Next month’s presidential election is between two people. While everyone agrees that one of them is clueless, not everyone wants to agree that the other is a day-dreamer. One does not know what to do to arrest the insecurity in the country, the other says he will arrest it in two months. Hmmm!

Without naming names or saying who is which, I believe both positions are correct. But irrespective of what I feel, there is absolutely no chance of getting a president outside of these two. So, it’s head we lose, tails we don’t win. And vote, we must.

Well, I live in an All Progressives Congress (APC)-controlled state – Lagos. I hail from another APC state – Imo. My adopted home state of Kwara is also APC. But I wouldn’t say I have sympathy for APC although I’m happy that another party is giving the PDP a run for its money (or is it votes?), and may, in fact, give the ruling party a bloody nose next month, if time is not taken.

Since I’m surrounded by so much APC, I get to hear the chant of ‘change’…’change’ quite regularly. In fact, it is so regular that I’m beginning to think that the ‘change’ is a clarion call to dump the APC in my neighborhood. And if you come from my neck of the wood, you’d almost think this is the case. In Imo State, for instance, the PDP managed to surmount all its characteristic post-primaries bickering to put forward what could probably be its best possible candidate in the person of Hon. Emeka Ihedioha. Now, we, the elite, can afford to dream that ‘change’ is really possible in Imo. But that would be a tough call because incumbent governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, has continued to strengthen his grip on the state. He remains a hit with the masses, and if we must say the truth, that is where the votes are.

In Lagos, where Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, declared, at President Goodluck Jonathan’s flag-off campaign, that ‘change from APC’ had finally come to the South-west, that change is, however, looking less and less likely – not when the PDP is yet to begin any serious campaign for the governorship. The different tendencies in the party have only just agreed to work together. And even after agreeing, I hear there’s still no money. A similar story is also playing out in the Oyo State PDP. But it is not only in the states the PDP wants to make inroad that it has crisis. All is also not well in many of the states it hopes to retain. In these states, the party has been torn apart by the fallouts of the primaries.

It appears that it is in the resolve to re-elect President Goodluck Jonathan that the party seems to largely be in agreement.

However, after agreeing on Jonathan, selling him to the rest of us the voters has proved Herculean to them. At best, they have simply fumbled. Viewed less charitably, they have largely succeeded in de-marketing their own product.

How do I mean?

Apart from my unusually busy work schedule towards the end of last year, one other reason I did not travel to the village last Christmas was my presumption that the Lagos-Ore-Benin Road was still as bad as it was when Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke, then as Works Minister, went there to cry to the gods some years ago.

Mrs. Madueke would finish her tour of duty in that ministry and even get ‘elevated’ to the petroleum ministry, without fixing that road.

Yes, that bad road, which Olusegun Obasanjo spent eight years without fixing, would also see out Umaru Yar’Adua’s fate-truncated presidency, without still getting fixed. And since neither Jonathan nor his spin doctors had told us anything about having fixed the road, I naturally concluded that nothing had changed.

But I was wrong. Everyone I asked, who travelled on that road during the Yuletide, confirmed that the road had since been fixed and is now in good shape. Unbelievable!

When I mentioned this to a colleague, who is usually critical of government, I was in for more surprises. According to her, that was not the only road. She recalled her journey to Ibadan from Lagos two weeks earlier and how she did not realise when she drove past her turning-off point, at a place that used to be a trailer-killing field. That area, notorious for ghastly truck accidents due to the bad road, had been fixed, and it was such a smooth drive that she missed the point she was supposed to make a detour that would take her out of town. There was supposed to be one big final crater just before the junction, to remind you you’re about to veer off the road. But it was no longer there. That road too, is a federal government project.

In the course of our discussion, she also raised the issue of her sister in Lagos, who parked her car at home and opted to use the train instead. Yes, the trains too are actually working – even if only in just a few places and just a handful of routes. But that was not the story. The story was that the sister was complaining that she did not take her jacket along – because of the cold air-conditioning system of the train.

Painfully, as the campaigns for next month’s presidential and general elections go into full throttle, it is not really the trains or the roads or many other undeniable achievements of the administration that Jonathan and his PDP are communicating to the electorate. No. Instead, they are busy demonising Buhari, digging up corpses that were buried as far back as 1984.

Now, the truth is that these stories of 1984 sound like tales by moonlight to the youths of today, who are set to play a huge role in determining who emerges president in February.

Now, anybody born in 1984 would be about 31 years today. And if such a person was too young to know whatever was happening when Buhari was head of state, what then would we make of the army of youths in their twenties and late teens – prospective voters all of them? For them, Jonathan is reality and that reality is what they seem to want a break from. Buhari is what the the opposition has succeeded in telling us he is; a saint. A personification of the change the youths desire.

Knowing his defect in oratory and that Jonathan might floor him on that count, Buhari’s party has also succeeded in diminishing any importance we might want to attach to the prospect of a presidential debate. Smart people!

For many of the youths, therefore, all they are seeing is what APC told them Jonathan did, or did not do: Boko Haram, corruption, power supply and all the other sour spots like collapsing economy, crashed Naira, etc. and to all these, they say, the answer is Buhari.

Of course, it’s not the duty, nor is it in the interest, of APC to tell us that trains are back in Lagos (that would only be celebrated when the state government-powered light rail comes on stream), nor that the roads in Ibadan or Benin have been made motorable. Or that the trains Osun people living in Lagos regularly board to go home during festive periods are actually federal government (PDP) trains.

For the APC, it makes more political sense to focus on the East-West Road, Second Niger Bridge and other such phoney projects of the federal government. And it has been doing this very well. This explains why the youths now genuinely think that Buhari is indeed the messiah they have been waiting for. If you doubt me, go to the social media. If you’re able to sieve the hatchet men and paid hirelings from genuine commentators, you’d clearly see that Buhari (who might not know a great deal about Internet, etc.) is actually a clear favourite ahead of Jonathan, who has been known to operate a Facebook account for some years now.

Rather than market their candidate, the PDP goons are busy grabbing, left right and centre, living up their old slogan of ‘share the money’. Everyone is busy stuffing his own private pocket while the projects that need funding in this season of campaigns are left as orphans.

Only last week, word crept in that fund was frustrating the party’s efforts in Oyo and Lagos, while the little that was released in one of the states was hijacked by one of the party chieftains.

So, who do I think will win the presidential election? I would say, Jonathan will still win. But I expect that this would be Buhari’s best shot ever at the presidency. I suspect this is going to be a close race. But it would not have been this close if the PDP was a little less complacent – or better still, pushed greed and selfishness to the back burner.


by Steve Nwosu: SUN NEWS

Makai ridam..


Adonridam finish..



Abeg no vex oo, na reasonable comment I dey look for..



Adecum back, makai do sum research..



Thanks for ur understanding..

BeeBeeOoh:
Makai ridam..

lol...
must u book space?

Kelvin0:

lol...
must u book space?

nobi space adebuk, na position adetrai acquire..

APC have really done a lot in terms of campaigning for the General.A special mention was how Rauf Aregbe, the Osun State Governor hosted the old General and his submissions about APC was second to none.

Again, the word 'change' was used by CPC during their campaign in the last election and there is no better time to adopt that word than now and APC has used it well.Everything seems perfect for APC.

Should Jonathan lose the next election,I will blame him for how he has handled the affairs of the nation in the last six years.His body language towards corruption is not only annoying but a strong political point for the opposition.Also, PDP has failed to mobilise enough support for the president,though I know he won the last election not because of PDP,he won because Nigerians were tired and needed change urgently.I hate to admit this but I haven't seen the change.Supporters of the opposition are not seeing APC but would vote Buhari because they believe he is like the messiah and I beg to differ.

Whichever way the pendulum swings to on February 14,I am of the opinion that nothing would change as I believe both of them have nothing to offer.

Coming from the great Steve Nwosu, the best columnist in Naija.

Clueless indeed. ups

yeah yeah yeah, do you mosquitoes know how easy it is to grow flowers in Sahara desert? that is how easy it is for APC to win this election. I was not born when the terrorist was in power but I know and in fact care so much about the events of the past. Anybody that forgets the past is not ready for the future. In fact that is why many African countries are just useless, because they out of their own volition, chose to forget thier own history. BTW the PDPb is STILL the party to beat, When we win let them go and form a parallel government, then we will know which among the two turtles is male.

cocoduck:
yeah yeah yeah, do you mosquitoes know how easy it is to grow flowers in Sahara desert? that is how easy it is for APC to win this election. I was not born when the terrorist was in power but I know and in fact care so much about the events of the past. Anybody that forgets the past is not ready for the future. In fact that is why many African countries are just useless, because they out of their own volition, chose to forget thier own history. BTW the PDPb is STILL the party to beat, When we win let them go and form a parallel government, then we will know which among the two turtles is male.

I was surprised when i heard that a guy whose father was supposedly killed by this same general was pledging his support for the General.....I wonder wetin e give them chop. btw : If Buhari is truly the key, then Nigeria is certainly not the Door!