ELECTION 2027: Options for Nigerians(2), by Obi Nwakanma

It is imperative, in that calculation, to continue to ensure that Nigerians are “governed” by Temugedege. Nigerians who have read J.P. Clark’s Ozidi – both the play and the saga – will remember the “idiot king” Temugedege. Nigeria – the giant shit of Africa- is the only independent African nation, for instance, who organizes presidential debates at Chatham House. Not at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos, or even at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPPS) Jos, or at the Zik Center, in Enugu. It tells Nigerians all that they need to know about the direction and current status of Nigeria in global affairs. 

Nigeria is the laughing stock of Africa, under Tinubu. No one reckons with her. Nigeria lost its very tenuous status as a regional power. Tinubu’s actions and poorly thought foreign policy, broke, and destroyed ECOWAS. It is a tragedy of a proportion with which Nigerians are slowly coming to terms. But Tinubu wants to return to power in spite of his monumental failures, and is not hiding his strategies. He wants to bulldoze his way back to power, even if he is the most unpopular president, worse even than Buhari, to ever govern Nigeria.But Nigerians must also therefore understand their own options. 

There is no alternative to the democratic option. So Nigerians must register to vote. Are you 18 or above? Go and register so that you have the right to vote. It is that right that gives you the power to have a say, and to change your situation. You want a different future than you have now? Vote. You want a nation that protects its youth and its future? Vote. You want to influence your destiny? Vote. Yes, the last election made Nigerians cynical about voting and democracy. Many have sworn off it. But that is exactly what those who levied violence and terror and stile your votes, wish you to do. Do not succumb.Do not be afraid.

But Nigerians must register to vote. Nigerians must then defend their votes, and the sovereign suffrage. How could they do this? Nigerians must form a pan-Nigerian citizens Vanguard for Election Security. It is a very easy thing to do. Talk with your neighbors. Start by organizing Parlour talks. Invite your neighbors to these talks. Establish common cause.  Nigerians must close ranks against tyranny, ethnic chauvinism and misrule.The Citizens Vanguard For Election Security must be locally governed, at community levels and as city neighborhood committees. Each community must create its own independent election security network. Each neighborhood, with its Block Captains, must mobilize to defend their votes by all means necessary. Nigerians must arm themselves – with information, and with side arms. 

In a city like Lagos, for instance, where mayhem have been unleashed against innocent citizens just for exercising their voting rights, by violent party gangs, the civil population must be prepared to resist any intimidation. Every household must secure itself against hoodlums who might come to harass them, steal ballots, prevent voters from casting their votes, or attempt to snatch ballot boxes. Form a neighborhood patrol. Lose your fears. The only way to deal with a bully is to stare him down. They are cowards, whose only strength is that they carry arms, and move in crowds. Defend yourselves against these bullies. You have the numbers. They have nothing that can match you. Stand your ground. Take them to a police station. Do not run from them. Work with the police to ensure civil order Vote whoever you choose. 

Just be properly informed, and make your choice.Vote your conscience – even if it is for Bola Ahmed Tinubu, defend your votes; even if you know that in four more years of Tinubu, Nigerians will eat shit to survive.This hunger that is already ravaging the land will be child’s play. It is your choice. It is your vote. Of course, here is why I think it would be a bad idea to vote Bola Ahmed Tinubu: I think Tinubu’s domestic and foreign policies are intended to buckle Nigeria permanently. It is trading Nigeria down the creek.

This administration is already planning to sell off Nigeria’s only remaining national asset – its National oil and Gas investments. Nigerians should think carefully before they vote, and remember what has happened to Nigeria. All the National industrial investments which Nigeria made in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and a bit of the 1990s have been sold for a penny; their assets stripped, and the buyers, have vamoosed. Nigerians are now left with a humongous national debt, a radically de-industrialized society; a highly trained generation in need of work, a young population in rapid flight from the country, and a dark horizon, where the future is not only uncertain, but scary. 

There seems to be no country left. But with the plan to sell off Nigeria’s last assets, and borrow and borrow and borrow – Nigerians are hearing the last nails knocked on the coffins of this nation. Nigerians will soon be living in a slave camp called Nigeria – unless they do something urgent and radical about it. Nigerians should therefore pay very close attention, and read Tinubu’s lips very closely: on September 8 in Abuja, at the 18th Annual Bankers Conference organized by the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, Mr. Tinubu, speaking through his minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, declared that by 2050, Nigeria will  be the world’s largest global supplier of Labour.”Our young population is an asset. By 2050, Nigeria will provide the largest workforce in the world. That is why we are making investments in education, infrastructure, and digital skills to prepare our youths for the opportunities of tomorrow,” Mr. Tinubu declared. It was a Freudian slip – because the question is “largest works force” for whom?  What has happened to the current trained work force in Nigeria? They have no jobs; they are fleeing. But the answer is in the rider: the Federal government is expecting One billion dollars in Diaspora remittances from Nigerians working abroad in 2026. 

So, Tinubu’s plan seems to be to train Nigerians and ship them out as slave labour in the emerging global economy, so that they will be remitting “foreign currency” to Nigeria. Just as Liberia did with its own citizens whom they sent off to Spanish planters in Fernando Po, for which the League of Nation established an inquiry in 1927 (See Nnamdi Azikiwe’s Liberia in World Politics). These developments – these  policies under Tinubu – must worry and awaken Nigerians. Tinubu’s plan is to reenact “the Haiti situation” in Nigeria. Let me remind Nigerians that Haiti was once one of the richest nations on earth, with the most highly educated black population in the world.

A number of situations – debt overhang by world usury, and internal combustion forced a massive and rapid outflow ofits highly skilled upper and middle class, who dispersed in Europe and the Americas. It destabilized Haiti, so much that today, Haiti is an ungovernable and desiccated land. The poorest nation now in the Western hemisphere. This is the fate that awaits Nigerians, if they do not rise, conquer their fear, and take back their country from oligopolists like Tinubu. By 2050, Nigeria will become a UN Trust Territory – and would be placed on the Trusteeship of the UN, because it will be unable to pay its debts, and would have defaulted on its international commitments.

Nigeria will lose her sovereignty; her citizens, their freedom. They will be forced literally to work as slaves in the digital economy,for those whom Nigeria increasingly owes. They will have chips shot into them, surveilled, and forced to work like hunter-gatherers. . These folks are not working for you. They do not believe in Nigeria. They seem to hate Nigeria and despise Nigerians. They are not invested in Nigeria. Their riches are not salted in Nigeria. They do not have emotional connection with Nigeria. They all have their exit plans. Their children are already outside of Nigeria. They are waiting for that inevitable crash, and it will be zoom out in their private planes. So, what must Nigerians do to be saved?

Nigerians must register to vote. They must not only register to vote, Nigerians must organize to ensure that this time, their votes count. They must establish, and insist on digital oversight of the electronic platforms by which they now vote, to ensure that the votes are not digitally stolen. The Nigerian electorate must ensure the physical safety of the ballot, and must resist and arrest anybody – law officer or not – who comes to interfere in the electoral process.  Nigerian voters must protect and ensure the safety of election workers. But if an INEC official willfully manipulates the election process to benefit any candidate, Nigerians must ensure their arrest and prosecution to ensure that justice is served. If an election petition comes before a judge, who takes a bribe to issue fraudulent judgment, Nigerians must challenge the ruling in a higher court. Nigerians must learn to defend their votes, and protect their political future and the future of their nation by all lawful means necessary.

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