I believe that voting for anyone who has uttered a devotion to and for a position in the next dispensation in this our continually nascent democracy will be a mistake. The mistake is not in voting for these men, and they are all men, who now claim to have a terrible vision for their community. The mistake is in our inability to see an option outside these men who have in their little ways showed us how weak they are, as humans, as men, as leaders and as visionaries.
Yes, there are people, for their own peculiar reasons, who will abscond from sense with regards to my above paragraph. But I do not seek to appease the elites or the faux elites neither do I seek to fill the hungry masses in their desperate attempt to kill anything for food. I am simply speaking a truth, a type of truth that we as a broken people have broken bonds with.
Who are these people that want to be presidents, senators, governors, legislators, local government chairmen, ward councillors? They are fathers, husbands, brothers, friends and sons. They claim that they hold their communities close to their hearts. They have indeed empowered some few individuals with the kind of wealth that makes you lose sense. Indeed, the masses are hungry and it is true they are desperate for succour. It is thus eary for a thief or a con man to decieve and manipulate the community into believing that this personage will be their saving grace.
I will and should not dwell on the foibles of these men who seek our votes. They are human. They have their failings. That their failings have become a curse in their community, that they have managed to stifle, in their hunger for more, the breath of development and hope in their country does not mean that I too should dwell on it. Where I draw the line is in the deception that these men are the only ones who can save us.
This democracy of ours that has neither developed or emancipated itself from the tragedy of our nationhood remains broken. Some may say that amalgamating Nigeria was never a good idea. Some may say we were not ready for independence when we got it. Some may even say the African people are not capable of doing good for themselves. I do not blame them for have we not earned each opinion? Yet it remains true that if one must be honest, we have failed the manifestation of democratic rule in our country. Whether because of our obligation to the monarchies of old or the religious tentacles that still clutch to our minds or worse still ethnic rivalries that make no sense, we can't seem to find it in our hearts to work together towards a better country.
Our society created the monsters who function as leaders in our government. Our society created men who cannot envision being servants of the masses but would rather lord it over the people they are supposed to serve. Is it not this society that asks who are you? What do you have? Who is your father? What is your pedigree? A society that is focused on status would of course breed people who will do anything to be at the top of the status ladder, be it steal or kill.
Government therefore, due to the ability, albeit illegal, for the amassing of wealth. People go into politics, not because they have a call to bring about a better community for their families but rather to enrich themselves and ensure that they can peer from their mounts at the masses grovelling in the mud. The people's birthright is shared among the privileged few and they use it to oppress and abuse the same masses. How then can I in good faith vote for them? Which of these men contesting for power can stand before a court of law and in all honesty say I am clean, I have not stolen, I have not abused, I have killed either through action or inaction, through word or work of my hands?
I do not expect a perfect person to be president. We all have seen and fallen short. I expect a truly patriotic person. A person who deserves the seat as president, senator, governor, local government chairman, legislator or ward councillor should be willing to do everything to make their community better than they met it. They should be willing to serve, to deprive themselves of all those sundry benefits that have made politics so lucrative in order to support the economic rejuvenation of the country. They should be willing to make the hard decisions to ensure that the children who come will not desire to die in the Sahara or on the Atlantic seeking greener pastures in foreign shores, places where they are not even wanted.
So tell me, how can I vote for these men? I know them. I have heard them speak before. I know the wavelength of their rhetoric. It is shallow. There is no manifesto, no ideology, no faith that they stand by. They have only hastily merged slogans written by paid propaganda creators with which they distort the masses' perception. They know the power of ignorance and the absence of truth in the public space. They malign each other in public just to win the sympathy of a nation that is so jaundiced that even Judas Iscariot is an option. At least he is better than emperor Nero, it would seem. It is disgusting.
Again, my opinions are mine alone. There are persons who are more emotionally and or rationally attuned to the politics of this country who might have knowledgeable opinions about what should and should not be done in this country. They may have a better grasp of the agendas of the various candidates but I am sure that a polity that won't allow for independent candidates outside the machinations of the political parties or for women candidates to contest, which as far as I am concerned is a symptom of manipulation and control, has nothing they have to offer beyond stagnation. Nothing.
We need politics with ideology, faith, innovation. We can't keep on doing the same old thing and expecting a different result each time. We are so moribund that all we can do is recycle people. We can't even think outside the box. It is a symptom of stagnation. It is a breeding ground of mosquitoes and flies, blood suckers all. There must be another way to save us from ourselves. There must be a means to infuse blood into the dried up veins of government. We sit and commit genocide on ourselves. We wail and laugh amid the crisis of ineptitude, nepotism and gross thievery. Like a businessman who spends both his capital and profit on frivolities, we have consumed all that is good almost to finish and what remains, if not to cannibalise ourselves? Will these candidates bring the end of days for us? I am sure they will try and it scares the hell out of me. You too should be very afraid.
