Happy New Year to all Nigerians. Our challenging times have remained with us and have become even more challenging. Perhaps, these challenging times defines the reality of our life and our existence as Nigerians. Its severity calls to question whether indeed there is any chance of life getting better, now or in the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, with self-centred leaders at all levels, whose mission has remained suspect, these challenging times continued to push us into almost permanent state of misery, disbelief and negativity.
So long as we continue to live in state of misery, disbelief and negativity, our capacity to apply ourselves and produce positive outcomes in anyway possible will continue to elude us. This will mean that we will continue to produce bad leaders whose mission will remain suspect. Such leaders will lack the needed initiatives to address Nigeria’s challenges.
Therefore, as we enter 2025, and as Nigerians, we need to ask ourselves the fundamental question of what is it that we must do to begin to turn things around? The simple but also very difficult answer is that we should as Nigerians believe in ourselves in a positive way. Nigerians must remind themselves about the power of possibility and once again seek to engage leaders with a positive mindset. Engaging leaders with a positive mindset should be about emphatically calling on leaders to be responsive to the needs of citizens.
Ideally, this is a very simple calling, which is logical with any democratic setting. However, it is also difficult and complicated given that our democracy has been turned on its head in Nigeria with so-called elected leaders turned emperors. Structures required for political consultations and consensus building are being undermined. Political party structures are anything but democratic. In fact, so-called political parties have become the catalyst and sources of national disappointment.
With hardly any exception, Nigerian political parties have disappointed Nigerians on the same scale. And it is predictable, things being equal, as we move towards 2027, Nigerian politicians and political parties will disappoint Nigerians on a bigger scale. The expectations for free, fair and credible elections in Nigeria may elude Nigerians once more. Or as was the case in 2015, we could have relatively free, fair and credible elections in 2027, which may only result in the defeat of APC and President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu with the attendant danger of retaining the status quo of producing leaders who are emperors, who would only pretentiously be committed to resolving Nigeria’s challenges.
As Nigerians, we must rise to this challenge and make the defeat of APC and President Asiwaju not only possible in 2027 but most importantly guarantee the election of truly democratic leaders and not emperors. The only way that could be possible is if as Nigerians we are able to focus ourselves to produce a functional political party that will respect its own rules. Certainly, such a functional political party must be distinctively different from APC, PDP, LP, NNPP and all the existing registered political parties in the country.
There in lie the difficult challenge. How can such a party be produced and by who? Is it a new party, which will apply for registration with INEC? Will it be registered? If not, what are the options? The other related question is whether such a party will be formed by the same politicians who were associated with APC and PDP, and in many respects, people who could be adjudged to be responsible for getting Nigeria to this messy situation.
The hard truth is that Nigeria’s challenges can only be addressed by Nigerians. It will not be angels that will descend from heaven to help us resolve our challenges. The other hard truth is that we all have our good and bad sides. So also, our politicians have their good and bad sides. The unfortunate reality is that our political structures now only make it possible for politicians to present their negative sides, which is largely because political competition is completely compromised.
In such a circumstance, being positive is about taking the needed steps to restore political competition as integral to our democracy in the country. This should be about properly organising a political party that could allow for the emergence of party leaders at all levels through internal competition. The practice whereby prospective candidates for election impose leaders of the party, who will in turn crown them as candidates, must change. Once the process of forming the new party failed to guarantee internal competition and use it to produce leaders of the party, it simply means retention of the status quo.
While acknowledging that opposition political leaders, including alienated APC leaders have commenced negotiations towards producing alternative political platform, it must be also recognised that most Nigerian politicians are not disposed to competitive political culture. Largely because most politicians are driven by personal ambitions to contest elections, the default mindset is about imposition and manipulating processes to achieve personal ambitions. This must stop. We must remind all our political leaders that if they want to prove their altruistic value and demonstrate strong disposition towards rescuing Nigeria, therefore beyond the pretentious claims of subordinating personal ambitions towards the emergence of the new platform, opposition political leaders in the country should commit themselves to allowing political competition in the country as basis for the emergence of political leaders at all levels.
Opposition leaders must be reminded that so long as they also approach process of leadership selection in the country based on strategy to impose themselves, they are also part of Nigeria’s problem. Opposition leaders can continue to delude themselves with the false belief about imposition through fair or unfair processes, so long as political competition continue to be undermined, the propensity to remain in state of misery, disbelief and negativity may continue.
To Nigerians, we need to all wake up and seek to take our destiny in our own hands. The source of strength and audacity of Nigerian politicians is derived from the docility and passivity of ordinary Nigerians. Once majority of Nigerians concedes politics as the monopoly or exclusive vocation of so-called politicians, the risks of undermining political competition and producing bad leaders with the attendant consequences of remaining in permanent state of misery, disbelief and negativity will be high.
Nigerians need to move into 2025 with a positive disposition that it is indeed possible to produce a new political reality in the country. It is indeed possible to produce a political party that can guarantee political competition in Nigeria as basis for leadership selection at all levels. It is possible to rebuild democratic structures in the country, including political parties, and get them to challenge political leaders in Nigeria to produce their positive side and put the nation on the roadmap of joining the comity of developed nations.
It is possible for Nigeria to rise in our lifetime and produce political leaders that will be source of pride to citizens. Through the right political alignments, re-organisation and new refreshing initiatives, our resourcefulness, productivity and innovative disposition will be the new defining orientation for a new Nigeria. As a nation, the search for happiness, belief in our capacity to have all the goodness life can guarantee and above all produce positive disposition that should define our orientation. This has capacitate us to overcome our challenges, which endowed us to remain resilient and survive all odds.
Like in past cases, Nigerians will survive current challenges. The same way Nigerians outlived military rule, we shall outlive this era of emperors and in 2025 produce a truly democratic political party, which could guarantee internal political competition as foundation for the restoration of national political competition. Through political competition, Nigeria shall produce truly democratic leaders in 2027 who will render selfless services to Nigerians, based on which the country can achieve all its national potentials. May God bless Nigerians with the strength of character to engage Nigerian opposition politicians so that Nigerian democracy will be on its feet once more and Nigeria will be blessed with democratic leaders who will be responsive to the needs of citizens. Amin!
Happy New Year 2025!!!
