Judging from the frenzy of politics-related activities lately, one would think 2015 was just around the corner. But then, it has to be so since political power secures unfettered access to the almost limitless privileges public office affords. Obasanjo dubbed it a ‘do-or-die’ affair. You don’t get more accurate than that.
Judging from the frenzy of politics-related activities lately, one would think 2015 was just around the corner. But then, it has to be so since political power secures unfettered access to the almost limitless privileges public office affords. Obasanjo dubbed it a ‘do-or-die’ affair. You don’t get more accurate than that.
Ordinarily, I should by now be positioning myself strategically for what is ahead. As an enlightened stakeholder in Nigeria’s confectionery business (or is it project?), I deserve a commensurate piece of the nebulous national cake!
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Sadly, this is one luxury I can barely afford at the moment. And the reason is simple, though grave: I have yet to balance the books for 2011. There’s a huge debt that remains embarrassingly outstanding, and until it is cleared, I’ll consider the issue of 2015 and those peddling it as irritant distractions.
I became eligible to vote in the 1983 general elections. With regards to presidential elections and with the notable exception of June 12 1993, I have never voted for a winning candidate. And I’ve never voted an incumbent. I state these as facts for which I feel neither shame nor regret.
This trend remained intact until the last presidential polls of April 16 2011. Two weeks before this date, precisely on the day the National Assembly polls held, something happened in my polling unit that compelled me to begin to give the candidature of the then President more than a passing glance.
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I use the word ‘compelled’ advisedly because I had to employ plenty of reverse logic and cognitive dissonance to bring myself to the point where I even started toying with the idea of opting for ‘a breath of fresh air.’ In that two weeks window, a diagnosis of schizophrenia would have been definitive for me. Though the rains were already coming, so edgy was I that I pretended not to notice coloured umbrellas!
As intense as my psychological state was, the worst was yet ahead.
On Wednesday 13th April 2011, I left Abuja on a journey that took me to Anambra and Edo States for two funerals. By the time I returned to Abuja 72 hours later on Friday, I had spent at least 36 hours on the road with little sleep and scant digestion.
By 6pm on D-day, I was already up to ‘travel’ to cast my vote: no thanks to Jega’s data capture snafu. I had woken with abdominal discomfort, which my wife immediately noticed. If on account of my state I had aborted my ‘electoral journey,’ it would have made all the sense. But at this time, I was deliberately suppressing many of my senses, so when my missus craved assurance that I was up to it, I calmly dismissed her mounting sense of alarm.
But I’d lied to her, because even half-way on my over 10 km journey, I seriously contemplated turning back. Stubbornly though, I ploughed on. I had to leave my car about a kilometre from the polling point and how I managed to trek the distance remains a mystery to me. For the nine odd hours I spent in that polling unit, I remember very little. What I do recall is being accredited, laying on the grassy turf for most of the time, and voting at some point. So excruciating were the pains I actually thought I’d ruptured my appendix.
That I was able to drive myself back home that fateful day is the very stuff of the miraculous. And all these because I insisted on voting for Goodluck Ebele Jonathan; though it was more like voting PDP since his name wasn’t actually on the ballot.
I have found time since surviving that ordeal to attempt reconstructing the events of that scary day and I have tried to justify the monumental risks I undertook just to secure the destiny of another man.
What if I had expired that day? What would my missus have offered as explanation to my Ohafia kith and kin? And what would I have died for?
I voted Jonathan because I believed he would stay true to his promise to change the course of things in Nigeria. I believed he would fight corruption by rewarding good and punishing evil. He gave this impression that it wasn’t going to be business as usual, and I believed him; or more appropriately, willed myself to.
I’ve since summed up the psychological, emotional, physical and spiritual cost of what I did on Saturday 16th April 2011, and the amount is truly hefty. But then, Jonathan is credit-worthy and there’s no doubt he can pay.
He must pay. I kept my side of the bargain, now he must keep his. Until that happens, I counsel all 2015 political proselytizers to direct their crusade elsewhere. I have debts to collect. I have books to balance.
Olugu Olugu Orji mnia
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The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of SaharaReporters
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