There are promises of a new order on the horizon. Nigerians are looking forward to 2023 with great enthusiasm. They are waiting anxiously for the man who will rescue the country from the blight of misrule that is afflicting it. Of all the indices of failure that have crept into Nigeria, insecurity remains the most telling. It is one stigma that the country must deal with before, during and after the 2023 general election.
In the 2015 and 2019 general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) confounded us with uncommon performances. It turned in impressive results from terrorism-infested territories of the North. The impression the commission created in those two election cycles was that elections could go on seamlessly even in the face of blood and bloodletting. We had our doubts about the electoral commission’s capacity for what it claimed then. But we could not go beyond cynicism.
But it is doubtful if 2023 can admit of such magical performances. INEC is no longer sure that it can weather the security storm, even when it claimed to have done so in the past. That makes the need for securing the 2023 elections very imperative. As a matter of fact, Nigeria’s hope for a better tomorrow rests largely on the outcome of the forthcoming 2023 elections. Even when someone who can do the job emerges victorious, he will have a hell of a time cleaning up the mess we are into at moment. Nigeria, as we all can see and attest to, has taken a disappointing turn under the regime of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Everybody has come to agree that his rule has brought ruination to the country. Those who went into a frenzy over his ascension to power are thoroughly disappointed. The man they thought possessed the magic wand has taken Nigeria to the gutters. The country is in its worst state ever.
Let us recall that Buhari’s ascension to the presidency was a subject of high drama. President Goodluck Jonathan, the man he upstaged, was packaged and sold as a failure by Buhari maniacs. A web of conspiracy was woven around the Jonathan presidency all in the bid to stampede him out of office. The conspiracy against the President was largely without good reason. It was, for the most part, borne out of an unholy mix of phobia and mania. The Buhari mania automatically translated into Jonathan phobia. None rested on a good ground. One was borne out of emotive display. And it automatically produced the opposite effect on the other.
But that was then. Now, the emotive overflow has given way to reality. Buhari has, compulsively, stripped himself of all the dogmatic aura built around him.
His crash was borne out of deification. He was presented to undiscerning Nigerians as a lily of the valley. His adherents dressed him in borrowed plumes. But the ultimate error, which has now led to the great fall, is that the man was too willing to wear the toga of saintliness. He almost came to imagine himself as infallible. He thought his errors could, automatically, translate into good deeds. His hold on reality was simply airy fairy.
It was in this out-of-the-world feeling of infallibility that Buhari reached into his inner self and sought to reinvent a Nigeria that would suit his primordial fancies. Rather than fight the insurgency which he said he would root out in a matter of weeks , he unwittingly allowed terrorism to fester. Nigeria is no longer fighting the Boko Haram insurgency alone as was the case when Buhari took over. Other forms of terrorism are now ravaging the land. Banditry and herdsmen’s invasion are newcomers to the land. The Buhari presidency made them possible.
I will not bore you with the promises of the Buhari presidency. But we are living witnesses to where the country was in 2015 and where it is today. Under Buhari’s Nigeria, every sector of our national life has slipped into a coma. The country is in an emergency situation. Abuja, the country’s seat of power, is on tenterhooks. Schools have been shut over fears of terrorist attacks. Military formations, including the Brigade of Guards, are at the mercy of terrorists. Our security agents are behaving as if they have no capacity to confront bandits and terrorists. The terrorists have seized every inch of the country’s territory. They kidnap. They kill. They maim at will. There is no safe haven anywhere in Nigeria. The entire geographical enclave called Nigeria is under siege.
Beyond insecurity, every aspect of life and living in Nigeria has become hellish. The economy has collapsed. The naira has crashed to an all-time low. Its purchasing power has plummeted beyond measure. Energy crisis has crippled businesses. Food has become a huge luxury. The citizenry are hungry. In the face of all this, the government looks on morosely. It has no solution to the hopeless situation.
Perhaps, Nigerians would have continued to amble along, if they could walk freely in the streets. But the country is being held hostage by blood suckers. Life has completely lost its value. Every day, the people are fed with situations that border on annihilation. The terrorists who have massed up under the Buhari disorder own the land. Nigerians are running helter-skelter. They have nowhere to hide. Nobody seems to understand where the country is headed.
The terrorists are reigning supreme.
It is in this state of hopelessness that Nigerians, irrespective of tribe, religion or political affiliation, have stepped forward to say it as it is. The people are unanimous in their disappointment with the Buhari disorder. Now, the National Assembly has stepped in. Members of the two chambers are threatening to impeach the President if he does not rise to the occasion. They have given him a six-week ultimatum to wake up from slumber or be shown the exit door. The ultimatum has since elapsed, and nothing happened.
But we knew, as much as the legislators did, that the ultimatum would come to nought. The security situation could not improve within the given timeline and it did not improve. If anything, the situation has got worse. So, where does the country go from here? This question is what is agitating the minds of discerning Nigerians.
If Nigerians were careless with their choices in the past, they have an opportunity this time to be more discerning. It is only those who do not want the country to survive that can afford a repeat of the mistakes of the past. To this extent, 2023 remains a watershed in the country’s march to survival. The year truly matters.