FOR the first time in 20 years when I started actively chronicling Nigeria’s political affairs, I am feeling on top of the world at the end of a transitional process. This is the first time that I, as an Igbo person, was part and parcel of designing the outcome of a general election without being a mere passenger in a bus owned by others, driven by others and being taken to a destination dictated by others. Before now, the Igbo nation stood by while the North, and from the 1990s, the North and West, decided our political affairs and imposed on the rest of us.

THE long exclusion of the Igbo people from the core of politics and power in Nigeria is manifesting in many ways. Most members of the Igbo elite do not seem to know their left from their right when critical issues of group interest are at stake.

THE widespread call for the new Federal Cabinet to be peopled mainly by technocrats is a scathing disclaimer of the political class.

AS I said before, those elected into various political offices must understand the meaning of their mandates. When we say votes must count, we are not just saying the election should not be rigged.

ONE of the problems the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has inflicted on this country since the Olusegun Obasanjo era is a zoning policy without concrete principles guiding it. A well laid-out policy will have clear roadmaps for its implementation.