By Chukwudịmma Aaron-Okonkwọ

Mother Africa is a continent whose children are naturally endowed with resources they could utilize toward fulfilling their inherent potentials. She bequeathed her children an enormous amount of wealth with which they should use to establish themselves as self-reliant, self-sufficient and greatly developed nations.

Nigeria, as one of Africa's children, is extremely blessed by every mean. She is so blessed that she was seen as an indisputable leader in the second largest continent of the world. Our dear country, Nigeria used to offer development aid to her siblings in the continent. Such aids are usually in the form of making huge investments of financial, human, material and military resources - all aimed at promoting Africa's development, peace and security.

Yet, as Nigeria is and were busy offering aid to other African nations, her very own family in name of citizens are not being taken adequate care of. The citizens are gnashing their teeth in sorrowful state occasioned by unbearable pains of suffering, starvation and stagnation. In Nigeria today and in spite of its bountiful natural resources that have always seen its crude export as a leading country in terms of Gross Domestic Products (GDP), poverty is widespread.

For such a country as ours that has been adjudged by the World Bank to be not only an emerging market, but also the biggest economy on the African continent, to be recently ranked the poverty capital of the world predisposes the fact that something is seriously wrong with our leadership. The developmental system of our national life is in dire need of a new development strategy for the changing realities and needs of the 21st century world. Nigeria is very much yearning for a brand new leadership and the upcoming general election is the only opportunity we have to right all the wrongs we have been making in choosing leadership.

The kind of leadership we need to elect in the 2023 general elections for the betterment of our future generations is one that aims at defining an agenda that meets the needs of the people and puts national interests above personal interests. For us to build transformative, good governance and democratic institutions, which our conscience have been yearning for, requires only strong leadership such as can only be found in the duo of Labour Party candidates, HE Mr Peter Obi and Sen. Dr Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed.

#LetUsTakeBackOurCountry


Aaron-Okonkwo writes for PO Express Media, POEM.