When you see Peter Obi moving from one part of the country to another and globe trotting without inhibitions, check very well, he represents something different which attracts hope in an economy that keeps depressing citizens without any cure in sight.
Right now, it is not about Obi possessing the magic wand that will turn around Nigeria, no. The polity is fouled with politicians who have not only mismanaged the commonwealth but are also brazenly displaying gross indifference to the feeling of the masses.
There must be something in this former governor that gives Abuja sleepless nights.This man does not have the towering figure of Goliath. His muscles are not iron – packed like Power Mike’s. However, when he moves, the government in power quakes.
Nigerians are not really bothered about those whose hands pick our pockets, as long as the roads are in good condition, electricity is constant and food is affordably available. Why they are screaming today is that pick pockets have graduated to economic bandits, plundering existence out of compatriots.
How on earth does one explain that a country, full of milk and honey, has produced leaders whose joy lies in milking the populace dry. Today, we have the World Bank presiding over the country’s misery. The same global institution that came to Lagos in the 1970s carrying the bowl of a beggar.
Some Nigerian leaders are oppressors. Many of them have forgotten the past when Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe could mount a wooden table in Orlu nearly seven decades ago and campaign without heavily armed special forces distancing him from the crowd.
Chief Obafemi Awolowo did not need a squadron of mobile police officers to campaign in Ilesha. Alhaji Ahmadu Bello mixed freely with his people in far away Koton Karfe. Even the military used open roof automobiles and waved to the crowd during important visits.
What we have at present is nauseating. Many politicians carry the badge of honourable, including those who share local government allocations like slaughtered goat at a village meeting. The number of security details following these dishonourable cheer leaders can create one new military division in Owerri.
This is where Obi is different. He mingles with the people so effortlessly. The people have found in him, a man that relates and they can chant his name without any fear of arrest or detention.
The political climate has changed. Dr. Rabiu Kwankwaso is also another movement. For a man to positively quarantine Kano with his Kwankwasiyya troops, give him credit. We now have Obedients in a new national mix that flows like the River Niger.
Obi and Kwankwaso appeal more to the people because they do not display grandeur dressed in verbosity. They are simple men by nature. While many who should speak truth to power have remained dumb since subsidy on petroleum products was removed on May 29, 2023, more men are standing to be counted, on the side of impoverished compatriots.
John Cardinal Onaiyekan, at 82, has seen the best of Nigeria. He cannot go hungry because of his rank in the Roman Catholic Mission. If politicians are bent of destroying Nigeria, this priest has a permanent home in Rome. The country needs bold servants of GOD. Here is one.
A hello trip to Aso Villa with his fellow Catholic leaders has turned him to the Man they cannot ignore. Cardinal Onaiyekan looked President Bola Tinubu straight in the face and told him the gospel truth about the state of the nation. Those who do not know History and claim to be be managing the president’s image have known no sleep ever since.
To condemn the Cardinal is to underestimate the Roman Catholic Church. When the Somoza family gripped Nicaragua with iron hands, the Archbishop of Managua, Miguel Obando y Bravo, dared power.
And it was because he did not believe in Ghana Must Go gifts that the people stood with him. He famously rejected president Anastasio Somoza Debayle”s Mercedes Benz gift. Bravo, a brave priest, did not look back. That encouraged the church to rise against dictatorship.
Roman Catholic priests belong to different Orders. There are Jesuits, Franciscans, Salesians and Dominions. In Nicaragua, oppression turned many of them to Liberation Theologists. It was therefore little surprise that Sandinista guerillas adored them.
When Daniel Ortega became president in 1979, there were three priests in his cabinet. Miguel d’ Escoto Brookman and the Cardenal Brothers, Fernando and Ernesto, shaped the early days of Sandinista rule. In 2011, Brookman was Libya’s face in the United States.
When Tinubu adopted the Muslim/Muslim ticket in 2023, Nigeria quaked. He has done it again. Onaiyekan represents the feelings of Christians in Nigeria. Turning this beautiful land into an Islamic country will not work. For God’s sake, this is 2026. We do not want a Holy War or Crusade.
Boko Haram is lesson enough. This Muslim/ Muslim anomaly will invite wahala. Christians are not cowards. Those in power should be reminded that dictatorship in Nicaragua forced Liberation Theologists to join hands with Sandinista Revolutionaries against the Somoza family.
Tinubu is Yoruba and understands that the people manage Christianity and Islam. The president is married to a Christian priest. Obi is serious headache. Kwankwaso is acute malaria. Onaiyekan has come as cancer. Muslim/ Muslim may just be a final stroke.
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