SIR: I said I wasn’t going to comment on the 2023 presidential campaigns, but let me excuse myself just this once.
There’s so much support for Mr Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) from countless Nigerian youths to become president of Nigeria, and from all indications, he seems most suitable for the job compared to other presidential aspirants.
The point I want to stretch here is the fact that God will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.
Nigerians want change but are we willing to change? Nigerians are making the same mistake they made in 2015 when Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) were the opposition.
The kind of support Buhari got from Nigerians, it was like his coming was foretold in a prophecy. Nigerians had high hopes that Buhari would transform the economy, deal with the nation’s security challenges and make life easy for everyone but he failed.
When democracy was adopted in 1999, it produced Obasanjo as president. Things were fine during his administration – money was flowing, the economy was bubbling, and everybody was happy.
After his administration, the late Musa Yar’Adua was sworn in but he didn’t last long in office as the cold hands of death snatched him. Then his vice, Goodluck Jonathan, got sworn in.
It was during his time, if I’m not mistaken, that we started fighting insurgency. Many people were killed and displaced in some parts of the north, which made a lot of Nigerians feel Jonathan wasn’t doing enough. They said he was too weak to deal with the terrorists, and felt that since Buhari is a former military general and also from the north, he had the technical know-how to put an end to insurgency.
But it even escalated under Buhari, and almost everyone regretted voting for him. Buhari, whom people held in high esteem like he was a messiah, ended up disappointing Nigerians.
If you look at the different administrations that have governed Nigeria, from 1999 till date, you will observe a kind of decline in the quality of governance.
It was good during Obasanjo, things started to decline during the time of Jonathan, and it got a lot worse when Buhari entered. Now, the same hype that Buhari got in 2015 is the kind of hype Peter Obi is currently getting from supporters within and outside the country.
But do you know why there has been a steady decline in the quality of governance over the years? You believe in the existence of God, right? And you believe that nothing happens without His permission, right?
The thing is, we’re looking up to the politicians to change our situation for the better when in fact we should be putting our hopes in God. Even if Peter Obi wins the election, if God doesn’t permit it, he could spend eight years in office without achieving anything meaningful.
Peter Obi is doing a great job – granting interviews and engaging Nigerians locally and internationally on how he plans to pilot the affairs of our great nation if elected, and I wish him well. But his supporters should learn to add “if God wills it” or normal “by God’s grace” whenever they’re talking about Peter Obi winning the election in 2023. There’s a lesson in history for everybody.
- King Ibrahim,
balling85juice@gmail.com