Election must be carried out within our means and limitations. This may be a good opportunity to make a wow that if it is not made in Nigeria, it can fail in Nigeria and can only be rectified in Nigeria. Blaming Jega alone for the false start is totally predictable but those people that thought it was a good idea to import ballots or sheets and approved it every step of the way must share the blame.
Election must be carried out within our means and limitations. This may be a good opportunity to make a wow that if it is not made in Nigeria, it can fail in Nigeria and can only be rectified in Nigeria. Blaming Jega alone for the false start is totally predictable but those people that thought it was a good idea to import ballots or sheets and approved it every step of the way must share the blame.
There will always be disappointment but it would be foolish to import one. We cannot adjust old wine to grace a new bottle or new wine to prop up an old bottle.
So many stories have floated around this election 2011, one would think we have been had by some unscrupulous rascals. The fear instilled in people like Jega must be so overwhelming; none would venture out of their caves to rescue Nigeria from the vultures. Career politicians that have nothing to contribute but waiting for those that tried, are laughing and robbing one another’s back. The rest of us are just mad wondering what can go right in Nigeria.
This election is just damn too expensive but it is not the worst calamity befalling the Country. Nigerians throw up their hands crying only God can save us. Either for selfish reason or some inferiority complex, some of our finest men and women have failed because we do not think that within Nigeria we can produce our own Jesus, Mohamed, Ghandi or Mandela. Some of us think if we produce Aminu Kano, Awolowo or Mbakwe, we will choke them to death and they will never see the light of the day. Nwosu conducted an acceptable election but was nullified.
The brother that said the only natural disaster in Nigeria is man cannot be far from the truth. It’s difficult to laugh or cry but that brother was wicked. Nigeria is not the only country where disaster strikes but the disasters we bring upon ourselves contribute more to suffering of the masses. There is no need to talk about the election again, it is no use crying I told you so when many people are right about multibillion cowries election with a false start.
Nigerians are never short of ideas to beat a system, the same brain must be used to deliver us. Jega is one of those brains that must not be discouraged but nurtured to come up by brain storming with his colleagues and the advice of the people on how to move forward. Nigeria can turn a genius into a moron. It is all well and good when events work in our favor. Once it turns against you, all those praising and congratulating the appointment of Jega are some of the ones throwing stones at him.
When you tell a kid that a tree cannot make a forest and no matter how clean Jega’s reputation was, it can come crashing down. A lonely mighty tree in the forest can be cut down by our two mega parties but it is the wise and the elders that will tell you what side it is going to fall. After all Jega made his reputation, not as an angel but as an activist professor. So like an adventurous son in the trouble waters, he must have learnt his lessons. So, papas put your hand around him.
Before we crucify Jega and write him completely off, we must ask ourselves what have we been doing wrong since independence that the right bearing eludes us. Others have sworn that we can never have a perfect election in Nigeria or anywhere else. Election is just a symptom of the bigger problems we have in this Country and it will be unfair to blame it all on one man. It is very embarrassing that in 2011 we still have to go out looking for saviors to deliver us from ourselves by contracting ballots outside the Country.
Jega is not a saint, but a Nigerian that must one day give an account to us what he did with Election 2011. We can count how many goodwill endeavors have failed to materialized and if a couple of them did, Nigeria could have been a different place. We are not short of Messiah, we have too many saboteurs. People are getting frustrated that nobody can grab the bull by the horn and lead Nigeria out of chaos.
A Country as big as Nigeria with over 140 million people, cannot create an island free from our entire individual idiosyncrasy to experiment with our own ideas. Just like we print money in stringent security we can print ballot and result sheets; create our own cement from durable mud; duplicate all the foreign goods Nigerians buy abroad; put heads together for national car; planes, ships and many more. If those are too ambitious what about duplication of technologies for: phones, transistors, television and other toys Nigerians love. Where is the enabling leader?
Let us start by releasing all our counterfeit masters into a desert and challenge them to come up with the best stuff they can produce. We have to discard the patent laws at some point or pretend they do not exist like Russia, China, Taiwan, North and South Korea until we land solidly on our feet. Some special committees from each of the universities must test and improve on goods made in Nigeria like Ijebu, Kano, Onitsha and Okrika made.
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If anyone thinks we may be encouraging dictatorial tendencies, the answer is that everything we have tried so far has failed. Like France under Mitterrand, we can delay delivery of imported goods at different port locations. We must learn from this as foreigners ridicule us that we were let down by Tsunami. They could not believe that Tsunami left Japan and staggered to Nigeria. They can never understand our problem but the brother is right. Our problem is self inflicted.
The lesson here is that there is no magic anywhere that can cure our problems. It has to be home made. We have wasted too many years thinking our salvation can be bought when we do not even have enough money to take care of ourselves at home. Jega is like most Nigerians a product of the system. Some of us should have risen to the task and let him know that if he could not conduct an election with local materials, we would find someone that could.
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