The losers of this election is/are certainly not Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party but the many actors who turned a mere political contest to a religious war, to a family feud and regional warfare.
On the top list is former president Olusegun Obasanjo who lost his reverence as an elder statesman to demystified political god drenching in battered rains of shame. Instead of playing the mother who should lie between her two children, he decided to turn his back on one of the children thus exposing him as a biased mother. His posts are enormously riddled with irreparable damage. In his book titled ‘My Watch’, he wrote in permanent ink how Atiku stole silly the Nigerian treasury amongst other unprintable verdicts. Atiku, however, is lucky to have these negative labels on him dropped as he walks away a clean man while Obasanjo is left to lick from his sores of inconsistency and doublespeak.
Religious leaders particularly some pastors and Imans who suspended the anointing and borrowed the oil of politics to anoint one candidate against the other are licking from the sores of their partisan stances. How would they look at their congregation next Sunday and the coming Jumaat? When you decide to dabble into politics that is not your turf, you weaken your spiritual potency. Politics is not a mystery, it is scientific. Invocation does not win elections. Our God is an impartial umpire, like in the game of football, he provides equal opportunities for every team and will never give undue advantage to anyone. We must tow the unbiased path of our Lord. Some pastors and Imams are not helping the sanctuaries of God, they are desecrating the earthly throne of God with their prejudices thus exposing celestial authorities to ridicules.
The friends who turned their friends to enemies because of an election between two Fulani sons are also on the sore losers list. I repeat, you have no right to be offended by the choice of your friends to the extent of begrudging them, that is madness, that is insecurity. Nothing in life should be taken too hard. When you spend time worrying yourself about the choices of others you suffer the disease of paranoia. I have had my person castigated, demonised and wished evil simply for my choice of who to align my inalienable right of choice! Imagine how odd the world would have been if we all align ourselves to one monolithic choice?
In the words of Vincent Unogwu, ‘Do not mock the losers,they did not lose because they are the worst. Do not praise the winners, they did not win because they are d best’. In a contest, only the lucky one takes the lead so that there can be an end to the exercise. Buhari is neither the winner nor Atiku is the loser, the people take the credit for whatever it is their choices. Ultimately, Nigeria is the winner and winning shall we continue to be winning as a nation.
Buhari won’t be seeking re-election again, time it is we drop whatever resentments we have for him and his party. Let’s not waste energy in the negatives like we did in the last four years tabulating and regurgitating the many wrongs of Buhari. This is the time to open our minds to leadership and collectively work together to move Nigeria to the next level.
Congratulations to both the Buharists and the Atikulates, you all made the contest very memorable. May your wish for the Next Level be assured and your wish of Making Nigeria work be fulfilled, in the long run, Nigeria wins.