Political jigsaw! – A response to former Speaker, Rt. Hon Bright Omokhodion By Echefuna’ R. G. ONYEBEADI

My very beloved Rt. Honourable Speaker Emeritus, Rt. Hon Bright Omokhodion, you have written it as you feel it. Thanks for being true to yourself. I appreciate your standing out for what you believe in even if strange and lonely.

However, Nigerian politics is a shrewd study in mysterious political systems. What seems real before you may just be a mirage as you approach it!

Presently, APC is in shambles. PDP is comatose. Labour Party (LP) is still floating in the air while NNPP is a grandeur none-starter. All others are just there to answer “present Sir”. These facts without necessarily conceding details, I offer free of charge!

However, if and when the election holds in 2023, a candidate of either LP, APC or PDP will be declared the winner as usual which, from the look of things, will not be dependent more on the Party but on the personality involved.

If the hands of the clock could be rewound back to say 2003, a Tinubu or better still, an Atiku may have emerged President. If we rewind to 2019, an Atiku wouldn’t have been rivaled. But, you and I knows that a minute lost can not be recovered! Time and tide waits for no one!

2023 elections promises to be an interesting study in the political history of Nigeria.

Where the pendulum will swing to come 2023 is still too early to affirm even when the road map is foreseeable!

What is circulating presently are still in the conjectures realm but, we can at least question certain things.
1. Does it make sense for a Fulani Northern Muslim to seek to take over government from another Fulani Northern Muslim back-to-back, in a country of over 350 ethnic nationalities with over 200 million people, just immediately after a straight uninterrupted 8 years misrule of the incumbent Fulani Northern Muslim President and contrary to the generally accepted norm of North/South power zoning/rotation come 2023? Does it?!
2. In this political dispensation starting from 1999, South West has produced a President for 8 uninterrupted years with another 8 uninterrupted years as Vice President.
So, does it make sense for a candidate from South West to seek to become President of Nigeria come 2023 in the spirit of fairness, equity, justice and inclusivity?
3. Going by the abysmally below poor performance of APC in governance in the last close to 8 years that has earned it an acronym of “All Promises Cancelled” apart from the gross mismanagement of the economy, unprecedented insecurity with wanton human bloodshed everywhere and heightened corruption, what justifies the APC to want to retain the Presidency and/or remain in power come 2023?
4. Are Nigerians willing to be ruled by proxy, sickly president, cabals, religious and ethnic bigots as has been evident in the last 7 years plus?
5. Are Nigerians, particularly the youths and young at heart ready and willing to take over governance or surrender their future to recycled failures of the past?

I think the right answers to the foregoing questions and much more will, to a large extent, determine where the pendulum will swing come 2023!

Many more surprises are likely to unfold as the campaigns hots up.

Echefuna’ R. G. ONYEBEADI
06/10/2022.