Dr. Iyoha John Darlington

For a very long time I really  have not written a piece  in any  local and foreign  mainstream  media in my capacity as a communicator on national and global issues.  Some of you may think I have thrown in the towel! However, nothing could be further from the truth. I have only  remained  unshaken in my firm resolve to sit back and allow naysayers at the time to reap the bitter  fruits of their act of folly.

However, it does not give me joy   watching Nigeria’s   speedy descent to anarchy and precipice – an obviously sad situation foisted on us by the most corrupt and rudderless leaders  which the  ruling All Progressives Congress parades. Now the wind has blown and the anus of the proverbial proud peacock has been exposed.

Prior  to the 2015 elections, you will all recall,  the All Progressives  Congress promised Nigerians the moon and sensing the dangers inherent in their diabolic antics to grab political  power we embarked on sensitization  tour of continental  Europe at the sad period under  review  via town hall meetings and the like  to call the attention  of our people in the Diaspora to this ploy. In their well-crafted and bare-faced  lies which Nigerians back  home fell for hook, line and sinker they threw away the baby and the bath water — a course of action, if you ask me,  we all rue to this day.

Now the die is cast and many Nigerians, doubtless, have been jolted out of consuming delusions  as the ban on  campaigns has been lifted  to elect new leaders to lead us in the coming years.

We have spent too much  time brooding over  past mistakes and to say we were  none the worse for our crying blunders in 2015 and 2019 respectively  would be an understatement. Frankly, I think it is time we  took urgent steps  to plan for a better tomorrow  in the selection  of credible candidates as we go yet again  to the polls in five months’  time.

To stumble twice, says Mark  Cicero in his day, against  the same  stone is a proverbial  disgrace. The ruling  All Progressives Congress — a supplanter — came   in the build-up to the 2015 general elections in the appearance of Esau but in the deceptive  voice of Jacob  and by a twist of fate the supreme will of  Nigerian voters like a marriage was  not only  upturned and annulled but ultimately  bastardized.

All that is in the past now and we brace for even darker times if you need reminding  if we do not withdraw our support from a failed leadership  under those that say they will either stick together through thick and thin under the existing  circumstances  to renew their ‘mandate’ in 2023 or there will be no Nigeria.

Only recently in a ministerial  press briefing,  the Minister  of Information  expressly said no government    in Nigeria’s  history has performed better than the Abuja regime  in terms  of good governance  and delivering on the dividends of democracy  to our people. Does this assertion qualify for a paradox or anything near it? The answer is an emphatic NO because  what we have in place today  is none other than one  vast empire  of corruption where its inhabitants  thrive on dirt and dirty surroundings!

Lies and deceit on whose back they rode to power in 2015 are being craftily retold to Nigerians who the ruling party sees as  mindless zombies. Time to stop them  is now with the selection and election  of credible leaders.

For starters, to Lagos State with the  famous  accronym  “Mini-Nigeria”  we must now turn. That the  metropolitan  city of Lagos remains Mini-Nigeria  is not in dispute. The federation of Nigeria is made up of over 250 ethnic nationalities  and each of these ethnic nationalities  has a large concentration of its people in Lagos and as one of its dwellers you are connected  to other parts of Nigeria as far as the remotest outposts. That makes Lagos uniquely different from the rest of Nigeria , thanks to its former status as Nigeria’s  capital city. 

The Federal Government service  infrastructures dotting  the nook and cranny of the state speak volumes. Often times I hear certain  praise singers giving credit to  the Bourdilon overlord over the great strides in the state. It is high time they were woken up from their infantile delusions  because Lagos in its former capacity as a federal  territory has lived through urban renewals by  many civilian and military governments with special allocations  and subventions earmarked for infrastructures  development. 

This is a verifiable  fact which no one could contest.

Lagos would have long galloped  ahead of other mega-cities around the world in the race to pitch  its tent in the proverbial  lost city of El-Doraldo  had a certain high-up in the ruling party not bestridden  its political  world like a colossus since Nigeria returned  to civil democratic  rule in 1999. I wonder the rationale behind remaining glued to the diabolic Whims and Caprices of an overlord when the state abound in  fresh bloods to lead the state in the coming years.

Frankly, I believe in competence and qualitative leadership. Godfatherism in Nigerian context is the endorsement  of candidates  by overlords who often sit in their comfort zones  with an over-inflated  sense of self-worth. Going against their whims and Caprices amounts to  courting   trouble which may attract a capital forfeiture. That is what is at play on this part of the globe. The removal of ex-Governor Ambode — a victim of innecluctible fate  who did exceedingly well and doubtless deserved a second  term is a case in point.

As the race for  the next governorship  election  commences it is  time we identified  with who we can trust to provide us with good and qualitative  leadership  and not with an incumbent  —  who is a part and parcel of the Old Order that was threatened  with removal by his taskmaster  during the last gubernatorial  primaries  in the state.

I have listened attentively to the speeches of the various  contenders in the race to the Lagos House. None appealed  more to me than Olajide  Adeniran’s. That young man, without an iota of  doubt, has the capacity to deliver  the goods when given the tools.  He is not only very young and energetic  but evinces intelligence which I often stand in owe of. Quite frankly, he remains a human symbol that overflows with  regenerative  ideas  to lift  Lagos to Olympian heights.

However, it is very unfortunate  that these rampaging band of locusts  are regrouping under  the command and control  of the Bourdilon overlord  to keep Lagosians yet again  under permanent  subjugation.

However,  I rede thee to flirt  not with decisions,  actions and inactions  that will mar the future of that state as we proceed on another circuitous journey to 2023.

I allow that the  crying blunders we have collectively made as a people should on no account  be remade;   I mean costly ones which we now rue by canvassing support for a generation of the most perfidious poster Homo-sapiens of Nigeria’s corrupt oligarchy that  make up the ruling All Progressives Congress.

Doubtless, many of us are being haunted today by grief, frustration and of course  insoluble  dilemma, in fact there is no restating the obvious that we are tut-tutted at the on-going obviously sad situation foisted on us by a rampaging band of locusts like I said here earlier with  ineptitude as their only stock-in-trade.

I say here yet again the Peoples Democratic Party flagbearer in Lagos Dr. Olajide Adeniran in my own conviction is a young man with the gravitas  who cannot  be swayed by normative ethnic manoeuvres.

Lagos — a  mini-Nigeria under his dynamic  leadership, will be rescued from the deadly grip of certain taskmasters under whose watch  our fatherland has been plunged into abysmal depths. It is high time the tribe of intelligent-deficient lots —  that steered our country into tougher times were avoided like a plague at all levels and save  ourselves the agony of the Stockholm syndrome.

Dr. Iyoha is Senior Special Assistant to Edo State Governor and a social communicator