I am a Nigerian of Yoruba origin with the privilege of being
sired abroad in the United Kingdom. I
have had the benefit of growing and maturing in Nigeria and the opportunity of
developing and reaching fruition in the United Kingdom. I have benefitted from the best education a
nation can offer, from the University of Lagos, Staff School, to a brief stint
at CMS Grammar School, Bariga and of course at the illustrious King’s College,
Lagos. It is from the successful
completion of studies at these institutions that ‘Great Ife’, the Obafemi
Awolowo University beckoned.
Opportunities were also presented to me in England to attain the highest
degrees in the research fields of Law, Ethics and International Relations. With
this versatility, this pedigree and nurturing I have been prepared to speak
truth to power for such a time as this and into the future. I am blessed and
not limited nor confined by tribe, nor narrowed by personal self-interest, but
what inspires and motivates me is the desire to bequeath a better space to my
children than that which my father left me.
All through my adolescent years, through conviction voiced by
my elders and those around me, the myth was sold to me that the Hausa Fulani and
northern neighbours could offer nothing good for Nigeria and they were simply
bent on Islamizing and pauperising Nigeria. I was fed with the myth that
nothing good or strategic can come out from them, that feudalism was the only
language they understood and that they could never willingly relinquish power.
However, it was my admission into the illustrious King’s College, where my
class and schoolmates came from origins dotted all over Nigeria. Where I slept in the same dormitories with
those of various tribes and backgrounds. They watched my back and I theirs, they
offered me kindness, they gave me understanding and I appreciated that though
of many nations we were actually brothers. Here I learnt there is no such thing
as a typical ‘Northerner’ nor could I hold each and every one of them
responsible for the proclamations and actions of their kith and kin. I also discovered that my history is not my
destiny, for I cannot allow my history to limit where I am proceeding.
So here I am today an unnatural supporter of the General,
Muhammadu Buhari. At the last election I
supported and willed President Goodluck Jonathan to win because I saw him as
the underdog because I thought with his own mandate with no 2nd term
in view he would be freed from the shackles of stagnancy and non-performance,
he would acquire boldness and smelt his name in gold. I thought he had the intellectual strength,
the sturdiness of character, the integrity and he had assumed the exposure to
run a modern economy. I had assumed that
he would inspire us and motivate us to reach into the Promised Land. However, in less than four years into his cumulative
reign as President I became heart broken, my heart was engulfed with
disappointments and all around me lay evidence of promises shattered into
broken pieces. I have seen him pull out
stunt after stunt, not in the national interest but in pursuant of his 2nd
term re-election interest.
After denouncing the national conference for years, the
President succumbed at the twilight of his tenure. For months he ignored its contents and then
for political advantage persuaded his cabinet to promise its implementation. For almost 6 years he allowed the Boko Haram
to fester, to mature and to become the monster that it is. He allowed territory after territory to be conquered
and then days before the 14th February election date, with other
forces, he pulled a joker out of his bowler hat and with newly acquired weapons
so suddenly he began to prosecute the war with belated seriousness.
My President broke down the barriers between accountability
and corruption, between good governance and impunity between economic
competence and mismanagement. He gloried
in pardoning criminals, he rejoiced in his inadequacies, he celebrated state
sanctioned theft and abused the trust we placed in him. Even with unprecedented
revenues the progress made has been illusionary, half baked and disappointing,
not much has been transformed yet lots have been degraded in terms of values
and what we hold dear as a nation. All
major institutions have been inflicted and afflicted by state sanctioned
largess otherwise known as settlement.
Finally he has deployed religion as a means of cementing himself in
power, sectional in conception, approach and in execution.
It is for the above reasons and many more that I have sought
an alternative to invest my hope in. I want a President I can be proud of, I
desire a man of integrity and purpose. He may not have all the answers, he may
surround himself with some of questionable pedigree but I say he who is without
sin, let him cast the first stone. For
every inadequacy Buhari presents, it is magnified when you place President
Jonathan beside him. As a human being I am limited to judging an incumbent on
his past record and if he fails that test I am entitled to consider the offer presented
by the alternative who promises and indicates that Nigeria can be and is better
than President Jonathan’s transformation into a space for the dollarization of
bribery. I am convinced President Buhari
will fight corruption and is prepared to die fighting it. I believe he will begin the restoration of
sanity to our body politic. This is the
minimum I ask for and the minimum I demand. It is on this basis that I stand
upon Buhari, I invest my hope in him and I will be supporting him for President
of Nigeria.
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