The Americans don’t miss it. For more than 200yrs, it has not changed. It is sacrosanct. Every other four years, the Americans on January 22nd usher in a new or renewed government. It is becoming a routine in Nigeria too. From 1999 till date, the same happens in Nigeria consecutively now. No mistakes. No shifting the goal post. All is well that ends well. It is now a democratic routine. Do you know that the American democratic genius bequeathed to the world is the tenure system. Whether you are the best and most excellent leader, you must step aside as soon as your two term tenure expires. If you are found wanting in your first four years, you will be shown the way out by the power of the ballot and force of the presidential constitution. So any leader who finds himself in power has to set forth at dawn. I mean make haste while the sun shines.
Therefore, as February finds us changing guards or renewing the mandate, the ball is both at the electorates and leadership court. No two ways about it. It must come. The democratic ides of march is imminent. No bragadocio. No ‘huhuhu’ as our local parlance would say it.
As the campaign starts on the 28th of September, everyone is upbeat. The elite, the local rapper, actually everyone of voting age. The political equilibrium was stable until the party primaries when the new kid on the stable mounted the stage. It turned electrifying. The new kid which is Labour party and Peter Obi have introduced a new order. The new order is threatening to overthrow the old order and there is political panic. The new order is a mystique democratic order that is sweeping like hurricane. No one expected it. Power mongers, all those who quarantined all democratic powers to themselves and called the bluffs of all others to go hug the electric transformers did not know that a day and breeze of reckoning was in the offing. Mark my words, it will be a massive democratic upset as the visionless practitioners will be swept off their feet. No established structures or power of incumbency will save no one. Nothing can stop an idea or regime that its time have come. It is not ordinary. It is not by the flesh but by the grace of God.
So heralding February of every other four years is the beginning and end of the wisdom of any practicing politician in Nigeria. It is time to take stock and face the electorates and the ballot. That is why it is politically naive to accumulate all the powers by one man. It must boomerang when February comes. February comes stealthily and before you know it, it is here. Four years becomes like four days. The moment of truth comes and all those who have sinned and fallen short of the expectations and yearnings of the people must come to judgement. Their judgement is to fail and fail out. They leave power ignominiously with wet buttocks. It is real! It is not a fairy tale. Thank God and the resilience of the patriotic people of Nigeria, at least the regime of credible elections are around.
It has been tested at Ondo, Edo, Anambra and Abuja municipal elections.
In the forebears, the general elections of February 2023 is imminent and we have to face it with joy for some and sadness for others. Chief Agujiegbe from Orlu( one time Executive Assistant to Governor Achike Udenwa) showed a video of a dancing toddler with diapers boasting he will so dance when Osita Izunaso and APC wins in February 2023. I pitied him because i know he will lower his head in sadness by 25th February 2023 as the results are announced. I can see that Chief Charles Ahize( Akpuruka n’ Orlu) of Labour party has already been elected Senator for Orlu and is sleeping waiting for inauguration in June 2023. Like Agujiegbe like APC and remnants of few APC government induced followers. Onyesomuaga Nwoke( Nwike) Governor of Rivers State is won’t to say ” i dey pain them, i dey sweet us”. February 2023 beckons!
We No Dey Give Shi Shi!
Dr. Batos Nwadike(Oyi of Igboland) is Chancellor of Leadership by Example League International( LELI) and President General of Orlu Senatorial Zone Political Consultative Assembly( OSCA) and writes from Akpodim Ezinihitte Mbaise, Imo state.
NIGERIA NEWSPOINT
