Politicians, save yourselves and save Nigeria, by Seth Akintoye 

I doubt if any Nigerian politician will make heaven if God were to really judge every lie, every deceit, every wickedness, and every act of looting of the commonwealth by our politicians!

Jesus Christ, in an encounter with a young rich man, who craves for the Kingdom of God, asks him to go and sell all he has and give to the poor before he could make heaven! The young man has justified himself, relying on his wealth and self-righteousness, rather than relying on the grace of God. But, Jesus, in the event recorded in Matthew 19: 24, says: “And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

We all know that it is physically impossible for a camel, with its humongous size, to enter the eye of a needle, which a thread, as narrow as it is, finds very difficult to enter, except with a painstaking effort of a tailor!

There are two types of misdeeds in public office, if you like, sins: the sin of commission and the sin of omission. There are evil acts deliberately done by people; there are acts done by mistake or carelessness! But in the eyes of the law: ignorance of the law is not an excuse. The Bible also agrees with this legal proposition, but goes further to impose a higher order in James 2: 10: “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.”

At the weekend I saw a post on one of the WhatsApp groups I belong to. The post is full of blatant lies about a presidential candidate of a particular party. The post called the candidate several unprintable names, and deliberately said the man didn’t graduate from a university he claimed to have graduated from!

Funnily enough, I have a friend and former teacher, who was a classmate of the candidate at that institution. My friend had even posted on Facebook some weeks ago a statement to correct the wrong impression and lies about the candidate, saying the candidate actually graduated. But it is like nobody is interested in the truth anymore in Nigeria!

When I posted my reaction to correct the wrong impression, thinking that it was a mistake or that it was based on ignorance. I got this response that shocked me:

“In politics, like all other games and products, you scout for everything that will de-market your opponents, you scrutinise everything that partakes to them, then you hit very had. Why should the candidate present only GCE to INEC? ….Manifesto only matters during the UPN days. Leadership is getting worse by the day. Except by divine intervention Nigeria is done for.”

Supporters of other presidential candidates have embarked on the same perfidy, all in the name of “de-marketing” (only God knows what the term means) their opponents, with a view of garnering more votes for their candidates in the February 2023 polls.

So, politicians know the truth, but deliberately embark on lies, and character assassination to obtain support and popularity? This is wickedness and an unpardonable act! I even learnt that a didactic campaign and realistic manifesto that would help the cause of the common man ended with the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo era. That all a politician needs now to win elections are lies, deceptions, and pulling your opponent down! The electorate should not expect anything extraordinary from the campaigns that kick off this week. Don’t hope to get anything soothing or assuring other than deceit and character assassination.

Nigerian politics has entered a new phase where all that is required to win elections are lies, character assassination, and propaganda! No wonder there has not been any serious governance in the country in the last three decades or so. The politicians are sharing more money and getting stinking rich while the common man is getting poorer; politicians are building more houses while more other Nigerians are becoming homeless; politicians are acquiring more luxury vehicles while more other citizens are trekking about without transport fares in their pockets. More children of the poor are out of school while children of politicians attend elite schools abroad. The suicide rate is on the rise among young persons out of frustration, after a failed attempt to make it in life. Desperation has been the middle name of many others who want to Jappa (a term now used for emigration) at all costs!

This is a dangerous phase in our politics and country that patriotic Nigerians, especially the youth, should kick against with all their power and overbearing majority, to save this country from total descent into chaos and primitivism. While civilised nations are advancing their democracies with openness, truthfulness, transparent elections, television and radio programmes to educate the electorate, Nigeria is sinking deeper into opaqueness, primordial sentiments, and character assassination. Some presidential candidates are even afraid of facing the TV camera! What a pity! Maybe they are relying on rigging! This is sad!

General Muhammadu Buhari’s government has earned the appellation of a total failure, because of its inability to resolve some daunting and critical national issues such as insecurity, high rate of inflation, decaying educational institutions,  hunger, declining healthcare, and rapid falling rate of the national currency, which is fast becoming a mere takanda, to use the Hausa name for paper! Buhari will write his name in gold if he conducts a fair and free election in February to disappoint those who might want to win by rigging.

But there’s hope for our politicians if they are ready to make right their way! To the disciples who have thought the standard is too high, making it very difficult, if not impossible, to enter the Kingdom of God, hear this admonition from God Himself: “But Jesus looked at  them and said to them,  ‘With men this is impossible, but with God all  things are possible.”‘

It is possible to have a new Nigeria where there is peace, justice, abundance, and real development. It’s possible to have good public schools again in Nigeria. It’s possible to have good healthcare as we used to have in the 60s. It’s possible to eat three-square meals again such as witnessed in the time of national abundance. It’s still possible to get good infrastructure in Nigeria. Everything is still possible again!  But it all depends on our politicians. I hope they will seize this tide that leads to fortune or ends up in shallow and misery. A word is enough for the wise!