By Harry Thomas-Odey

Let me start by confessing that I am not a politician, but I am political because I am a human being and most of all a HUMANIGERIAN. What has not become clear to us Nigerians is that we are all guilty and responsible for the current state of affairs of our country. Some more so than others, but we all must share in the guilt. This is one point we must all accept if we are ever going to make progress in uniting ourselves for nation building. What we have become very good at, is finger pointing, ascribing fault to others and none to ourselves.

When delegates accept money to vote for candidates, they are in fact selling their rights to complain thereafter as whoever emerges, having paid, considers that having paid they do not owe any responsibilities of service thereafter. This is what we have seen time after time and when we need to act in the larger interest we still acquiesce to poor judgment.

Two achievements of the present PDP government that we must concede to them is one; that they have succeeded in dividing the country along ethnic and religious lines whether deliberately or not, but that is our current reality. Today the average southerner still sees the insurgency in the North East as a political game by Muslims to Islamize the whole country and because they hate the person of our President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.

Common humanity

APC

The other is that Nigerians today have become so dehumanized that deaths, suicide bombers, mean nothing anymore, it has become normal to see our fellow citizens beheaded, destroyed, degraded. We have become bestial even if primitive as a people. The challenge now is how to recover our common humanity!

As APC delegates for its presidential primary cast their votes they should understand that their choice, even when the larger political leadership does not see that it will make or mar our fortunes as a nation. The choices before the APC delegates are Alhaji Mohammadu Buhari, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Alhaji Rabiu Musa Kwakwanso and Sam Nda-Isaiah all of them are eminently qualified. BUT I wonder whether they all appreciate that we are at a very bad place in the history of our Nation, whether they appreciate the thinking and mindset, rightly or wrongly, on the street of those who are going to vote at the presidential elections. If they do not appreciate the mindset on the streets then I wonder whether how they intend to tackle the challenge of uniting this country which is where any government that means well for us as a people must start.

Why for instance are Buhari, Atiku and Kwakwanso not able to see these realities and rally behind Sam Nda-Isaiah, who for instance does not have any political baggage, and pair him up with say Babatunde Raji Fashola as vice president and have a team that can give the presidential election meaning? A pair like this would not only stand a very good chance of winning the presidential elections but would also hanker down and put our nation on the path of meaningful development. For one thing they would enjoy the confidence of most if not all Nigerians. Our nation would have the opportunity of a fresh start. A pair like this would enjoy the benefit of doubt of most Nigerians. What with Sam Nda-Isaiah’s capacity for innovation and Fashola’s record in Lagos? A youthful pair like this would immediately calm nerves and restore confidence of Nigerians in Nigeria.

In our current state of ‘national disrepair’ Buhari, Atiku and Kwakwanso even though eminently qualified to be President of Nigeria with their past records and experience should be able to read correctly that they cannot heal our nation at this time not because they don’t have the capacity but because of the dehumanized minds of the average Nigerian today.