EXPRESSO 》》》By Steve Osuji
Four days to E – DAY, it has become necessary to raise this alarm. As it has become apparent that Nigerians would rise en masse to reject the failed All Progressives Congress (APC), the wounded behemoth, it is feared, would invoke violence across the country.
In 2015, Nigerians witnessed how former President Goodluck Jonathan vowed that the blood of even one Nigerian was more precious to him than being a president. He conceded defeat even as vote counting was still on-going. Without being prompted, Jonathan picked the phone and called his opponent in the race, Muhammadu Buhari.
We hear that till this day, President Buhari is still shocked about that singular nobility of nature!
Will APC return the goodwill in four day’s time? No, not likely. Not if we go by its antecedents and recent activities. The party has been hijacked by hawks and power dogs who understand only one language: POWER. And if you listened carefully in the past few weeks, you must have heard them barking: powr! Powr! Powr! like a deranged canine!
Examples abound but a few will suffice.
On November 29th, 2022, Mrs Victoria Chintex, the Labour Party Women’s Leader for Kaura LGA, Kaduna State was gruesomely assassinated in her house. Her husband escaped with gunshot. Her offence: she was not only an active women’s leader of her party, she was an industrious woman who made beautiful party memorabilia.
On account of these, she was killed in cold blood. There’s no prize for guessing who the desperados are.
But Lagos, the sprawling, semi-slum metropolitan wears the badge of dishonour as the most politically intolerant space in the entire country, no thanks to the activities of APC goons.
Only APC campaign materials are allowed; other parties’ billboards and posters are pulled down or defaced soon as they are up. That may have been tolerable if it was the only offence.
But bloody violence and threats to life have been the usual electoral fare in Lagos since 1999. This has gotten vile since the emergence of the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential flagbearer Peter Obi as the 3rd, nay first force in Nigeria’s political calculations of the day.
On the 2nd of October , 2022, at Oshodi, Lagos, two Labour Party flagbearers were grabbed by APC touts who beat them to pulp and were about to torch them but for the intervention of a gallant soldier.
Their offence: since LP posters were not allowed these youngsters chose to stand by the roadside hoisting LP flags. That turned out to be a mortal sin in the books of APC politics.
Two weeks ago, as the Labour Party closed it’s campaign in Lagos, the day was marred by bloodshed and damage of vehicles of LP supporters. Unprovoked attacks on Labour Party members were reported across the state. One of the young men attacked at the TBS that day has had his hand amputated. Not one of the attackers is facing reprimand nor punishment.
A particular monarch, Baale of Gbara in Eti-Osa LGA of Lagos was caught on tape threatening non-indigenes to vote APC lest they would no longer find joy in his domain. Baale made it known he had been mandated to forcefully deliver his zone…
This is a follow-up to the situation in 2015 when the paramount monarch of Lagos State openly threatened to chase Igbo into the Lagos Lagoon should they fail to vote his candidate.
What may seem the most depraved and indeed, the most heinous act of desperation is the on-going destabilisation of the financial system by the APC Presidential candidate and his turks.
The Federal Government, led by the APC has deemed it necessary to rid the economy of excessive cash the system is awash with. But the APC power mongers have unilaterally determined that the policy targets their electoral success, especially as it concerns the presidential diadem.
The candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his gang of 10 governors have therefore set the polity on a tailspin. They harry the Supreme Court to rule against the naira redesign, they furiously mop up available new naira notes to snuff the populace of economic livelihood. But most vile of all, they instigate rioting, violence and brigandage among the people, especially in the Southwest of Nigeria. Many youths have been killed in the process but the APC power brutes don’t care.
Many bank branches have been wilfully destroyed ostensibly by frustrated Nigerians. But the truth is that APC leaders are orchestrating the carnage.; they need cash to buy votes.
Godwin Obaseki, the Edo State governor had to publicly threaten Adams Oshiomhole, APC chieftain, with an arrest. He is believed to be the mastermind of the Benin riots.
These invidious actions of the APC confirms the allegations from various quarters that the party’s presidential candidate and state governors, led by Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna State had stockpiled large cache of cash to buy votes and rig the election.
The reality on the streets however, is that Nigerians are wiser. They can see through the silly shenanigans of the ruling party. This explains why the engineered protests are only in the southwest.
Nigerians, inflicted with 8 years of relentless pains and ineptitude of the worst kind, are poised to vote out APC by a land slide. To their chagrin, APC will lose in their strongholds states of Lagos, Kano and Kaduna as their votes will be dissipated by LP and PDP!
The challenge now is that APC will not be able to live down this shellacking. As it is in their nature, they will seek to invoke unprecedented mayhem on the people, and indeed, destroy the country if they can.
LET THE WORLD BE ALERT TO THIS EARLY WARNING!
- OSUJISTEVE/21.02.23