In an hour of need, needs must when the devil drives. For Mr. Peter Obi, frontline PDP presidential hopeful, many already predict that the pot of porridge which will serve as the prize for which his birthright will be pried away from him will be served hot, having been cooked to ambrosial standards on the planks of putrefying Nigerian politics. Birthright?
Yes…birthright. Birthright because many Nigerians believe in him at least as much as they do in the other candidates seeking the ticket of the PDP. Birthright because even if he does not clinch the ticket, his political reputation is his to lose having miraculously managed to keep off the putrid smell that accompanies many Nigerian politicians when they exit the corridors of power.
Birthright because many Nigerians know that he is not the quintessential Nigerian politician – greedy, grasping, gross and grandiloquent. Birthright because when it was time to leave the Awka Government House in 2014, a staggering seventy-five billion lay in wait for the incoming government and it was not like Mr. Obi had left behind a state in disarray dotted with abandoned white elephant projects.
It has been seven years. By next year, Nigerians would have miraculously survived eight years of the All Progressives Congress. Fairness would only be able to draw conclusions and concrete comparisons after the current administration is long gone. But between sixteen years of the Peoples Democratic Party in Nigeria during which our democracy became lootocracy and seven (soon to be eight) years of the All Progressives Congress during which our democracy has been transmogrified into killocracy, Nigerians would stand transfixed by the clan of hyenas and the pack of jackals that have led them in the decades since the congregation of crocodiles returned to the barracks.
It has been a horror story hoisted into the hemisphere. Many of those who cuddled sand and stones as naked children in the early 90s and early 2000s while playing hide and seek through the years of military dictators and when the country returned to democracy in 1999 have now grown up to refine the rules of the game of hide and seek they played as children. This is because survival in Nigeria today means that you cannot hide properly, terror would seek you out.
Mr. Peter Obi is not your typical Nigerian politician. In many ways he bucks the trend. His is an orchestra of oddities.
He is a man of institutions having properly graced the groves of the academe unlike some Nigerian politicians chased everywhere they go by allegations of certificate forgery like flies coasting after fecal matter. The Harvard Business School, the London School of Economics among others count the astute Anambra state-born banker as their alumnus.
A man of institutions, he was the solid rock upon which secondary schools in Anambra state which today continue to hold their own in national and international competitions were built.
He was the man of institutions who put his faith in Nigerias judiciary in those heady days when the PDPs ruthlessly efficient election rigging machine was serviced by some pliable judges. It was his shrill cries for justice – which effectively halted the flight of the hawk that was making away with the hens only chick - that drew the attention of Nigerias highest courts, squeezing out in the process a couple of watershed judgments that have since gone on to serve as the fullers soap and refiners fire with which the country`s political space has been sanitized to some extent.
Under the watch of a man who has tasted and seen judicial independence and impartiality in Nigeria, Nigerians can expect that their judges will not be roused from sleep in the dead of the night on phantom allegations of corruption by those under whose watch sleep has been murdered in the country. Neither will Nigerians fear that courtrooms would at any time be stormed by those who would prefer that court proceedings are held in their backyards under their bootheels.
It was he who as Anambra State Governor ended the culture of political pilgrims enjoying all-expense paid trips to the Holy lands from government coffers. He was said to have told all those who could not fund their personal frolics to stay back as public funds were meant for public projects and nothing else. Today, Nigeria`s teeming political pilgrims to Jerusalem and Saudi Arabia need to be told as much in no uncertain terms.
Nigerians can also remember how Mr. Peter Obi famously stood his ground when one of Nigeria`s most notorious political prophets tried to strongarm him into announcing how much he was donating at a public church event.
But between Nigeria and Mr. Peter Obi, who holds the pot of porridge? Who among the two is more prudent about buying the other`s birthright? Given his painstaking prudence, it would seem it is Mr. Peter Obi. If only a thoroughly famished country can give him its birthright for four years, in consummation of a match that would be made in heaven, Nigeria can expect to change forever. For good.
Mr. Peter Obi has reportedly said he will not give money to his Party`s delegates who will participate in the primaries to vote for him. Given the notoriety of the spendthrifts who make up the Peoples Democratic Party, an unsightly confrontation beckons especially if he stands his ground as many suspect he would.
However, what Nigeria and Nigerians need is not someone who doles out public funds to their cronies and concubines at will. No. What Nigeria really needs is someone who will sew up the holes in the public purse, work assiduously to grow that purse, while causing Nigerians to see incremental changes in their lives in an environment free of the tantrums of terror. Nigerians must accept to reject those who rob Peter to pay Paul.
Now that the position of the sun has been properly identified, if the eye of the fish is not properly pierced, let those who fail to spear unerringly not be heard to say that it was because they were squinting from the sun.
Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com
