By John Ikani
Nigerian politicians met in London last week in continuation of a series of foreign junketing most likely bankrolled by taxpayers’ money for horse-trading.
Weeks before the London meetings, we heard/read about their gatherings in Spain and Turkey. The joke in town is that our junketting politicians may as well meet in North Korea to forge more alliances ahead of the 2023 election.
Beyond the outrage that the meetings weren’t held back home in Nigeria, citizens of Africa’s most populous country have largely failed to question the arrière-pensée of the cunning politicians who project the foreign trips as anything but self-serving even when their antecedents prove the contrary.
For self-acclaimed leaders who have doctors abroad and children schooling in foreign countries with established businesses domiciled outside Nigeria, it should be least shocking that they travelled abroad “to seek solutions to Nigeria’s problems.”
A report from one of the outcomes of the London meetings has it that a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Nyesom Wike and his allies are demanding that the flagbearer of the party, Atiku Abubakar commits to serving one term – put in writing – as one of the conditions to support his bid for presidency come 2023.
In essence, they did not only fly to London but selfishly decided the likely fate of Nigeria, by ascribing limitations to tenure in absence of the Nigerian people. That should give us an idea of how much impunity governs Nigeria and just how what we call democracy is not democracy in the eyes of power brokers.
Outcomes of similar meetings in London by chieftains of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) are largely yet to see the light of day. All these buttress the fact that in the build-up to 2023, the contentions are not about programmes, policies, and ideals. What we are witnessing are cold calculations, personal interest, ethnicity, religion etc.
In as much as these people sit down and arrogate to themselves the right to determine the direction Nigeria sails without due consultation with the Nigerian people, citizens ought to wake up and understand that they are the lowest indices in the reckoning of those who are asking to rule us.
Sadly, it is not only the only self-serving politicians whose interests were misconstrued as representing those of Nigerians, elder statesmen led by Former President Olusegun Obasanjo are in the mix of what can be best described as self-preservatory moves.
Addressing newsmen on Sunday about his interests in the London meeting and subsequent meeting with two Former Heads of State in Minna, Obasanjo said he doesn’t have a special candidate but a national agenda but withheld giving details.
In all, Nigerians should not confuse the interest of elder statesmen and politicians – who believe they own Nigeria – with those of ordinary citizens who end up holding the short end of the stick at the end of political charades.
The onus is upon the masses to wake up and tread the path to freedom by identifying and promoting our interests. It’s about time we identify with issue-based campaigns and seek to make leaders out of patriots who practice what they preach by putting the country first and showing readiness to make sacrifices.
