So many pundits are building their predictions of tomorrow's elections on a political trap that the ruling class have been hoping to set forth as the prevailing idea: Nigeria, like 2015, is caught between the devil and the blue sea!
This is seemingly right but deeply wrong. I employed the word "deeply" to set a lifeline for the real truth that many have decided to look away from, owing to pessimism and the absence of political courage.
The Saturday elections is never a sure bet for the ruling class even in their most trusted zones. The two big parties have been able to muscle the prevailing idea, neglecting the basic factors that have sprung up in the processes to this elections. I will do three things shortly with this piece.
The primal is to show that the "supposed prevailing idea" may not be prevailing as expected. Pre-elections polls have shown very unstable results that have thrown pure confusions to the spines of the ruling elite. Nigerians, for the first time, are openly against voting the two main parties-PDP and APC. Many new parties have sprung up and are littering the whole populace. Though only a very few of these parties are not surrogates, the masses are excited about them. While these parties, except Omoyele Sowore's AAC, do not have national spread; they have areas where they mutter some solid supports. Also, this piece will show that beneath the public perception that both APC and PDP are birds of the a feather, is the mass rejection of both thieving parties which will likely show at the elections tomorrow. This will then lead to the perspective that expressly shows that, contrary to what our rulers want us to believe, millions of new and youthful voters are determined to rock the boat and shock the ruling class with protest votes.
A PREVAILING IDEA OF GREED AND POWER
International capital is very interested in the Nigerian elections for obvious reasons. The world is in crises and revolts and electoral activism is ravaging the bases of mass exploitation, poverty and hardship that the system represents. France is haunted by the combined forces of the Yellow Vests and the Working class strikes. This is an improvement on the conditions of the Los Indignados movement that rocked Spain. Left Roots and other revolutionary socialist groups are greatly influencing the politics of the Democratic party more than ever. This has shown in the Bernie Sanders movement and the emergence of socialists in the last elections into Congress. The rise of the British Labour Party and its influences on the consequent fall of the Republican Party that has been crawling in power as the Theresa May government is in shambles.
Venezuela and Brazil are also going through very serious electoral crises despite the victory of Nicolas Maduro again and the emergence of the right wing populist Bolsonaro.
Africa is also being rocked with electoral revolution as is being witnessed in Zimbabwe, Uganda and Nigeria.
So, the old order is shaken to its roots as the globe has been pregnant enough with a radical new order. The elections tomorrow, I believe, will go in that more momentum. While the press has been so unfair to the other presidential candidates, they were all forced to air the alternative views at the last minutes. A good instance is the debate organized by NEDG and BON. That debate failed to include the only ideological alternative views of the Omoyele Sowore's African Action Congress (AAC). The organizers were arrogant after successfully holding the Vice-presidential debate last December. This aroused the anger of mass of youths and students who protested both physically and on the social Media. By the time the presidential debate was to hold, many other debates sprang up and the two ruling parties could not face the other candidates, especially Sowore, on the podium. The Kadira Ahmed/NTA "The Candidates" four-week Town Hall meetings exposed the ruling class candidates. Buhari and Osinbajo of the APC were beaten to their own lies and misarguments. It also helped to expose the roguery business dealings of Atiku and Obi of PDP two weeks later. But between those exposes, Sowore and Rufai of the AAC super impressed the masses. They showed another alternative and present a bundle of hopes to the masses in their concise manifesto called SPICER HEAT.
Kingsley Moghalu of the Young Progressives Party (YPP) has also been cleared as a refined version of the APC and PDP.
TAKE IT BACK: AN INTERLUDE OF REVOLUTIONARY DISRUPTIONS
As I write, a mass of youths are receiving Omoyele Sowore of the AAC in his Ondo South, they show bountifully that another Nigeria is very possible!
The #TakeItBack movement has for the past one year, establishing urgent structural and radical disruptions in the streets, campuses, towns and cities. We have painstakingly crisscrossed the nooks and corners of the whole country, bringing hope to the hopeless and creating real and new ideas of building another world. For the discerning, people's welfarism is on the front burner again. The APC in power is being forced to rush on abandoned projects, sharing crumbs as Trader Moni and such others. Railways, though very archaic, are rushingly laid to try to impress the masses.
The Take It Back movement has successfully shown as a political hurricane beyond the ballots. This has put the ruling class into a very tight corner. An idea for the millions is now a sceptre haunting the neo-liberal capitalist ideas wholly for the millionaires.
Sowore and the AAC are at a big advantage tomorrow. This is the first time mass of youths and students are going to the polls. 45 million youths which 22 million students are gotomorrow. The ruling class parties are really afraid of this. Also, the AAC is massively organized through the Social Media thereby demystifying the half truths that you must be very rich to build a mass party or contest. The party is being funded by the masses and they get transparent responses of how money comes into the accounts every night when Sowore sits "on the couch".
IN LIEU OF CONCLUSION; AWAITING A SATURDAY OF PEOPLE'S VICTORY
As I write, the Kiribo youths are going agog, shouting the ribs out to take it back. My pen is getting hotter and redder. My tiny fingers cannot type faster. But a force of hope is rallying my heart heartily. There grand falsehood that another Nigeria, nay the globe, is not possible is falling into crumbles.
Youths, students, and working people are advised to silently punish our oppressors tomorrow. We must vote the alternative that we have all laboured for. Sowore and the AAC are just catalysts. They represent the hope we have all dreamt. While Gani Fawehinmi and the National Conscience Party (NCP) started the processes in 2003, 16 years after, the fruit of action is very ripe now. There is no nascent democracy to lie with again. Students will never neglect free and quality education for the current fraud going on. This is the same way they will never be happy to vote between the devil and the blue sea.
I must conclude by wishing our comrade Sowore a Happy Birthday in advance. He will be 48 tomorrow. And we the working people will give him a handsome gift with our votes tomorrow.
While APC and PDP are rolling out billions they have stolen from our common sweats, just to dash us some crumbs and buy our votes, it is important that we use tomorrow to reject their one-day money for a lasting joy. The difference between the umbrella and the broom is the difference between the armed robber and 419. Let's cross our ten fingers to shame them on February 16th.
To hell with the devil and the blue sea, Sowore/AAC is here! No going back!!