Nigeria’s General Elections: Time To Kick Out Failed Leaders
An election is a recognised means by which a country, body or organisation chooses one or more people to fill certain offices or positions, political or otherwise.
An election is a new beginning. A fresh start. An injection of fresh energetic blood. It is an exercise in which men and women alike exercise their foremost political right of casting their votes for a better tomorrow.
It’s a time when the best, and only the best, candidate is elected based on merit and not cronyism or nepotism. It is a time of peace and joy. A time of fairness and equality. A time when the leaders who have failed to fulfil their beguiling promises are kicked out of office.
The elections in Nigeria go against all electoral principles and guidelines. The elections in Nigeria have become a display of madness. A total disgrace. Elections have become political selections; democracy has been ostracized and truth, banished.  It has become: A demonstration of craze, as sang by the late Afrobeat legend and social crusader, Fela.
Elections have become a deadly haggle for power. Their thirst for power is insatiable. Thus, they pursue this political concept with despicable eccentricity. They can go to any length for power and the extreme wealth that goes with it in this part of the world.
The masses hold the legitimacy of the state. It is their votes that elect leaders. Yet, these same individuals jeopardize the economy by selling their conscience for some overrated piece of paper. They are willing to mortgage their political rights for a day’s meal. They are willing to give away their national birthright for a full belly. They sacrifice a better tomorrow for today. It is a slap on the face, a dagger to the soul. A global debacle.
Youths desperate for a piece of the national cake become slaves of wealth. This uncouth bunch becomes dolls in the hands of these egregious politicians. They become tools of violence, causing mayhem. They degenerate into messengers of death, doing their “clients†bidding, oblivious that their actions are destroying the relentless efforts of our past leaders and the hope for a better tomorrow.
The politicians are the worst culprits. The obnoxious discovery that a legislator earns more than the US president, Barack Obama, is a just revelation of the extreme wealth in politics and why people are willing to die for it. Even septuagenarian politicians are not willing to step down for the younger ones.
They prefer to die in power or rather preserve political offices for their offspring and generations to come. They accumulate extreme wealth while the people wallow in abject poverty, dying slowly in pain and reeling from the poisonous venom of poverty.
They steal the national treasure and yet claim to be efficient lawmakers. They are legis-looters, a brood of vipers. Idle men who cart away the country’s fortune, destroying the people’s destiny with rapacious appetite. They kill and threaten just to acquire political power, squandering million in the process. Politicians in Nigerian are cold-blooded reptiles. Charlatans’ of justice with Machiavellian tactics to eliminate the opponent
Elections in Nigeria have degenerated into its lowest ebb. A once peaceful and fair election in 1993 which was won by the late MKO Abiola and illegally cancelled by Ibrahim Babangida, is now history. Elections have become a war zone of brutal violence and circumlocution. A show of shame and adulterated truth. Tourism for pity.
With blanche elocution, youths reaffirm that elections indeed call for fastidious movement. It calls for mostly indoor activities in order to prevent fatal misdemeanours or occurrences.
Children, please remain under the protection of your parents. No loitering after 6 p.m. to prevent being a victim of political or ritual attacks as the case may be. The public has being notified. YOU ALL HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!
•Nmesoma Emmanuel Agu is a student of Federal College Of Education (Technical) Akoka and author of The Unusual And The Unexpected.
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