Dear fellow Nigerians,
As we know, we are in the mood of election.
So we are on the match again! We are on the match to take yet another significant decision of our national life.
With due respect to other presidential candidates, it is palpably obvious that people are heading towards two direction as regard the presidency: The incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan of PDPand former head of state General Muhanmadu Buhari of the opposition party APC.
As usual, (especially Nigeria political trend) in a period like this politicians usually explore all possible avenue of devices and strategies (whether fair or not) to outsmart their opponent and to win public acceptance. Through credible and fair process or otherwise they are always ready to do everything to ge their mission accoplished.

With a very few days to election, campaign, lobby and lure have intensely increased. Supporters of the two leading candidates have left virtually nothing 'undone' in advancing the cause of their men.
Flying on both sides of the divides are campaign of calumnies, propaganda, and baseless accusation. Today one who accuse Lai Muhanmed (APC) of using pampers because his body can no longer regulates digestive system, tomorrow someone from other camp ll accuse Fani Kayode (PDP)as being a drug addict who need sychiatric attention. No more manifestoes, no more plan and idea on how to make life more meaningful to the citizen. This level of insult has gone overboard! Even among ordinary supporters (like many of us on nairaland) campaign of hared and insult have gone beyond control.
While this drama reaches the climax fellow Nigerians, let pause for a moment and ponder deeply .......okay, let us ask ourselves where can this lead us to ?
We are crying for positive change yet, we refuse to 'change' our own selves! And mind you our circumstances ll never change until we change what is in ourselves.
As a matter of fact we masses and our so called leaders are synonymous in character. In fact, our leaders selfish style of operating the governance reflect the average traits of Nigerians!

(To be continued)

Now let me give you an instance to butress my point.
I was in a bank a few months ago wanting to withdraw cash from ATM machine. There was actually a very intense congestion.
Despite the fact that I was in an hurry I had to join the long que soon i raelized that people were spending more time than normal. At first I thought the service was poor but it later unfortunately dawned on me that certain unholy activities were going on.
Some people when they came (because of their personal relationship or probably certain agreement with them) went straight to the people in the front que giving them their ATM card and pins once they did that they left immeditely. Leaving us under the scorching sun! Some of them did not leave but waited and collected their cash and ATM.
It got to a stage when we started lamenting bitterly (except those with many ATM cards who had guilty conscience) including one man behind me who was also condemning the unjust attitude of the people.
Well, i was more dazzled when I saw that particular man advancing to one man to collect his card and cash who had helped him to withdraw!
As this drama went on, I got fumed up I felt like taking this injustice to the notice of the authority concerned. As I was contemplating that, to my greatest shock, I saw one of the officials coming out, collecting ATM from some people, he went straight to the machine and helped them to withdraw! I then became helpless and resigned to my faith.
As many ll agree with me thathis (above instance) is just one of the 'millions' instances of selfishness and injustice in our midst Which we have failed to correct.
Imagine, one of the (afformentioned) people can easily come to the social media or other channels of communiction registering their displeasure and attributing their woes solely to the inefficiency of the government of the day but they fail to realize that they are major contributors!.
The truth is that we busy ourselves with the faulth of our leaders but we refuse to look at and correct our own fault. If the truth must be told we have the same mindset as our leaders- we are selfish, self- centered and narrow-minded and it is owning to this lack of true brotherhood our ailment as a nation could be traced.
Now how do i link this incompassionate character of ours to election, many Nigerians back aspirants purposely for what they stand to achieve personaly or sectionaly if they are elected. I had heard people in many occation praying that certain political aspirant shoud emerge because they beleive his goodwill and generocity could be possibly extended to them (personally) if he got elected and not for the good of the generality of the people he intended to represent.
Such is the scenario that is currently playing out.
Many Buharist and Jonathanians are supporting them for some filmsy reasons -for what they stand to gain personaly, because they are of the same party,or of the same ethnic group and the likes.
Until we rise above all these unnecessary sentiment, i don't think there can be any meaniful development in our dear nation.
We must allow patriotism to overide other interest.
We should not vote even for a candadate because he is our party man. Yes, I think we should base our selection on the thorough assessment of all contending aspirants and should let patriotism guide our decision. We can vote for another seemigly more reliable and credible candidate if our party impose wrong candidate. Yes, let them tag it 'anti party' for it is better if we are not 'anti-masses' through what lead to our selection of candidates!
So, fellow Nigerians, let us resolve to turn over a new leaf and begin to be compassionate, kind, sincere in our dealings with others.
I beleive ,if this is experimented it ll go a long way in curbing some of the ills of our society.
For the clarity purpose,I am not suggesting that our political leaders are pardonable for their enormous shortcomings but what i am insunating is that we are all guilty! Let us examine our conscience.
In conclusion, as we go into election, we must not base our choice on: ethnicity,political parties, religious even if the candidates is our father!
Let us let patriotism be our watchword.
The general interest of the people must influence our choice on the day of election.
I hope we get right this time around.
May God bless Nigeria.

please pardon me for some of the typographic error hope you ll be able to comprehend my message

Nice one Op...

Wen leaders change dey wud force goodness on d followers.
Y do u tink every nation has a police force and oda law enforcing agents to force d people to refrain from evil.
Ask pyscologist and dey wud tell u man by nature tends more to do evil dan good because good is usually general in its benefits unlike d benefits of bad practices dat are more often dan not personal and our evolution supports person survival b4 communial survival.

So Yes we need good leaders to bend us into good followers......