There are a number of profoundly absurd, and insanely confounding developments around the recently concluded presidential elections.
And I am not talking about the allegations and counter allegations about election rigging and electoral fraud yet. And these allegations by the way are neither here nor there, and they beg the question.
In any case a people who are more inclined to believe in prophecies and miracles, cannot be expected to accept any element of rationality or any practical scientific evidence as potentially truthful.
A people who are mor inclined to prioritise consulting their pastors, imams, dibias, babalawos etc, would be more inclined to be susceptible to deception, sleight of hand, and distortions.
But let me go back to the confounding absurdities, two of which really standout to high heavens:
First, in an election where 82% of the electorates are 50 years and under, and in a country where more than 79% of the population are young, isn’t it absurd that the two candidates over which people are busy fighting themselves, abusing one another, and fabricating falsehoods in behalf of, are in their 70s?
Isn’t it confounding that in young nation whose future is wobbly, the two leading and preeminent candidates represent the past, and not the future of our country?
And now the second absurdity, and this is perhaps even the more insanely confounding of the two;
And this is that People who swear by their ancestors, who are unshakeable in their conviction that an Atiku is the best solution for the myriads of problems facing our country and people; somehow seem to be angry and find it incredulous that other people like themselves, starting from the same premise as themselves, and rooted in the same notions as themselves, can also actually equally assert with the same level of fervent conviction that a Buhari is the answer to all our problems?
I mean how can anyone who is an active Atiku supporter find it unbelievable that there are also people like themselves who are also active Buhari supporters?
In the context of the existential and historic challenges facing our people and country, how can any Nigerian limit our choice to either of these two old, but also vision less leaders?
And oh yes, there is a third absurdity; and this is that in a nation of nearly 200 million, where those qualified to vote and be voted for should number not less than 140 million, we have only 84 million on the voters register; and of these only 72 million had PVCs and so only these 72 million could vote.
And yet of this 72 million less than 30 million voted, and 29 million of these 30 million chose candidates who represent the past, and not the present, and certainly not the future of this country!
How did we get here? How can we dig ourselves out of this almost bottomless pit that we seem to have dug for ourselves and fallen into?
This for me is the real question, the real issue that we have to address, not some specious arguments over rigging or no rigging.
