By Taiwo Irebami
As we approach the elections postponed until March, as a young intellectual in my final year at a Nigerian university, I have found some conversations, actions and conclusions around the polity interesting and some of them even beats my intelligence. I keep asking myself that are these people worthy of the certificate they claim to possess or is it us the citizens that lack the intelligence to understand and think critically.
First, it was the announcement of the postponed election by Professor Attahiru Jega, the major reason he gave was insecurity amid all issues from his letter to Nigerians, which I really find interesting. Now what acts does the Nigerian Armed Forces plan to play differently in March that cannot be done in February? Do they want to recruit and train new men in the next six weeks? Do they want to purchase and deliver arms and ammunition for the safety of the voters and the citizenry during the elections in the space of six weeks? Do they want to stop insurgency in those six weeks, when they have continuously failed in the task of putting an end to the Abiku child of terrorism in this last two years? These are questions for our philosophical musings.
Second and most interesting is a statement that was published in an online newspaper credited to the Commander in Chief of Armed Forces- who now prefers to be called Mr President- at the Lord’s Chosen Charismatic Movement church. Online media reported that the Mr President said that politicians should not use the church as a platform for their political campaigns. However, days before then he was at the Redeemed Christian Church of God for the monthly programme held at the Redemption Camp, and weeks before that he was at Bishop Oyedepo’s Living Faith Worldwide for the usual Sunday church service. Has the president forgotten the popular saying, “Your actions speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say?” Does he think he is the only one that has a brain? Why has he fixed his church visits to coincide with the period when campaigns are at its peak? For what does this Mr President take us Nigerians?
Irebami is a final year student of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta. He tweets at @irebami_taiwo and wrote in from [email protected]
