governor of Kogi State, Alhaji Yahaya Adoza Bello. If not for this, all hope would have been hanging in the balance.
At present, Yahaya Bello is one personality that bookmakers would love to bait. Why? For reasons of his age, antecedents and what he has been able to achieve since he mounted the Kogi State saddle.
What agitated Yahaya’s mind to run for the governorship of Kogi State back then is not the issue here. But that he did and against what looked like insurmountable odds at that time coasted home to Lord Luggard’s House in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, tells of a man of immense destiny.
Forces were arrayed against him within and without his political spheres. He surmounted them all. He brought his youthfulness, audacity and sagacity to bear in running the state where more people would be prone to look down on his age. One thing that looked like youthful exuberance was when he engineered a fierce crackdown on criminal elements in the state, ordering the demolition of even the ancestral homes of proven criminals and forfeiture of the landed property to the state. Drastic? Isn’t it? Yet it bespoke of a man with zero tolerance for criminality. If the present national leadership had paid heed and borrowed a leaf from that unique efforts to rid his state of criminal elements, the country would not have been engulfed in crass insecurity as has been the worsening situation now.
Sagacity was currently played out when the governor was given a herculean role in his political party’s membership drive and revalidation of its teeming faithful. He went out with all vigour, adding unequal innovation. He galvanised the youth of the land to robust patriotic activities, though resisted by his political party. It portrays a man of ideas who could be trusted with more national assignments. He did not sit back in his office, ordering people around. Rather, he picked the gauntlet and hit the road running as it were.
“Forces were arrayed against him within and without his political spheres. He surmounted them all. He brought his youthfulness, audacity and sagacity to bear in running the state where more people would be prone to look down on his age”
A vivacious man of verifiable integrity would not be ensconced in his presidential palace, abandoning statescraft to voracious and very vicious power mongers and disserving cronies and cabal of low morals and putrid integrity. It could therefore be said that with a man like young Yahaya in Aso Rock Villa, Nigeria would bid a lasting bye, not the good one, to leadership cloning and hijack of presidential office. No pushing around, no godfatherism, bizarre egocentricism and ethnic bigotry. Yes, no race or religion would brazenly be displayed at the centre – a thing that has fueled rabid separatist agitation that is currently driving Nigeria mad. It would be good riddance to robotism and barefaced nepotism.
This freshness is needed in post-2023 years and the search for the right person should begin now. Most needed is a person who would always be in touch with the realities on the ground.
So far, Governor Yahaya Adoza Bello appears to be the person Nigeria should be waiting in 2023, ipso facto. Much needed is a leader that would engineer the much needed restoration, bring in a unique era of refreshments and confer dignity on the populace. The youths need one of their own to motivate and galvanise them; awaken in them healthy patriotism and give them a very fine sense of belonging.
Yahaya Bello falls within the best demographic sphere of the country being middle aged. The upper crust has had its members’ fill. They have come, they have seen and been heard and have been roundly worsted on the theatre of statesmanship. Never should this class be allowed to misgovern, mismanage, misrepresent the much larger classes of Nigerians. The lower crust – from 30 years downward, has yet to learn the rope and has been disoriented by the vampires in government. So, the lot falls on the Yahaya Bellos demographic section. And of this, the Kogite is currently a torch bearer.
From May 29, 2023, the Cabal that usually holds presidents captive, supplanting them in the real act of governance, would have exited the state house with palpable ignominy. Its faceless members would have come to their nightmarish end.
More in the Yahaya Bello demographic group may show more than passing interest in the Aso Rock plum job. Yet, they would still queue behind the man of the magic year – Yahaya. The post-May 29, 2023 Nigeria belongs to the middle aged man or woman. Anyone with pecuniary interests aspiring to the office with pecuniary motives, having lined and/or are still lining their filthy pockets as a result of having pocketed their previous sphere of influence in the country, should have no repeat. No way. Otherwise, such would go for the jugular of the country’s economy.
And this should serve as a lesson for the likes of our future leader. They must have impeccable record of sterling service to their people. Definitely not those who defied themselves waiting like the vulture to prey on decadent Nigeria. Not tingods, godfathers and appropriators of political offices. Let the erstwhile gubernatorial thieves continue basking in their ill-gotten wealth and forget the ruinous idea of extending their frontiers and tentacles to the entire country.
Akin Owolabi is a veteran journalist and public commentator and could be reached at akinmuyiwaowolabi632@gmail.com
