Hardly had we opened our eyes...

Hardly had we opened our eyes than we saw our parents being unleashed of their grips to the basics of life. Beaten by poverty, inflation and inability to meet with their responsibilities of giving us the life every Nigerian child deserves, in psychiatric terms, we were "traumatized." Most of my mate were in primary school as of June 12 1993, or just getting into high school. Though we couldn't rationalize the folly that followed the annulment of our audacity of hope, we didn't know that we were witnessing a moment that will make our lives worse than ever, as if that was not enough, it was followed by constant acts of repeated aggression, we knew shame, pain, humiliation and more hunger, but those moment of persistent humiliation that didn't kill us, has only made us stronger, far from forcing us into submission, we'd rather opt for exile and plunge ourselves into an intolerable contradiction and insurmountable rebellion, which sooner or later our corrupt leaders and their families will have to dearly pay for.

If anomalies are really what make this world go around, make some nations powerful and causes others to develop, then little i wonder, if the case of Nigeria is an exception. I would like to believe that the challenge for most post "wasted-generation" Nigerians of my time is almost like rebuking a curse. As of 1983, Chinua Achebe already made it known that "the trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership." He pressed further by saying "There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land and climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which is the hallmark of leadership".

27 years later, our problem is getting even more complex. These past days, I made a sneak into Nigeria for few days – after almost a year of self exile – for an artistic project that will soon be popular in the public sphere. In the midst of my very busy schedule in Lagos, I still managed to indirectly engage people on their aspirations for the 2011 election and what their thought on Nuhu Ribadu was, incredibly most of the answers I got was "…oh do you think Ribadu can win Jonathan, PDP is still a strong force to reckon with on national politics, me i don't want to trow my vote away o, I'm voting for GJ" that’s not really how they put it, but something like that... Instead of voting for PDP for fear of defeat, won't we rather make an attempt to take hold of our collective destiny in our own hands? I MUSE!

Being in Lagos again made me realized how we have been fed again and again by, with and on junks; quality and quantity have become allies, it's only a matter of alternative, and if people are products of what they "eat", then it explains why we find it very easy to switch from one logic of existence to the other depending on the mood, switching from Left to right depending on the level of risks, and that’s sad. In every sane corners of the world, politics and governance are based on ideas; our founding fathers made this clear to us. In 1993, the two major political parties then, explain this better. SDP - Social Democratic Party represented a clear socialist ideology, which could be referred to as a little to the left, while NRC - National Republican Convention, was more of the right wing, with a capitalist Ideology, so in this it was clear that we couldn't mix things up between.

There is no doubt that Goodluck Jonathan is a better option to IBB, but there are still better options to GJ. If we trail the lane of history, it is clear that it is those cabal of SDP and the military elite that conspired in annulling our struggles for emancipation in 1993, this same elite class had incessantly hijacked the nation in different disguises since the first coup d’état in 1966, hence the major reason for our underdevelopment and national retardation. While in Lagos I wondered. Could it possibly be that my intuition was pacing above space and time? Or the Nigerian populace is not just ready for the kind of change an angry man like Nuhu Ribadu might bring to us? Such change which will surely take away a certain kind of liberty that we all enjoy through a corrupt system. With my little understanding of the affairs of governance, there is always a huge gap between the masses who demand an immediate, unconditional improvement of their situation, and the anti-change cadres who fears the scarcities that is likely to be created by such change.

This lot that turned independence from colonial rule to their advantage, are driven mostly by their thirst for power and social relevance. Until now Nigeria is still pretty much a one party state, a party of big people, run by big people and their only interest is empowering the already empowered. This elite class attach primordial importance and blind devotion to the cult they now call PDP, which in the end gives priority for the agendas of the cult over a rational study of the needs of the masses. So be you an angel from God or a villain from hell, once you run under the flagship of PDP, you are provided with the party’s propaganda and codes of conduct, which is much less prepared to respond to any unrelenting struggle for national liberation, but to respond to their coded languages and party slogans. There is no way GJ could jump-start this nation while the mesh of PDP is still tightly interlocked. We see this clearly played out between 2007 and now, nothing had changed, same old game that regimates the masses according to the predetermined schema. Hence; same old cry, same old tears for the majority of the masses. 2011 is fast approaching. The probability for our freedom is 1 out of 2. Do we fall for PDP's new national order or we give chance to change?