By Igbotako Nowinta
In an election where metropolitan cities like Abuja, Port Harcourt, Lagos, populated by the strikingly rich rent takers flexed their powerful muscles for Atiku Abubakar, where the tragic theatres of a senseless war in the North East in the county solidarized with the APC led government of President Muhammadu Buhari, where the leading presidential candidates were neck to neck in Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, Oyo, etc. is a true reflection of the mood of the electorate in Nigeria. Like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Muhammadu Buhari is being castigated ferociously for daring to try the unusual, to break decades of conventional way of doing government business and things, to shake the tap roots, agents and masters of corruption in Nigeria.
Unarguably, Thomas Paine, one of the front liners in the struggle for the independence of the United States was an iconic personality that incredibly won the hearts of the commoners with his fiery narrative (Crisis papers) which he called: ‘Common Sense.’
In Common Sense, Paine spoke to the souls of the American people, he woke them up from the heavy slumber of unpatriotic indecision and succeeded to the zenith by winning millions of volunteers to the cause of wrestling political, economic and social independence from the then British overlords.
Indeed, the American people will ever continue to cherish the extraordinary works of Thomas Paine for the great emancipation that eventually threw up the likes of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Quincy Adams, Alexander Hamilton etc. into the eternal pages of world history.
In a nutshell, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense contributed immensely and immeasurably to the birth of the American nation. Franklin Delano Roosevelt emerged on the American scene in 1933 during the great depression; at a time a chunk of Americans were feeding from the garbage dump.
It was an absolutely and debilitating period. The crash of the ‘Wall Street’ brought unprecedented sorrow, misery and certain deaths. In a freezing cold weather in Washington in 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt took the oath of office and assured his listeners that: “the only thing they have to fear is fear itself.”
Many Americans doubted Roosevelt and they frantically and courageously took extra time, money and efforts to frustrate some of the unusual reforms which he introduced (the new deal) to combat and bring back the nation on the part of sanity and greatness.
It took President Roosevelt two tenures cum ‘third term’ that collided violently and eventually with the second World War before he won his place in the hall of fame forever in the United States of America.
When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt eventually died in office 1945, from the heavy stress and strain he sustained, the American Constitution was altered and fixed permanently to provide only ‘two terms’ for any American President.
Just like what was obtainable few days to the 2015 Presidential election in Nigeria, the political atmosphere for the 2019 Presidential/National Assembly Election was overtaken by tension, anxiety, acrimony and passion unleashed by various political contenders, their supporters and foot soldiers.
In every nooks and crannies in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the political tarmac was burnt in the name of campaigns and strategies. But, at the end of the day the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was declared winner of the Presidential Election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), headed by Mahmud Yakubu.
His arch rival who contested on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, a former Vice-president under ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo has rejected the outcome of the election, saying it was not a true representation of the wishes and aspirations of the mass of the people in Nigeria.
In an election that consumed political giants in front of their domains like Senate President Olusola Saraki in Kwara State , Ahmed Dakwanbo in Gombe, God’swill Akpabio in Akwa-Ibom, Ajimobi in Oyo State; that saw President Buhari narrowly losing the Federal Capital Territory, Edo State, Benue State etc. ,but swallowing huge ‘decider states’ like Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Lagos, Borno, where Alhaji Atiku Abubakar equally gave impressive showing in the East and everywhere, where ‘traditional strongholds’ of front runners proved their worth and mettle, to me is a true position that common sense has triumphed over wholesale shameless bandits and banditry which the camp of Atiku Abubakar succinctly stand for.
In an election where metropolitan cities like Abuja, Port Harcourt, Lagos, populated by the strikingly rich rent takers flexed their powerful muscles for Atiku Abubakar, where the tragic theatres of a senseless war in the North East in the county solidarized with the APC led government of President Muhammadu Buhari, where the leading presidential candidates were neck to neck in Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, Oyo, etc. is a true reflection of the mood of the electorate in Nigeria.
Like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Muhammadu Buhari is being castigated ferociously for daring to try the unusual, to break decades of conventional way of doing government business and things, to shake the tap roots, agents and masters of corruption in Nigeria.
For daring to introduce his ‘new deal’ like Roosevelt, Buhari, though human not perfect at all, has his shortcomings that we have rightly observed in several fora, is being fought with everything available to his political adversaries, including premeditated proliferation and sponsoring of incidents of Fulani herders attacks nationwide.
For me the February 23,2019 Presidential /National Assembly Election is credible, free and fair, in spite of sporadic attempts to rubbish the exercise in some areas by enemies of democracy that cut across political divides in the country.
For a sitting President who is trying in the midst of political crocodiles, age and known perennial health challenges in the immediate past, to bring a country from the bottomless pit of rot, decay and naked impunity since 2015, his victory over a character that stinks with corruption is a triumphant plank for common sense just as the presidential elections have indicated correctly.
Nowinta wrote: Where We Are – A Call for Democratic Revolution in Nigeria.
