On December 30, 2021, I posted on my FB page: “…….Don’t ever forget that there are rewards for every positive or negative step we take. Choose wisely now before entering the New Year. Our choices will determine what baby 2022 will produce after 12 months.”
The twelve months came, now in its twilight and almost gone. I think the above lines still resonate with us as we end this year. Let us look back, fact-check how we faired in 2022, contemplate our choices and actions and see what options we need NOT make next year.
No doubt, our individual and collective choices in the past have come to a complete cycle to choose for us the desired but unwelcomed outcomes. It is a law of cause and effect that does not fail.
Now we have another chance in 2023. It is fast approaching and pregnant with several political and socio-economic issues. As the saga of uncertainties and challenges the year 2022 presented us with begins to draw to a close, let us not be merry and forget to consider the choices before our next general elections. It might seem easy, but it is definitely not.
Let the fear of God and the future of our teeming unemployed youths and those that have dropped out of school because of our dysfunctional educational system guide our choices.
Think of the many countries shutting their visa doors against Nigerians, and many others are being repatriated as you read this post. Think of the skyrocketing prices and inflation. The interventions will be hard and painful. The President would sweat. There shall be hues and cries. To achieve the success required to return good, we need a super sacrificial, strong, and selfless servant-leader. To bring back those that have fallen below the poverty line, those that would lead us shall almost also lose all they have. Apart from a few, in the climes where leadership is serious business, no President leaves the Presidency richer than they came. Almost all would leave seriously aged and looking more worn-out than their age-mates.
Please take a deep look into the pathways of our social infrastructures across the nation, especially in the states where maternal and infant mortality rates are increasing because of poor health facilities and lip service to healthcare. Let that empathy guide our choices of the next leaders from the local to the national level.
Take a look at the influence of non-state actors in the blood-letting fields across the geo-political zones and ask if that is what we want to be replicated in the next four years. If not, you must choose your next Commander-In-Chief in line with present-day realities.
Take a journey into the realm of Judicial activism, and ask if we have had the best of years in justice delivery. Do we want a country where Governors and Presidents are made by Judicial pronouncements or a system where INEC can perform its job creditably and, ultimately, declare winners based on a citizen’s mandate? Do we want to maintain a status quo of the Chief Justices not honorably retiring but being bundled out of office for political considerations? The choice is in your hands. I thought the way the last two CJs were removed from office was concerning enough to warrant a national discourse and the need to interrogate our values and the true meaning of justice.
I have it imprinted in my heart that Nigeria is like a dry bone that shall rise again. However, whether Nigeria survives or not is in our hands. Not in the hands of foreigners. The next President cannot be ordinary. The person must be a miracle worker because where we are is so deep from the surface. I come in peace.
Grace and peace!!!
