Newsfront Online …Telling the Public as it is
By Saviour Ekpe
Oftentimes, we hear politicians especially those aspiring to lead Nigeria particularly the present crop of presidential candidates say, “I am determined to develop Nigeria”, “my ambition is to make Nigeria great”, “I want to bring development to Nigeria”, “I am coming to bring prosperity to every Nigerian”, all those jingoism are fake and nothing to write home about, they are just sweet mouth talk and Nigerians are weary of them since independent.
We are used to Nigeria’s political leadership and mesmerizing words such as, “love Nigeria, make Nigeria great”, “vision 202020”, “I will construct roads, creation jobs, tackle insecurity, etc.”, “I will Restructure Nigeria”, “I will Reform and Strengthen the Judiciary System”, “I will enforce the Freedom of Information Act”, “I will establish 31 industries in each of the local government areas”, “I will stabilise the Naira, kill or end corruption, “I will establish three million Jobs per year” among several others. In its truism, Nigerians are very hardworking people, therefore, no Nigerian expect a politician to give them food to eat. What Nigerians demand of any politician is the provision of basic amenities such as roads, electricity, affordable medicare, access to good education by Nigerian children, good drinking water; ironically, Nigerians are used to providing these basic amenities for themselves while politicians are also used to using these needs and desires to dangle before this poor electorate for votes, enough of all these empty, unfulfilled promises by empty politicians.
As 2023 general elections resurface, politicians also emerged with the same old promises but their lies and empty promises have been punctured. Why do I say this? Very few instances I will present in this article. on Friday, the 16th day of September, 2022 when a diasporan group, Diaspora Medics for Good Governance (DM4GG) staged a free lab test, free treatment and administration of free drugs on the major ailment in Asaba, Delta State, Nigeria in support of Peter Obi, the Presidential candidate of Labour Party, unfortunately, the PDP Vice Presidential candidate, Senator Dr. Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa, the Governor of Delta State under the directive of the PDP Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar sent heavily armed security forces to shot sporadically, scattered the people, destroyed very expensive medical equipment and drugs yet, these are the people that say, “I want to develop Nigeria, I will give you good health care”.
Similarly, the governors of Imo State, Sen. Hope Uzordima and his Ebonyi State counterpart, Engr. David Umahi on the order of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the APC Presidential candidate sent heavily armed security personnel to disrupt a group of men and women who went on the streets in support of Peter Obi, the Presidential candidate of Labour Party, just to get them intimidated, scared though the Imo State group, knowing their constitutional rights and provisions went ahead, beat the threat and held their support match. Again, these are the men that love Nigeria and want to develop it.
Now that Nigerians have arisen in one voice and said, “enough is enough, we are going to choose our leader this time around, we trust the person of Peter Obi, he is the man who will take the country to the Eldorado and we are ready to go with him all the way”, why the fear, why the intimidation, why the threat? Now that the hypocrisy of Nigerian leaders is exposed by their promised and failed attitude coupled with their inordinate ambitious attitude, Nigerians especially the Nigerian youths have awakened from their slumber and said, “enough is enough of political harlotry and hypocrisy”.
