Nigerians and power, the implications for the next generation

“What’s it with Nigerians and the inordinate struggle for power even at a time that their country is on life support? How can we make liberation amidst power struggle a success for our crushed, hurting and suffering people if we are at each other’s throats over controlling nothing that we own way before the revolution starts?

Why all the conspiracies and counter-conspiracies over power?

Where did Abacha take all the power he amassed when his final moments came?

I believe that June 12 could have been the historic turning point beyond the memorial rhetoric it has become today that Nigeria needed to be reinvented if the efforts were more better coordinated at the time with everybody who loves Nigeria and is determined against all odds to work for a better Nigeria regardless of ethnicity, religion or region was on board.

Therefore, as our agitations for better living conditions for our suffering people reach a new critical crescendo, it’s very important that those who have stepped forward to lead the charge introspect deeply, looking back and beyond themselves at our distant and recent pasts so they don’t repeat some of the earlier mistakes that deepened the known mutual suspicions that have ruined some of the best brain works ever designed to pull Nigeria back from the brinks of collapse.

Hate, arrogance, mischief and jealousy will not take us beyond the starting block unless we look at ourselves critically and adjust our attitudes to make us work with respect with our peers including those now looking up to us for leadership before we proceed further.

Why can’t we just respect the rights of one another to aspire instead of spending a lot of time and energy to plot, conspire and to stop one another?

Whose interests do we really serve with all the fights for power?

Let’s chill, think and adjust our attitudes or there will no revolution because we lack basic understanding of ourselves as comrades as much as we understand the problems of Nigeria for which we all profess lofty solutions.

I will never be anybody’s enemy or be an enemy to the enemy of anybody because of power struggle because of my understanding that political power never lasts forever in the hands of any single individual or group of individuals.

Some of us who aspire to lead don’t clearly understand the enormity of the problems our nation has, to the extent that we must make some compelling sacrifices that at times demand that we place our egos in check for us to get into the pathway we need to get to our destination.

I am only interested in ganging up against the oppressors of Nigeria and they all know where I stand.
I will also stay away from my fellow soldiers for socioeconomic justice who hate my guts instead of engaging them in wars where they can not tolerate me for refusing to be pushed around or becoming an enemy of their enemies”.

.....Smart Madu Ajaja