When Fela Durotoye Becomes President…By Jude Feranmi

A lot of things are running through my head right now and it seems difficult to be able to comprehend the shape of Nigerian politics, not with what happened recently in Ekiti state. The question then ask is this, Are we really ready for the so called change we are clamouring for, or we are just engaging ourselves in arguments and discussions to while away precious time.

Are we willing to give up the status quo for the promise of a change that might come and efinitelyly not overnight? Are we ready to let go of the bags of rice and the stipends we get during elections just so we can cast our votes for whichever of the devils is closer to us by tribal lines? Would we re elect the politician who wants change and is taking steps to ensure there is change or would such a person even get a chance to being elected in the first instance? I might as well go on and on but something I have learnt over the years is the real people to be preached to are out there in the streets and in NURTW garages waiting for their turns to load their buses so they can at least settle their daily bread. Applying the pareto principle just means I will rather focus on issues that affect my class of readers and repeat the same when I’m talking to the ‘youth in town’.

Bloggers and readers might as well start getting their pens ready for another 4 years of criticising Jonathan and writing about bombs detonating like bangers during Christmas if it is the case that the presidential candidate of the APC ( which they do not have yet – a sign of unseriousness to me) ends up losing to Goodluck Jonathan. The reason being that it does not appear that BH would be able to summon the courage to lay down their arms and GEJ has neither the competence nor the capacity nor the team that will see to the end of BH in Nigeria. He might as well be thinking, If people are dying in other countries, why not Nigeria? If GEJ does not have the balls to declare openly, who says he has the balls to rule the country. From an optimistic perspective though, another four years of a Jonathanian presidency will very much avail us the opportunity to prepare for a Fela Durotoye.

We would all verily agree with me that the difficulty in merging the politics of emerging as a president and performing very well as president without stepping on the toes of the cabals who brought you into that office is very much one of our problems in Nigeria. What we have and we might most likely continue to have is an influx of presidential candidates representing the interests of some cabalocracy over and above every other individual interest which is also over and above national interests. If only we could find a technocrat in the art of leadership and elect such, we would definitely have a different Nigeria in no less than eight years. So how can you achieve that? In a country where less than 40 million people decide who the next president is and you require about half of that population to be on your side, then you might as well look into the remaining 122 million people, if we decide to go by the last population census, carve out your own 20 million people, educate them politically, tell them about  a 2025 dream that will surely come to pass, wait for elections, campaign on an independent platform, wait for the election results and see if you emerge.

The questions that naturally come forth are, Is it that easy to bring 20 million people together under an umbrella? Do people just win elections that way in this country amidst the rigging and the violence and the undoubted power of the ‘RULING’ incumbent.? Of course, these questions are evidently valid, but permit my fantasy and my fallacies. I am just trying to be optimistic here. Only time will tell if GEMSTONE will be able to successfully gather as much as 20 million people before 2019. I hope it does, I really do. I hope GEJ loses in 2015 too, if only to tell the people of Ekiti that they would need another Fayemi to continue whatever he has started, not a GEJ that is promising a development he is not even sure he’ll be there to provide. What a way to declare your interest!!!

Loooooooooonnnnngggggg live the Federal Republic Of Nigeria.

Jude FERANMI
Tweets @juded27