Michael Orodare: 2015 Elections – Threading the path of war (Y! Politico)

by Michael Orodare

Elections

Threading the path of war is definitely not the right way to the 2015 elections; it is a route which should never be taken if we sincerely want to keep intact this 99-year old union.

An American Politician, Claude Pepper said: “If more politicians in this country were thinking about the next generation instead of next election, it might be better for…the world.” But it’s quite unfortunate that ours is a society where thought about the next generation seems not to exist on the agenda of most politicians.

The 2015 election is 677-days from now, but it seems like the election is holding next month, going by the threats and counter-threats of war everyday about the election; mostly from the North which feels it’s the turn of the region to produce the next President, same from the South-South, which also feels their son deserves a second term as a constitutional right. The fear of the South-Southerners is fathomable, theirs is the feeling of; “if we don’t do it now, we might never have the opportunity to rule this nation in the next 50years,” as a minority group in a heterogeneous nation like Nigeria.

Today, the mentality of an average Nigerian is that; “if our son gets there, he will better the lots of our region.” While this is so sad, this is where we have found ourselves as a nation. But do we need to be threatened to vote for GEJ or any other candidate from any geo-political zone of the country in 2015? We didn’t vote at gun point in 2011, why should we do so in 2015? What if GEJ or any other candidate from the north gets their party’s ticket and loses at the poll, who will they wage ‘the war’ against?

If you also ask the man from the South-East, he will also tell you Ndigbo has been marginalised and it’s their turn to be the President. Who told you a Yoruba man cannot make a better President if given the opportunity, will be the response of a man from the South-West.

We ignored this threat in the heat up to the 2011 elections, we saw it as a threat from toothless lions, but it became a reality after the election, we saw what happened in the North after the result of the Presidential election was announced, scores of youths with promising future were ‘wasted’ in the course of service to their father land.

Now, we have been receiving threats in greater folds than we had in 2011, as every region wants to produce the President come 2015, believing it is their turn to be in charge. There is fire on the mountain! Do they want us to go to polling units with bullet proof vests? And when did future election switch from being a resort for hope to a threat? If this is what they have for us as we approach 2015, then it would be safe to tell the youth corps members to stay off INEC ballot boxes, either as ad hoc staff or whatever they may be recruited by INEC to do. We can’t afford to mourn any of them as it was after the 2011 Presidential election.

But if the aim of those beating the drums of war is to scare us away from the polling units with their war threats, then they should be told that they this is a different generation which can never be scared from supporting and voting whoever they feel is capable to run the affairs of this nation. Gone are those days of intimidation. This generation of ours can never be intimidated not to right the wrong in the society through threats. Come 2015, select wisely, vote the candidate of our choice and employ any available device to protect our votes, we shall speak in one voice with our votes.

Those beating the drums of war in the South should, if they are serious about holding on to power beyond 2015, ask their son to concentrate and put in more efforts to turn the fortune of this nation around for the better, as we are at present not moving at the right pace. Gone are the days of sympathy votes.

The ‘elder statesmen’ in the North should also note that threats of war and destruction will neither do any good to their region with some parts fast becoming a desolate. Their threats might sound un-inciting to them, but in the Northern region where the subjects take the words of their leaders like the word of a god, their threats go beyond just setting agenda for public discussion, it goes a long way in inciting their subjects to resort to war and destruction if things don’t work in their favour, like we witnessed in 2011. If this happens, the casualties according to JP Clark will not only be “those who started the fire and now cannot put to out.”

Threading the path of war is definitely not the right way to the 2015 elections; it is a route which should never be taken if we sincerely want to keep intact this 99-year old union.

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Michael Olanrewaju Orodare has worked in the Office of the Chief Press Secretary to the Ondo State Governor as a Media Assistant. He has garnered experience writing in the The Nation Newspaper working with the paper’s Sunday Desk. He leans towards the Labour Party. He blogs at www.michaelorodare.blogspot.com and tweets from @MichaelOrodare

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

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