It is that time of year when most of us really pay attention. The euphoria of a new year is out and all of a sudden many realise that nothing significant seems to have changed around them. Really nothing! The days that have rolled by could have been days from the prior year and the reactions the same and everything could have been exactly as it was but just transposed to the times before. But is it really? Are the same people around everywhere they were. Are the same thoughts racing through all our minds? Even if at the macro levels of our lives things appear the same but are they the same at the micro level? Are there not any things that came to an end? Did people not exit, while others showed up? Surely all the small expectations are not the same. The hopes and desires have altered in many ways and for many reasons over many people intertwined in diverse ways!
The truth is that whether we see it or not we are all changed. To be here today is a seminal moment ushered in by the many micro moments tucked within the times past. So, what should we do with our forward march? It is from here that I pick up the potential for President Peter Obi and Vice President Datti Baba-Ahmed story. The truth is that where we are today seemed improbable two years ago, even now the path still seems hazy though it is clarifying at the speed of blur!. But does it matter? How many of us are living through the many disappointments of last year and even those that have sprung up in this still fairly new year? Even as I write this, hopes have been dashed, wishes turned to nought, imaginations quashed, and unsteady anticipation ceased! So the question becomes how do we still hold on for the next thing and the next thing and the next day! How do we make the Obi/Datti story not just probable but real?
Many of us, including those in Diaspora, the in-country elite, the comfortable, the rain-makers, the silent winners, the dealers and brokers, the team players, the aloof, the debaters and conversationalists, those with big and important suppositions etc. etc, basically, people whose boots don’t stump grounds but instead are fashion accessories or for their protection – must review our stances and adjust. We have to recognise that while we can go back to our lives and quickly get our routines going, everything has changed as alluded to earlier. Everything! All that is required is t make it manifest, convert it to the experiential and expose it for propagation until it becomes the lived reality for all.
So, what to do practically? Here’s a list: mobilise, engage, converse, inform, work, finance, release, reset, send, equip and redeem and everything else required. The miracle is already afoot, most can see and imagine, some have already started the pre-experience, the only work now is for full manifestation. Nigeria is back in the hands of the people, though swindlers work to take it away, Nigeria is back in the hearts of the people, though deceivers vow to corrupt it, Nigeria is back in the minds of the people for potential good and possibilities, though scoundrels work to confuse.
These men – Obi and Datti – have agreed to represent the people, they have agreed to give Nigeria back to the people, they have agreed to develop a Nigeria that will lead its continent. They are working, fighting, showing up each day, lifting their hands as a symbol of Glory that first and foremost belongs to God then as a “sent” is bestowed to His own. This is the time for the winners to show up, this is time to own a role, this is the time to work for the win, to show up and make practical all that intellect and those words, to move the silence to good action or declare for the opposition, to move out of the shadows of representing self, to the light ushered in by the fight. It is time for those boots to do more than be present. It is time to stump!
The truth is that poverty has been unleashed and weaponised against the Nigerian people, yet in spite of that, they persevere hoping even when it appears too hard and unbearable because they believe and see with their divine eyes, that there is a nation afoot hidden and untainted from corruption. They believe that there is a country which will do right by its people; deliver on its giftings, a place whose author and builder is God, and all they need now is to excavate from the rubble of years on imposed hardship. A land to be revealed and inhabited for greatness!
So vote, encourage everyone you can to vote, enable people to vote, empower many to vote. Make the change that is afoot visible and effective. Nothing is the same even if it can feel that way. Everything has changed and it is up to us to make it manifest. If we all do our part, then the people will deliver to themselves a good team of Obi-Datti – this is only possible by we the people!!
