Vultures From Within

Image credit: Pixabay

No one leads,

No structure or strategy,

Voices from all around,

Reasonable voices can't be heard or sort,

No one listening,

All are talking and loudly; 

No one believes no one,

Everyone is a fighter or a leader or a spokesperson;

Everyone strive to shout louder than everyone,

The loudest get the jeep, the house and the bloody money;

The violent get their belly filled,

The gentle go hungry or forced to join the violent;

The fight is mostly from within,

Instigated by the controller from without,

Fighting for the $billions in the bush,

Wasting the $millions in hand;

Brother Wole And The Emilokan Dance

Image:pexel.com

Pardon me, it's Professor Wole Soyinka. Who else? The activist whose blood boiled in 1965 in Ibadan where he invaded a broadcasting station to stop the announcement of the winner of what he considered to be a fraudulent elections. He was 35 years old then. The same man, now an elder statesman in 2023, turned a defender of a more dangerous and sophisticated variety of the undesirable political actors and their malfeasance which Nigeria has been battling to get rid of for nearly sixty years after independence. 

Political corruption was (and still is) so pervasive and glaring that in 1965 brother Wole invaded a radio station and forced the broadcaster at gun point to announce what he thought was the right results. He did not wait for the judges to decide; he took the law into his hands.

Voices of Hopelessness

                                                        Image: Courtesy pexels.com

For the average youth and the silent majority of older Nigerians who dream of a future for Nigeria which will work for all Nigerians their voices got willingly muffled. They were silenced by the few who knew no civilised way to win in what was supposed to be a democratic electoral process. For them the future is uncertain. Their already inhuman existence is made worse by feelings of hopelessness and despair caused by the BIVAStarized open rigging of the just concluded 2023 general election.

The government and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) are not pretending not to be part of the show of shame. It appears that Prof. Mahmood Yakubu sold millions of Nigerians into slavery for thirty pieces of silver. This man is not a Nigerian in essence.  At this stage of Nigeria's bumpy journey to a democratic system guided by respect for the rule of law and established elections administration process, it is right to expect the INEC chairman to be seen to have overseen a process which can be adjudged to be fair, credible and free. He failed woefully.