The commentary below is one of hundreds of contributions to "Nigeria, What Next?", allAfrica.com's debate on the best way forward for Africa's most populous nation after April '03's contested election.
There is no doubt that this electoral process was greatly influenced by unholy forces. I do not need an international Monitoring group in Nigeria to say the obvious.
It is rather shameful that Nigerians still considered what we had with Obasanjo a democracy, I did not see it. What I saw was a strategic rearrangement in positions of the same ruling class. A total caricature of the meaning of democracy in the strictest African traditional sense.
Go back to the history of Nigeria since Independence and tell me how many of the old time politicians, that have brought nothing to our great nation but doom, are not represented in the present dispensation. Does it mean that after Obasanjo and his cohorts ruled Nigeria in Khaki and ordered the shooting of Nigerian students who were demonstrating to be heard, that we are yet to produce a Nigerian who is less dumb and more idealistic than Obasanjo.
Why must we always settle for less and allow criminality as a norm yet we want to move ahead? Do you think that it was a coincidence that these other dumber, no-good aspirants made up of stooges, inciters of religious violence, selfish revolutionists and self-acclaimed saviors of our freedom were the only ones that scaled the hurdle of party nominations?
The truth is that the system was set up to operate like that, from the day Obasanjo went into power through the day the party leaderships were instituted. Most times , we swallow our sputum and sink our objections because the thief is our thief. I want to contend that the apparent victory of the ruling party in the South west was not as a result of informed voting but because the voters have been programmed to vote a certain symbol, due to the limited literacy level of majority of the voters who have to choose from the gamut of party acronyms on the ballot paper.
I have since resolved to hold my head high wherever I find myself on the earth's surface regardless of all attempts by our leaders, forty plus years after independence, to move us an inch forward. For personal reasons, Obasanjo will not give up the citadel of power and accept that the dynamism of today's Nigeria and the involvement of the Nigerian Nation as a member of the International community far exceeds what a training in the infantry unit of Nigerian Army prepared him for.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
What we see today around the world and in the region is a clarion call for our Nigerian nation to step up to its responsibilities of being a reliable agent in the continent by, first of all, catering for the needs of the people and providing those basic things which will enable the economy to be self-sustaining.
Inasmuch as I appreciate the availability of cellular phones in Nigeria, I would still not award any political merit point to the Obasanjo administration, because it was not one of the fundamental basic needs of the grassroots, everyday people. I know some people would want to crucify me for this, but I would not tender apologies. I love my country so much to express my heartfelt opinions.
Having said that, I do not have any pity for those that contested and lost either, because it was only another investment decision that has not yielded expected dividends; but never mind, it is still too early to cry foul... Obasanjo's government is inclusionary; when the new government is set up, individual differences and feelings will be considered. What better way of ending a series of stage managed law suits of electoral malpractices. My heart weeps for my beloved Nigeria!
Johnken Anyanwu, San Francisco, California
22 Apr 2003
