The revelation from his Special Adviser on Publicity, Doyin Okupe, that this government would rather handover to the military than to the leading opposition figure depicts the desperation of the mafia than the strength of democrats.
For the first time, it is clear to the ruling People’s ‘Democratic’ Party, PDP, in Nigeria that it may have to leave the scene unwillingly. The indigestible mess it that the party accumulated over the past sixteen years has finally pushed it into the abyss of our collective rejection. For it, there is nowhere hide; no more games to play. Its previous reliance on rigging elections and divide and rule campaigns of religion and ethnicity is annihilated today by an unprecedented political awareness, IT technology and the landslide support that the opposition is enjoying across the nation’s geographical, ethnic and religious divides. Its spine is cold.
This severe political winter has pushed the President and his aides to contemplate all sorts of odds. The revelation from his Special Adviser on Publicity, Doyin Okupe, that this government would rather handover to the military than to the leading opposition figure depicts the desperation of the mafia than the strength of democrats. Treason at its worst! While that anomaly is kept in view by Jonathanians, attempts to postpone the elections beyond February are strongly pursued even after the acknowledged readiness of the umpire to conduct them on schedule. The catch here is finding additional time to contemplate the outmoded means of subverting popular will - regenerating religious and regional differences while escalating the Boko Haram crises to make the elections impossible altogether. But I think, today, even time has grown impatient with such elements. It has been ample to Jonathan but the President has dismissed its generosity in preference to immediate material gains, subversion and deliberate disability. Time is not likely to change the tide it has chosen for 2015. It is defiant already and daring it will only cause more danger for Mr. President.
The nation, gladly, remains resolute that a change in direction is necessary. As I write this piece, thousands of Chadian soldiers are invading Nigeria to save it the ravages of the unholy alliance between Boko Haram and our widely believed complicit government. Ours neighbours have correctly read the danger in that complicity and have decidedly abandoned apathy in favour of confronting the advancing threat in the face of grudges of leaders of the victim nation. This is not the reading of Chad, Niger or Cameroon alone; it is that of Africa. Today, changing the direction of governance in Nigeria is a continental imperative as much as it is a consensus among its nations. This is the certainty that primitive-grade DNA, intelligence and sociology of Niger Delta militants and other chauvinists across the nation could not foresee when they allowed material gains to subvert national interest.
The National Council of State meeting due to hold today will end without the President succeeding in hoodwinking its members into accepting a postponement of the elections, once Jega remains resolute on his stand that INEC is ready. The poor National Security Adviser, Dasuki, that is shamelessly glad to toe the line of the clique that has brought the worse suffering to his people in their entire contemporary history is likely to face rejection. The advisory body will, most likely, advise the President to be bold and face Nigerians at the polls; that anything less will only strengthen the support for the opposition and reinforce the resolve of Nigerian voters against him.
My advice for Nigerians is continuous vigilance against the evil that chose to frustrate its growth and sabotage its existence for sixteen years now. They have resolved to defeat it and they must endure on that course to achieve the dream of a better Nigeria. Whichever way the PDP and the President decide, the polling day will come and the people will decide. No ‘doctrine of necessity’ or rigging will this time accord him a day beyond May 29 without the approval of Nigerians at the polls.
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