Examining the Candidates

Nigerians were unhappy since 2011. What was shaping up to be a most challenging year, not only for unanimously choosing the president of the country but also facing a terrible and the worst evil ever perpetrated by group of persons across the nation. No substantial result from the series of meetings held by the executives with hope of coming out with a positive outcome.

I wrote this article to analyse the major disappointment that hallmarked the past years and bring to the surface the part we need to play to move this nation forward.

All persons involve in the decision-making process speaks patriotism and also a spirit to demonstrate love towards the nation and stand for and most importantly, what it takes to create an enabling environment for it citizenry. Yet there are people who go about secretly causing trouble and speaks of failure from the part of government.

Nigerians are indeed facing the worst nightmare ever. For much of the year, lives have been lost and properties destroyed. Historians who look back to our time will surely conclude that our problem is not that we do not know where we are heading, it is that we have not act on what we know.

The governing class does not lack access to ideas and proposals that can stop the decline in social safety, security of lives and properties. Rather, it lacks the will to pursue them. The slogan Let live as One, Keep Nigerians Safe “KNS” Oops “my words” is apparently not working perfectly, but for the privileged and powerful it is working well enough. If anything, the extraordinary display of the political will, terrorism, ethnic clashes, and environmental hazard from oil rich companies across the country in the wake of the vision 2020:20 has obviously made the citizen hopeless.

Yet even within the boundaries of this democracy, it does matter who becomes president and who runs the executive arms. Political instability will be another tussle between the geo-political zone in the year 2015.  More innocent citizens will be hurt because the fundamental problem is yet to be resolved. Our political appointees only wish is to propose, debate and pass a bill that will give them immunity. Why no pass an immunity bill protecting citizens against destruction of lives and properties been perpetrated by some group of persons.

The historical event of our forefather helped contributed to the freedom of our country, their history remain in the heart of everyone and names written on Gold. How many of the present eminency in their pomposity has done anything to be remembered for? Instead we are face with oppression and big names, big titles and the wealthiest who have no contribution in the lives of ordinary man, instead follow the path that enrich them.

It is obvious, millions of us suffer mistake of our leaders and of our own make. Every day or so, another one of us goes back home from region where he had lost properties or had his family members mutilated or killed. I wondered why these people are considered so marginal and insignificant that sometimes it is difficult for government to bring the perpetrator to justice. In global surveys of happiness, however defined, Nigerian ranks number 1 but nowhere near the top in anymore. Yet, no matter how many of its people might be leading internal lives of quiet desperation, outwardly Nigeria is still the land of the happy face.

Faith in the future has been an enormous national asset. It inspired us to travel from the south south to settle down in the North through difficult means. Optimism built great and powerful nations. It motivated people to invest against all odds in different business. Optimism drive Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir Ahmadu Bello and Chief Obafemi Awolowo among the leaders to fight for Nigeria’s Independence. It stiffened Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in Kirikiri Maximum Prison and subsequently on release became the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Optimism has also had its liabilities, collective blind spots of gratification that ultimately produced, weakness, sadness, injustice, oppression, and long suffering that we face. In the midst of our personal optimism of the dark view of the future in our ethical differences. Imagine ethnical constantly clashing with another, it promotes hatred across the nation, whereas some of us are surprisingly addicted to depictions of utopian futures. We speak to our fears of where society is heading and provide the details that are so hard for us to imagine. Because some persons believe these projections of our fears are fictitious, we can seal ourselves off from the truly frightening implication that we might bear some responsibility for our collective future.

Looking ahead to the year 2015, there is little reason to think that the potential candidates in the political parties channel represent anything close to transformational leadership the country needs. None to trust as a loyal candidate in the present systems. As are ex-leaders who still show interest in the affair of service in Asorock, who obviously might reduce subsidised goods for the poor and increase resources for the rich when elected.  None of the others in the early system, such as ex-governors, and several executives, have shown willingness to take the bull by the horn from whose financial hands they will have to feed.

Personal vendetta, there also is a gap between what we think might happen to the family around us and what we think might happen to ourselves personally. This helps to explain the appeal that the privilege moves their family away from the country to settle down in a more secure country. Therefore, our lives and wellbeing back here has no meaning to them.

This pattern of behaviour in the face of evidence that we will end up badly is a well-known emotional theory. Perceptive disagreement, in which people feel pain when they hold conflicting ideas simultaneously, can sometimes be an irregular of this. Denial of what is objectively evident is another. Psychologists have recorded numerous ways in which people would rather stoop down in their present dysfunctional jobs, relationships, or lifestyles that are leading to personal disaster than risk the discomfort and uncertainty that come with taking responsibility for the future of this country.

What else would be use to examine our next leader? Hopefully, a lot more welfare for the poor, balance in economy, job creation, along with security. In 2013, may we security thrive, economy abound, and all 2020:20 agenda be successful.