Although the leading four presidential hopefuls will keenly contest the forthcoming presidential election, the Obidient movement is without doubt the biggest discovery and revelation of the 2023 election season.  The movement highly driven by Nigerian youths with membership, which cut across all ages, is formidable and revolutionary in its approach to politics and what politics should be. The group more than any other political group in the history of Nigerian has seized Nigerian political imagination like a thunderstorm.

The Obidient movement and the third force are redefining Nigerian politics and democracy for good. The 2023 election is the chance for the youths to take over the mantle of political leadership of the country. It is not a rocket science. It is doable and it is going to be done.

Many prominent Nigerian leaders have drummed it to their ears. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has eloquently anchored this view in his New Year letter addressed to Nigerians, especially the youths. Afenifere leader, Pa Ayo Adebanjo has equally said so. Pa Edwin Clark, the prominent Niger Delta leader has spoken in the same vein. The Middle Belt Forum leader has equally said so alongside other Nigerian leaders from the North and South. Pastor Tunde Bakare has added his voice for the clamour for the emergence of a new breed of leaders and political inclusion.

They came on the political stage like a colossus and ever then, they are marching strong and better as we get closer to the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly polls. The members of the movement are ubiquitous in the social media, mainstream media and even everywhere. They have a strong intellectual presence and with a deep bent in political and socioeconomic philosophy and anthropology. As the Election Day approaches, the group is growing and amassing members and crowds for the great titanic battle for the survival of Nigeria.

They are everywhere sensitizing Nigerians on the imperative of change, on the need to dismantle the ubiquitous structure of corruption, the structure of unconscionable sleaze. They are call on all Nigerians to wake up from their deep slumber and face the reality, the reality of taking back their country, the reality of saving this country from a certain death.

They have so far animated the nation’s political thinking and praxis with their fiery rhetoric, which resonates with most Nigerians. The movement is very organic and holistic. It knows no tribe or religion. It is all embracing and total. Its Nigerianness is not in doubt. Its plea and slogan to rescue and reclaim the country from political buccaneers and transactional politicians of old is incontestable.

At inception the group was dismissed outright by the old brigade, by those who still delude themselves with the old decadent order, which has kept Nigeria bleeding from all corners, the corrupt order with its structure of decay and falsehood and deception of the Nigeria’s impoverished masses. They were even called names and described in demeaning epithets. But now, the tide has changed. They are now the toast of the town and they dominate the political space with their own kind and brand of structure. Their structure is made up of millions of poor Nigerians, millions of unemployed Nigerians, millions of impoverished university lecturers.

They include market women battling with the harsh economy, hyper-inflation and poor value of the naira. They include poor Nigerians waiting endlessly for fuel at filling stations. They include poor primary school teachers and other ill-motivated Nigerian workers in virtually all sectors. They include the youths, the Japa generation and those who see Reality television shows as a means of survival and escape from their excruciating poverty and misery. They include those in hospitals waiting for Godot to pay their mounting hospital bills.

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While the politicians of the old order steal all of us blind and humour us with the slogan that our tomorrow will be better and that our youths who school in their ill-equipped primary schools, secondary schools, and universities, will be the leaders of tomorrow, they still want to cling to power at old age. They send their children to the best colleges and universities in Britain and America that money can buy with our looted public patrimony and still preach to us to make sacrifice.

While our corrupt and remorseless leaders urge us to tighten our belt and embrace government’s austerity measures, they and their wives with protruding bellies and buttocks feed fat on our commonwealth. Our political oppressors are not perturbed that the nation under their watch has become the poverty capital of the world, that we are among the most terrorized nations in the world, that over 133 million Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor. The 2023 poll is like a titanic battle between the old dying order and the new promising order. It is a great battle between light and darkness. It is a duel between right and wrong, between left and right.

It is a political struggle between retrogression and progress, between moving backward and moving forward. It is a battle between life and death. It is a combat between political exclusion and political inclusion. It is a fight between the old corrupt structure and the new order of enlightenment. The Nigerian masses have suffered for too much in the hands of bad and ineffectual leaders, in the hands of leaders bereft of ideas, visions and philosophy. We have been bruised and wounded by the old order.

We have been divided and swindled by the old dark and evil order. A continuation with the old order or old ways of politics will kill Nigeria. It will lead to more agitations and violence and anarchy. We don’t want another season of anomie, another season of the locusts, or another season of killjoy. Those who still campaign for their oppressors to continue in office are very sick. Those who still believe that their oppressors will save them from political slavery and economic servitude are deceiving themselves.

They should remember that their oppressors don’t like them. They want them to remain perpetually poor so that the oppressors can remain in power forever. It is only a fool that will be deceived a second time. It is only a fool that will allow his enemy to heal him of a wound inflicted by the same enemy. Those selling their PVCs are undoing themselves. They are selling the only power they have to renew the country. They are selling for a paltry N1000 or N2000 or even N3000 the only power they have to salvage the country.

Those still bent on selling their voter cards should desist from doing so. They should use their PVCs to vote in the most credible leader on February 25. They must use their PVCs wisely and according to their conscience. The 2023 election is about competence and trusted leadership. It is also about having the mental ability and physical strength to do the job.

The presidency is not a duty to be delegated. The 2023 poll is not about tribe, ethnicity or religion. It is about reclaiming the country from the hands of transactional politicians and buccaneers and their greedy cheerleaders. This is the chance to make Nigeria great once again. It is your chance to write your name in gold and cast your ballot for the best candidate.