25/05/2022
MEET NIGERIA'S NEXT PRESIDENT
By Philip Nweze
BARACK Obama was just a first-term senator from Illinois when he had the “audacity of hope” to run for president of the United States. It was not only an uphill task; it was an impossible one. To succeed, he had to confront, in the first instance, a principality of the American political firmament in the person of Hillary Clinton, wife of a former president, in the bid to secure the nomination of the Democratic Party. George HW Bush was an American phenomenon.
As far as his wife, Michelle, was concerned, Barack did not stand a chance. In the first place, he is an African-American. No Black man had ever become president of the United States. In the second, he was a greenhorn; neither well-known nor well-liked by the powers-that-be of the Democratic Party. Michelle was convinced Barack’s run for the presidency would be nothing but a waste of time and resources.
So Barack asked two of his strategists to talk with her. They sat her down and told her the innovations they had devised for defeating Hillary Clinton against all the odds. She listened respectfully and intently. By the time they finished, they had made a believer out of her. She became convinced that Barack would not only secure the nomination hands down but also go all the way to win the prize of the presidency.
That was the birth of a siren that rang all through the United States for the next few years: “Yes We Can.” The rest, as they say, is history. Barack Obama went on to become the 44th president of the United States. He was one of America’s youngest presidents, and the very first African-American to achieve that feat. He not only won the election handsomely in 2008 but he was also re-elected for a second term in 2012.
Dave Umahi is the Nigerian Barack Obama: a youthful upstart (politically speaking) that dared to confront the ancient juggernauts of the Nigerian political establishment. When he started his journey in 2015, he met skeptics along the highway. Many were convinced that the power of incumbency in Nigerian politics was too entrenched to be dislodged from its traditional supremacy. But he proved the naysayers wrong and landed himself the top job of Governor in defiance of the powers that be.
Today, it is increasingly clear, again, from the popular response to his candidacy for the office of President and from the incredible coalitions he has been able to make North and South of the Niger, that Ebonyi Governor is about to confound all expectations once more by not only dislodging the old horses in the game but by also becoming the very first Nigerian president of South-East extraction.
Like Obama, I believe Umahi’s audacity was impelled by thinking similar to that of the late Martin Luther King, who believed that, in all cases, tomorrow is always too late. Said King: “We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.”
When a building is on fire, you don’t wait till tomorrow to get the fire brigade; you become the fire brigade. Once an appendix has ruptured, there is no more time for prevaricating debate, and discussion; the patient must be wheeled into the operating theatre for immediate surgery. This is where we find ourselves in Nigeria today. The country is not only sick; it has gone into a coma. Things have fallen apart and the centre cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the land.
We owe a depth of gratitude that, in contra-distinction from the odd-jobbers of both the APC and the PDP; a man as dynamic, youthful, experienced, and imaginative as David has decided to come to the rescue of Nigeria.
Unlike the aged salesmen whose faces are flooding the two major parties who are busy trying to convince us that our poverty, insecurity, and hopelessness are in some incredulous way to our benefit, Umahi reminds us of youthful energy and boisterousness. His appearance tells a story of a young warrior with razor-sharp political talons.
In the words of Kingsley Moghalu: “Any society that does not regenerate its leadership with new blood cannot regenerate itself. It is clear to most Nigerians that the old, recycled politicians have failed and have nothing new to offer us.”
Fortunately, Governor Umahi is not only relatively young but also very experienced in statecraft and has verifiable track records as governor of a state.
The very same people that have run Nigeria aground are back on the stomps asking for our votes. The same people that have ignored our entreaties over the years are now wearing our clothes and winking at us. They are mouthing sweet-nothings and promising El Dorado. Why should any right-thinking Nigerian pay attention to them again? Why accept their new promissory notes when it's obvious their words carry no weight.
The smoke and mirrors of this campaign season are no longer working. The wise man’s adage says: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Those who have convinced themselves that Nigerians will agree to be fooled yet again are the very ones who are fooling themselves. In barely four years, Nigeria has become the poverty capital of the world with over 85 million of our people declared to be hungry-poor.
You cannot fool a man who is starving into believing he is fed. You cannot deceive a man who is jobless into believing he is employed. You cannot trick a man who lives under the bridge into believing he lives in a mansion. You cannot convince a man that you are the architect of the change he seeks when he cannot even change his clothes.
Importing politicial jobbers to rallies to give the impression that you are popular won't cut it anymore. All it does is fool the very architects of this tomfoolery into believing they are getting anywhere when they are going nowhere. Nigerians are already fed up with these pathetic tricks.
Away from all the shenanigans; one serious presidential candidate is flying under the radar on the platform of the All Progressive Congress (APC).
His name is David Nweze Umahi. In the past seven years, he has stamped his name on people's consciousness as a super performing Governor, bringing hope to the people of Ebonyi state; wielding youthfulness as a weapon for change.
We should be ashamed of ourselves if we ever elect and re-elect into office politicians whose failed leadership is directly responsible for our poverty today.
Umahi is, indeed, the voice of one crying in the Nigerian political wilderness. But lo and behold, like the John the Baptist of old, everyone is now flocking to his baptismal and responding to his jeremiads. His message is resonating. His vision is enlightening. His ideas are inspiring and challenging.
The Umahi train has long left the station. Earlier Doubting Thomas is now convinced his election is inevitable. Nigerians have had enough. They will not vote for the Tinubus and the Atikus of old again. They will no longer accept the lie that a Northern President is inevitable. We cannot continue again and again choosing the same tired people who have failed and now hope they will somehow succeed. Change does not emanate from repeating the same mistakes.
Change means opting this time for a new generation of Nigerian leadership; not too young to be chronically inexperienced, or too old to be terminally dyed-in-the-wool. The Engineer-Governor represents that middle passage to a bold and enterprising future. He is Nigeria’s passport to a transcendent future.
Don’t be surprised when you wake up the day after the presidential election to discover that David Umahi is the people’s choice to be Nigeria’s new president. He will confound the bookmakers and astound the naysayers. I am not only saying Umahi can win. I am saying Umahi WILL win; and that finally, a bright new chapter will open in Nigeria’s political history.
