Nigeria’s advanced beyond Awo – Zik-Bello Politics

By Simon Njoku

It is indeed surprising and irritating that the old generation political war horses are today falling back on the primordial mode of politicking to attain expected political goals.
In the pre-and post-independence years as well as the Second Republic (the ’80s),
politicians of this era swayed voters with appeals to ethnic and religious sentiments. Issue or idea-centred political campaigns received less attention.

Such sentiments were also invoked when opportunities for appointments into key or juicy positions came up for grabs. Regrettably, the masses fought these battles for the few well-to-do and their cronies who later abandon them. They are only remembered when such opportunities are thrown up again and the shifty politicians would pacify the angry masses with crumbs from their tables. Today’s old-generation politicians have still operated along this line.

This is even though over the past few decades, especially since the return to Civilian rule in 1999, Nigerians, from all walks of life, have demonstrated their resolve to rise above ethnic and religious politics.
Their voting pattern in all elections including the recent February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections reflects this. Their voting pattern cuts across ethnic and religious cleavages, an indication of their determination to live peacefully together irrespective of their ethnic and religious differences.

Now, those old-generation politicians and their sycophants, whose inhuman and self-centred policies over the years had impoverished the nation and its people and turned Nigeria into the poverty capital of the world, are at it again.
Starting from their humiliating defeat by the Obedient Movement at the recent polls, they have gone back to their old ways of politicking. In their bid to avoid another humbling experience at the Gubernatorial elections slated for March 18, 2023, the old brigade politicians especially in Lagos, Southwest Nigeria, have resorted to fanning embers of hatred and whipping up ethnic sentiments against their Igbo brothers and sisters as in the days of Zik, Awo and Bello, all First Republic politicians.

These are to intimidate and cajole them to prevent the group from participating in the gubernatorial election in Lagos.

Little do they realize that contemporary Nigerian politics operates at a level beyond that of the Zik-Awo-Bello era. Nigerian politics today is technology driven such that any claim is easily verified. Any appeal to tribalism or religion is easily cross-checked with facts on the ground. So, these days, politicians can no longer pull wool over people’s eyes.
Technology has also curbed the excesses of the First and Second Republic politics characterized by ballot box stuffing, ballot box snatching and all forms of manual election rigging devices. That is why after massively rigging the February 25, 2023, Presidential election using their old rigging formula and the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC) key officials as facilitators, the high technology deployed in the election is compelling INEC, against its will, to regurgitate the votes it swallowed up in favour of certain candidates.

What is happening now should persuade the old-generation politicians to step aside. They are confounded by modern technology and should refrain from taking us back to the dark era.
Modern technology is domiciled in the hearts and the heads of the youths, the future leaders of this nation, for whom that future has come and begins today with the 2023 Presidential and other elections.
Their overwhelming support for Peter Gregory Obi, the symbol of their struggle and face of the New Nigeria they are determined to create, which translated to a resounding victory for Obi in the Presidential Election, clearly serves as a clarion call for the old generation of politicians to quietly take a bow out of the political stage so that Nigeria can move forward.

Nigeria has advanced beyond Zik, Awo and Bello’s kind of politics. This is why despite shutting Peter Gregory Obi, leader of the youths’ movement known as the Obidients, out of conventional media establishments owned by those politicians that boasted of having extensive political structure, during the presidential election campaigns, Obi still dealt them a humiliating blow at the polls. The Obidients whose membership cuts across the nation and across ethnic and religious divides, are resolved on taking Nigeria back from the greedy and selfish politicians who have impeded the nation’s growth and development over the years. The youths strongly believe in Obi and his promise of moving the country from a consumer nation to a global production hub, culminating in economic prosperity, technological advancement, domestic peace, and political stability.

The good news is that the Nigerian populace has bought into these ideals espoused by Obi/Datti and the Labour Party (LP), going by their overwhelming vote for him at the Presidential Election.
But the establishment politicians frown at this huge endorsement of Obi by Nigerians and have come up with various devious schemes to deny him victory.
Moreover, it is alleged that they have perfected plans to rig the Labour Party’s gubernatorial and state assembly candidates out of those positions at the March 18, elections.

But Obidients remain undeterred. There is no going back. The die is cast. Come March 18, 2023, Obidients will once again troop out to the polls and vote their choice candidates to power. No amount of blackmail can stop the movement and its flag bearers.
The youths hold the ace – technology. The old brigade should by no means be allowed to circumvent the technology the law has approved for the election. It exposes all their antics, and manipulations. It constrains all forms of electoral subterfuge hitherto perpetrated by INEC officials undetected.
Indeed, the era of Zik-Awo-Bello politics is far gone.

Importantly, after the gubernatorial elections, the Obidients’ attention will then shift to the Courts for the full battle for the reclaim and restoration of Obi’s stolen Presidential mandate! Again, technology is key. Technology evidence should speak loudly.
No retreat, No surrender.

We Move!!! We Move!!! Move!!!

Simon Njoku, the Obidient. March, 2023.