Politics has come to be identified as a game with sizzled artistics
framing; one game that’s continued to wear intense dramatic outlook.
In active democracies, the dramatic nature of the game continues to
invoke spewing attractions that at each turn of events, minds are
incensed with interest and the whole will committed to the ensuing
process.
The attractions hovered at each invitation of political excitement is
immensely boggling for the razmatazz and gimmicks that inundate it.
The case is rapt in Nigeria, where politics has grown from being mere
contest to a fight in the literal sense; with each slate of it
garnished with further whistlings that beat the curious mind.
Elections are always periods when over-ambitiousness seems to play
out. These are moments when people who ordinarily should know the
truth resort to fake inventions clouded by sentiments simply to score
points. Elections in Nigeria are times when anything goes; lies are
told irrespective of the debasement and sentiments whipped.
As the 2015 elections fast close on, we are once more brought to the
existing norm. Nigerians must be on the guard to secure our minds from
raking tantrums that seek to drown our sense of good judgement. We
must be weary of devious appeals and engage our utmost conscience.
It’s highly imperative we grow out of mendaciousness that has been our
haze in similar past processes. We must show insensitiveness to
politics of emotions; we must straitly grow out of mundane
disillusion.
The politicians, whenever they seek to achieve political edge over
their perceived weighty opponents exhibit weak penchants. They
discourteously descend into campaigns of calumny; they darken the
other to look fairer. We must prove not to be part of the schemes.
In the heat of the electioneering, we hear of spurious claims latched
with castigating strings like GMB is a Muslim, a bigot, a this, a
that. We hear of fear knowingly projected for cheap politics as GMB
going to sharianize Nigeria if elected; all of which have no
verifiable substance save in paper assumptions.
But how true, how possible? The most annoying is the gullibility
tendency of some to acquiesce. Some of us behave puerile and like the
bigots we detest in believing such malignity.
How many have bothered to numb sentiment and cross check those
distorts of history. Has GMB been proven the bigotry he’s accused.
How inane to accept such deception, such unfounded fear? Nigeria is so
diverse as to be turned into a one religion state.
How could one think of sharianizing Nigeria and worse still in a
democracy? That person must be out of tune with governmental
procedures. Even if the president should, does he has such reserved
power on legislation; where are the legislators; or would they all be
sharianized too?
And it appears there’s no valid point against GMB save in religious
creations? Why are no issue raised over his personal integrity, which
is key for leadership? Who’s afraid of GMB?
But we must realize that gone are the days when spurrious,
unsubstantiable claims shape opinions. Today what make effect are
issue-based convictions, campaign of ideas.
We must prove our insight in the face of demeaning postures that seek
to bring in primordial and sundry immaterial posturings into what
ought to be a committed issue of sound exertion.
Do not appeal to sentiments especially in the face of critical demands
and so refuse to fall prey to any such incitement to bigotry,
blackmails and cheap unsubstantiated claims to sway your views in the
unfolding political chess.
It is not and should never be a question of ‘he’s my brother from my
mother or my uncle from my aunt’; it should be an issue of ‘my Nigeria
and how I want it’.
Should my brother drive me simply because of my relationship with him
even when he doesn’t know how to and where to?
As a matter of fact, blood or closeness shouldn’t make for fraternity
in the march to the nation of our dream; in the art of governance, of
leadership which is the propelling, where any form of disingenuousness
leads to subsuming cataclysm.
My brother in leadership is that person, who shares similar passion
with me and who, given the capability, knows how to guarantee the
teeming aspirations for a just, corrupt-free, egalitarian society; for
a country where leadership is effective in prudence, accountability
and responsibility; for a Nigeria where security is sacred and
employment availed.
These are wishes I share with my other well-meaning Nigerian brothers
and sisters and which play strategical role in defining our
fraternity. Did not Christ himself say it; that my brother…is he who
does my will?
As 2015 approaches, we must do away with sentiment; it’s smack of
archaic politics. Let’s reason like enlightened people. Let’s ask of
integrity and will to stamp corruption. But one can’t give what he
hasn’t.
In GMB we see them personified, in him is the leadership we need.
Ahanonu Kingsley.