‘’The people always have some champions whom they set over them and nurse into greatness…This and no other is the root from which tyranny springs.’’- Plato
Like everything that has its time and season under the sun – the Nigerian landscape is currently in the season and time of political frenzy. All across the country the politicians are out with their stockpiled political gimmicks and deceits supported by some of their gullible supporters and die-hard thugs. Unlike other democracies across the world where level playing grounds and adherence to ethics and safe space to campaign and vote peacefully for candidates of choice, are part of the political game, the Nigerian scenario has its own different dynamics. Here, it’s time for the slanted political monster called do-or-die to showcase its ugly face across the political field and maimed as many innocent victims as its deadly fangs could ensnare.
Yes, it’s election time once more in Africa’s most populous nation and the country’s heavy-weight-money-bags politicians are set and ready for the battle for various political positions. They are well prepared with their dangerous political weapons in the form of tribal sentiments, religious prejudices, ethnic bigotry, cheap vote-buying, divide and rule strategies and other myopic political tricks.
At the moment a strong sentiment of faith- based aspirants from the major political parties is heating up the polity and the important need to scrutinize the various candidates on their credibility and what they have to offer the people and the country is enmeshed in the heated Muslim-Muslim or Christian-Muslim ticket. The gullible electorates have already been hoodwinked into supporting their planned divide- and- rule trick. None of the top presidential or gubernatorial candidates have come out with a visible clear-cut solution or policy on how they intend tackling the challenges bedeviling the country. None of them has a convincing blueprint on how to tackle the raging deadly banditry and kidnapping ravaging all the political zones ; neither have any of them presented a viable policy on how to confront the state of acute poverty eating away most homes and families across the country. None has a believable format on how to confront and checkmate the disgraceful epileptic electricity jinx eroding the country’s potentiality.
It’s some few months away from the much expected 2023 elections and it’s time for the country’s politicians to slug it out fiercely for the various juicy political positions spread across the 36 states of the neglected federation. It’s the season of free spreading of accumulated stolen public funds on gullible voters and the right moment to be generous with cheap Ankara fabrics, shameful bar of soaps, diminutive mudu of rice and various deceitful political promises about outdated road construction, building of fake bridges, construction of mushroom markets and empowering the electorates with miserly empowerment.
The decisive and vital moment for the Nigerian electorates to choose and vote in new sets of leaders and representatives is around the corner and the oppressed and suppressed people are already impetuously nursing some of the countries narcissistic politicians into greatness, propelling them to spring out their tyranny after securing their cherished positions. At the moment they are pretentiously mingling freely with them with fox smiles and bogus promises. Their hitherto shut eyes are now visible to the plights of the citizens. They are deceitfully promising to eradicate poverty across the villages and build various illusive rural healthcare centres across the long neglected rural areas.
It’s the season of politicking and election time once again in the country with a large concentration of educated minds and the people are about to be bamboozled on their electoral rights once again by the country’s flamboyant and visionless politicians. Some of the well known scoundrels are well prepared and already hoodwinking their naive electorates with promises and lies. They are already creating division with political infighting and crooking their way to power. The stage is all set and the blackmails, rhetoric and political infighting have begun setting the stage for the next inept elected representatives and other political office holders to take positions they don’t deserve.
