By Tochukwu Ezukanma |Lagos, Nigeria | Marco 3, 2023 – ‘ The former Secretary to the Federal Government, Babachir Lawal, recently summed it up, “I have seen the light. Peter Obi is the light. {The candidates of} PDP and APC are darkness”. This statement is an epigram: lucid, witty and lapidary; it is worthy of inscription upon marble and gold. It is the most candid and cogent summation of the choice before Nigerians in the February 25^th, 2023 presidential election. It is an unvarnished choice between darkness and light.

The election is most significant because it is a watershed. For one, unlike many earlier presidential elections in Nigeria, it is not presenting us with two evils, and our electoral choice is not limited to sorting out, and voting for, the lesser of two evils. With Peter Obi in the presidential race, we are not stuck with only “darkness”, Atiku Abubakar and Bola Tinubu, and our electoral choice is not restricted to voting for different shades of “darkness”. Exhilaratingly, for once, in a long time, we have the option of rejecting darkness and embracing the light. Determined to take advantage of this distinct opportunity, Nigerians from across every social, economic, political, ethnic divide are rally to the Obi presidential candidacy. They are resolves to reject Atiku and Tinubu at the polls, and elect Peter Obi the president of Nigeria.

Both the Peoples Democratic Party {PDP} and All Progressive Congress {APC} – Atiku and Tinubu political parties woefully failed Nigerians. The two political parties are populated by the same the band of inept, greedy and supercilious crooks; they are only wearing different labels. It was during the Goodluck Jonathan presidency that the former American Secretary of State, Mrs. Hillary Clinton, summed up the follies of a series of PDP administrations, “They have squandered their oil wealth, they have allowed corruption to fester and now they are losing control of parts of their territory {to terrorists} because they won’t make hard choices”. The Jonathan administration, like previous PDP governments, was corrupt, visionless and rudderless. Thus it failed to make the hard choices.

Despite his much hyped incorruptible uprightness, indomitable will and incandescent candor, and his electoral promises to fight corruption, President Buhari, like President Jonathan failed to make hard choices. Making hard choices is challenging and demanding. It demands courage, capability, competence and credibility; and unwavering resolve to subordinate selfish, cliquish, nepotistic and tribal interests to the collective good of the country; and unalloyed commitment to service of the people. In addition, it demands transparency and accountability. The Buhari administration cannot meet these demands because Buhari is laden with all the vices of previous Nigerian {PDP} rulers. As such, like previous PDP administrations, his administration failed to make the hard choices.

The refusal to make hard choices explains our daunting and seemingly intractable problems of “spending” of billions of dollars on increasing power generation but darkness continues to hold sway over the country; the payment of trillions of naira every year to oil marketers for nonexistent fuel subsidies; the importation of petrol for domestic consumption by an oil producing and exporting country, with four refineries; desperate, primitive poverty in an oil-rich country; derision for the sanctity of human life; failure to secure Nigerian lives and property from kidnappers, bandits, terrorists, Fulani herdsmen and other assortment of gunmen and criminal predators; the reduction of the giant of African to bumbling, blundering laughing stock; etc. The situation is catastrophic. The country is in a disaster. It is dangerously hurtling towards an abyss.

Essentially, Nigeria is tethering at the point of total anarchy and/or collapse. These are all consequences of our earlier political blunders: the election of different shades of “darkness”, like Atiku Abubakar or Bola Tinubu, to rule over us. Refreshingly, the solution to our problems – myriads of daunting and bedeviling problems – is in our hands. It is in making the right choice in the upcoming presidential election: an embrace of the light. It therefore behooves all Nigerians, on February 5^th, 2023, to totally reject Atiku Abubakar and Bola Tinubu at the polls, and elect Peter Obi the president of Nigeria.

Peter Obi had, in the past, made hard choices that left laudable and indelible imprints on Anambra State. And, as the servant-leader of Anambra State, he demonstrated courage, capability, competence and credibility, and unwavering commitment to the service of the people. In addition, his administration of the state was marked by transparency, accountability, financial honesty and fiscal discipline. And these qualities are the desiderata for leading Nigeria out of her present morass of anarchy, corruption, insecurity, poverty, etc en-route to becoming a prosperous nation governed by the rule of law, accountability, elevated morals and ethics and upright value system.

Posted by admin on Mar 3 2023. Filed under All Peoples' Congress (APC), Articles, Columnists, Labour Party (LP), NNP Columnists, Party Politics, Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP), Tochukwu Ezukanma. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry