This Presidential Candidate
Prof. Wole Soyinka, has gone contrary
to expectations and permutations after
he endorsed Prof. Kingsley Moghalu,
candidate of the Young Progressive
Party (YPP), for President.
The Nobel Laureate and his civil
society group, Citizens Forum, made
the announcement in a statement he
personally signed, where he
outlined circumstances leading up to
the decision which he described as
rigorous.
The statement read:-
The nation has been brought to
her knees. Internally, the blaring
media testimony needs no
augmentation. Beyond her
borders, Nigeria is the tale of
citizens designated pariahs of the
global community for whom
special dossiers are opened, and
units of security agencies are
specifically assigned. Online
transactions are programmed to
reject basic usage once the word
‘Nigeria’ is inserted in the Data
profile. There are few nation left,
within or outside the continental
borders where – no matter the
codeword – a Nigerian ‘room’ has
not been designated.
Her humanity litters the sand trails
of the Sahara, it lines the
Mediterranean sea-bed with the
bones of a desperate generation,
seeking ‘green pastures’. Lines
from my poems have been
appropriated and embossed as
epitaphs on the tombstones of
Nigerians washed up the isle of
Catania and accorded dignified
burials by total strangers, certainly
paid more respect than Nigerians
themselves consider due to their
own humanity. Other would-be
migrants have been slaughtered by
religious fundamentalists on the
shores of Tripoli, while waiting for
their precarious crossing on
suicidal boats. Yet others end up
as commodities in the slave
markets of Libya and Mauritania,
hundreds recently rescued and
airlifted – credit where credit is
due! – repatriated by government.
It was not always thus. Numerous
Nigerians believe that it need not
remain so. There is always a
choice to be made outside any
presumptuous orders – in reality
associations guaranteed to
perpetuate social disorders and
the politics of inequality. This is
not the thinking of any one
individual but of a large section of
this populace. If it were not, there
would not have been a record
number of nearly a hundred
political groups aspiring to take
over the reins of governance.”
Soyinka said his civil society group
did not need any instruction to
estimate that several of the
aspiring groups were mere plants,
raised to sow confusion.
The Prof. said:-
‘It redounds to the credit of a few
individuals, including some of the
candidates themselves, who
embarked on efforts to winnow
down their own ranks, then seek a
consensus candidate as standard
bearer for the battle against the
two political behemoths.
“They did not succeed, but that is
no cause for despair. They still
deserve the gratitude of Nigerians
for their uniquely principled
efforts. The Citizen Forum – last
heard of during the time of the
dictator, Sani Abacha – was pulled
out of retirement to join in their
effort to arrive at peer consensus.
The Forum worked peripherally
with them. It made no attempt – I
stress this – no attempt whatsoever
to impose its own preferences, but
utilised material from the
deliberations of at least four such
selection groups. It remained on
the fringe, except on invitation.
“Our mission today is simply to
present the result of that effort by
Citizen Forum which, I am
especially gratified to reveal,
coincides with my own personal
preference. The CF conclusion is
obviously not binding on other
groups or individuals involved in
the exercise. May I take this
opportunity to advise the public
that neither Citizen Forum nor
myself, belongs to any Third Force
or other Consensus seeking
councils by any other name. Please
ignore any such attributions.”
I physically interacted with some
of the acknowledged top
contenders, in some cases several
times. We participated in
handshake across Nigeria, where
some candidates presented their
briefs.
“Among others, I delivered a
keynote address. We watched
television interviews. We have
exchanged notes with highly
respected international Civil
Servants. The drive towards
Consensus among these dedicated
groups sometimes took the form
of test questionnaires to the
aspirants, including items such as:
‘Who among the contestants would
you choose, if you did not emerge
as the ultimate preference?’
“There was nothing complicated
about assessment parameters:
mental preparedness, analytical
aptitude, response to the nation’s
security challenges, economic
grounding, grasp of socio-political
actualities, including a remedial
concern with the Nigerian image
in foreign perception etc. etc. not
forgetting a convincing
commitment to governance and
resource decentralization –
commonly referred to as
Restructuring.
The Forum rejected retrograde
propositions of a political merry-
go-round, which urge the
electorate to choose this or that
candidate in order to ensure “our
turn” at the next power
incumbency. Overall, the exercise
was exacting but also –
therapeutic.
It proved yet again that there is
over-abundant leadership quality
locked up in the nation, and that it
is a collective shortcoming that the
political space has not been
sufficiently opened up to let soar
such potential. Well, to cite the
Chinese proverb: a journey of a
thousand miles begins with the
first step.
“Let me reiterate: there is over-
abundant, but stifled leadership
material, and there can be no
excuse, now that that potential of
high quality is being manifested,
for constricting the political space
in a population that is nudging
two hundred million.
And that statement is of course
specially addressed to those who
took part in this exercise, those
who deliberately opted out of it,
some of whom were assessed
anyway. Such potential compelled
us to exercise utmost rigour in
what proved to be a most
daunting exercise. The final
determination however is – the
flag-bearer of the Young
Progressive Party – Kingsley
Moghalu.
0 comments:
Post a Comment