TheCable

I highly honor the extraordinary and uncommon mother of the modern-day South-Africa, Winnie Mandela, who graciously and gallantly checked out of the planet-earth at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on the 2nd of April, 2018. She was both a draped-queen and a dogged-fighter. Without the sustained role she played during the long incarceration of her husband, late Nelson Mandela we wouldn’t have achieved the towering result he ended up having—within the context of birthing a free nation—The Republic of South-Africa.

Virtually every great leader has feet of clay! Winnie had her own, but the truth is; what she sacrificed, her blistering labour and undying love for the disadvantaged South-Africans exceed and cover her feet of clay. Mama Winnie was never tired of fighting for what she believed to be right. If death had come forty years before 2nd of April, 2018, she would have fought and won it. I am of the opinion that death didn’t defeat her; she only chose to check out of her earth-suit—after exhausting her time on earth.

It is an understatement to say that she led a fulfilled life. Even a day old baby knows she lived her life to the fullest! It is my earnest prayer that God will raise many “Winnie” for us in Nigeria. Nigeria truly is in a dire need of caring mothers, not political and selfish mothers, who are out there to steal as men. May this prayer be answered before I finish in Nigeria and on earth!

Four days ago, the APC released six (6) names of looters and two (2) days after, another script of looters was released. After the release of the melodramatic second-batch list, the PDP also released theirs, ending up asking the INEC to proscribe the APC for campaigning with ‘looted’ funds, since Mr. President was too poor to even purchase APC nomination form! In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbodiyan, the party gave the Buhari-led presidency a three-day ultimatum to respond to allegations that PMB was elected with looted funds or the APC would find itself top on the list of confirmed looters.

When the first looters’ script came out from the theater of the APC, I knew that the drama for 2019 has started. For those who do not know, the PDP and APC are together. Do not let them fool you. They are all friends and share contracts amongst themselves. They are only deceiving the credulous and unsuspecting citizens. They eat hot “amala” and drink cold “beer” together. At nights, they laugh at irrational citizens—who do not understand their varied scripts. I do not need to be a seer to know that nothing is going to come out of the ongoing drama—in our both polity and politics.

When I looked at the two looters’ scripts, being stage-managed by the ruling party, I couldn’t see many PDP members who have become members of the APC. In order words, if those whose names are being bandied now can join the reigning political party on or before the end of this year, their names too would disappear from the looters’ script as the name of one of the prominent members of the PDP, who is now a member of the APC. He is even running to become a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria come 2019!

Also, when I looked at the first and second looters’ scripts and I couldn’t see the name of one of the former core-members of Mr. President’s ineffective team, I knew that we have taken two steps forward and four steps backward. It is now very clear to me that an individual can never change Nigeria. I came to this painful conclusion after observing OBJ and PMB. The answer to the varied problems facing Nigeria is not in the hand of one man, it is within the reach of well structured and effective Institutions. Until all our Institutions are made to start working productively, there is no hope for us as a people.

The APC has no moral right to come to equity without their hands being washed with “hypo.” It is a waste of time when the kettle is shouting from the housetop that the pot is black. For now, in Nigeria, governance is a multi-trillion naira business. And as long as our elections remain expensive, we would continue to swim (with back-float style) with corruption in the pool of politics. A poor man (who truly wants to serve the country) cannot become even a councillor in Nigeria if he is not sponsored by some corrupt tin-gods, so when he gets to power, his hands would become tied, because he must pay back those who put him there.

I have said it before and I want to say it again: even if Buhari spends twenty (20) more years in power, he cannot change Nigeria a hoot. I humbly say that the capacity to make Nigeria a great nation is not in him. He is clearly not a national leader. He does not have the charisma to bring all of us together as one. And he does not have the required leadership skills to lead a complex-nation as ours in this day and time. PMB has tried his best, though not enough to make us a great nation. The greatest decision he’s going to make in his life will be to go back home in 2019. I hope he listens to me, not those who are using him to pay their bills.