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Buhari: Between Inordinacy, Mudslinging And Politics Of Issue By Ahanonu Kingsley

December 14, 2014

Politics has come to be identified as a game with sizzled artistics framing; one game that's continued to wear intense dramatic outlook.

In active democracies, the dramatic nature of the game continues to invoke spewing attractions that at each turn of events, minds are incensed with interest and the whole will committed to the ensuing
process.

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The attractions hovered at each invitation of political excitement is immensely boggling for the razmatazz and gimmicks that inundate it.

The case is rapt in Nigeria, where politics has grown from being mere contest to a fight in the literal sense; with each slate of it garnished with further whistlings that beat the curious mind.

Elections are always periods when over-ambitiousness seems to play out. These are moments when people who ordinarily should know the truth resort to fake inventions clouded by sentiments simply to score
points. Elections in Nigeria are times when anything goes; lies are told irrespective of the debasement and sentiments whipped.

As the 2015 elections fast close on, we are once more brought to the existing norm. Nigerians must be on the guard to secure our minds from raking tantrums that seek to drown our sense of good judgement. We must be weary of devious appeals and engage our utmost conscience.

It's highly imperative we grow out of mendaciousness that has been our haze in similar past processes. We must show insensitiveness to politics of emotions; we must straitly grow out of mundane disillusion.

The politicians, whenever they seek to achieve political edge over their perceived weighty opponents exhibit weak penchants. They discourteously descend into campaigns of calumny; they darken the other to look fairer. We must prove not to be part of the schemes.

In the heat of the electioneering, we hear of spurious claims latched with castigating strings like GMB is a Muslim, a bigot, a this, a that. We hear of fear knowingly projected for cheap politics as GMB going to sharianize Nigeria if elected; all of which have no verifiable substance save in paper assumptions.

But how true, how possible? The most annoying is the gullibility tendency of some to acquiesce. Some of us behave puerile and like the bigots we detest in believing such malignity.

How many have bothered to numb sentiment and cross check those distorts of history. Has GMB been proven the bigotry he's accused.

How inane to accept such deception, such unfounded fear? Nigeria is so diverse as to be turned into a one religion state.

How could one think of sharianizing Nigeria and worse still in a democracy? That person must be out of tune with governmental procedures. Even if the president should, does he has such reserved power on legislation; where are the legislators; or would they all be sharianized too?

And it appears there's no valid point against GMB save in religious creations? Why are no issue raised over his personal integrity, which is key for leadership? Who's afraid of GMB?

But we must realize that gone are the days when spurrious, unsubstantiable claims shape opinions. Today what make effect are issue-based convictions, campaign of ideas.

We must prove our insight in the face of demeaning postures that seek to bring in primordial and sundry immaterial posturings into what ought to be a committed issue of sound exertion.

Do not appeal to sentiments especially in the face of critical demands and so refuse to fall prey to any such incitement to bigotry, blackmails and cheap unsubstantiated claims to sway your views in the unfolding political chess.

It is not and should never be a question of 'he's my brother from my mother or my uncle from my aunt'; it should be an issue of 'my Nigeria and how I want it'.

Should my brother drive me simply because of my relationship with him even when he doesn't know how to and where to?

As a matter of fact, blood or closeness shouldn't make for fraternity in the march to the nation of our dream; in the art of governance, of leadership which is the propelling, where any form of disingenuousness leads to subsuming cataclysm.

My brother in leadership is that person, who shares similar passion with me and who, given the capability, knows how to guarantee the teeming aspirations for a just, corrupt-free, egalitarian society; for a country where leadership is effective in prudence, accountability
and responsibility; for a Nigeria where security is sacred and employment availed.

These are wishes I share with my other well-meaning Nigerian brothers and sisters and which play strategical role in defining our fraternity. Did not Christ himself say it; that my brother...is he who does my will?

As 2015 approaches, we must do away with sentiment; it's smack of archaic politics. Let's reason like enlightened people. Let's ask of integrity and will to stamp corruption. But one can't give what he hasn't.

In GMB we see them personified, in him is the leadership we need.

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