The clock was ticking. We could hear the sound loud and clear. We were catching the fever and the cold almost at the same time. It was everywhere and nobody was left out. You dared not feign ignorance.
Even the blind could see it. The deaf could hear it, and the dumb talked it. Everybody was involved. It was like a great festival. We were full of expectations, shocks and surprises.
We were all eager and anticipatory. We were waiting with bated breath, full of suspense. We had walked this bumpy road with great tension and nervousness. It was full of landmines.
We were quite aware. But there was practically nothing we could do at that particular moment. So? We grudgingly trod on with huge strain. We were lucky to have survived it so far. Some were not so lucky.
Many had been bruised, injured, and maimed along the way. Some others even paid the supreme price. They were lost to political violence, crises and chaos.
It was a tortuous journey, very lengthy and complex. That had been our lot since our forceful creation, labelled amalgamation, in 1914. We were made to yoke together involuntarily since then. That is why we remain strange bedfellows up till today. It is hunting and haunting.
Our experience was not the least palatable. It was anything but pleasant. All of us, virtually no exception, did not pick any useful lesson from our turbulent history.
We blatantly refused to change our old ways of doing things, the over-flaunted change mantra notwithstanding. We did not reconstruct one bit. It was all grandstanding and deceit. We continued to do things the abnormal way. It was the same old singsong. We kept on repeating our weird and eerie mistakes with utmost carelessness.
‘Are we jinxed?’ we had to wonder aloud. We kept on arrogantly treading the queer path. We cared less whose ox was gored. We ignored the innocent ones who were at pains with our actions and inactions. We forged ahead as if nothing important was at stake.
Hostility was very thick in the air. Yet, our so-called political gladiators were far from helping matters. With their reckless utterances and ugly body language, they were heating and hitting up the already volatile polity.
The atmosphere was extremely charged. There were accusations and counter-accusations on a daily basis. None of these funny characters was ready to cave in. They believed that would be cowardliness. That was where our fear lied.
Against all odds and with unequal doggedness, we moved to the election week. A week like never before. We almost reached the climax last Saturday.
Last week was something else. These deviants called politicians were throwing jibes heedlessly. They traded blames and exchanged tackles with ultimate irresponsibility.
Campaign issues degenerated to verbal attacks. That was when they voluntarily exposed the fake personality they are made of. They ferociously came out in their true colours no more make-belief. They could not sustain their pretence. Their leopard could no longer hide its spots.
We were genuinely scared to the marrow. Who would not? These leaders of ours have not outgrown their selfishness. Twenty tempestuous years down the drain of this “home-grown” democracy, they failed us in all departments.
They barbed, spiked, playing dangerous games with our lives. They turned us to one huge chessboard. They manipulated and dribbled us at their whims and caprices. We had no visible alternative. In fact, the more we saw, the less we understood. The less we looked, the more we saw. We were confused and perplexed.
Deception is their real name, and disorderliness their actual game. In the last two weeks or so, they were well at home with absurdities, oddities. And things were playing out their own way.
They forgot everything called sanity and sanctity of life. They played God with uttermost recklessness. They were invariably gods unto themselves. They threw morality and righteousness to the marines.
In their brashness, they hated to be cautioned. See the mess their irrationality caused us last week. It nearly sunk us as a nation. We knew inside of us that things were not being done the right way.
But we dared not complain. If we did, we would be scorned as enemies of progress. That corruption was fighting back with all its enormous strength. So? We wisely kept mum until the bubble burst in the early hours of last Saturday.
We were convinced things would not continue in that bizarre manner. The government was not doing anything differently, but brazenly. Nothing has changed substantially. This unwise postponement of the general election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) confirmed all the fears in us.
There is nothing under the heavens that cannot be postponed, shifted or even put off. But you put some decorum into it. Do it well ahead of schedule, not as an afterthought.
They have carried this irritation to the next level. See what is playing out in Adams Oshiomhole, national chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). He and his cohorts are having a field day grandstanding over the postponement.
That is what they know how to do best; we definitely know their types. They are acting the script only known to them. They are not doing anything out of place.
That is why INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, bluntly refused to expressly apologise. He knows they are in the game together. Each one of them is playing his part well.
They are not strangers to the script; they are the masterminds and the architects. They know what they want; and they know how to get it.
This is another period of blame game and lame excuses. This polls shift is another graphical demonstration of the malady plaguing this regime since inception in 2005, sorry, 2015.
We have been having systemic failure all this while. We are unfortunate to have an inept leadership. It is fond of digging deep into our historical tragedies.
It burns midnight candles of all shapes searching for our past failures. It then picks on these to arrogantly justify its own misdeeds and gross inadequacies.
Whenever it fumbles, it shamelessly refers you to the flaws and misfiring of its predecessor. It forgets easily that is the very reason they came, to right the wrongs. And not to keep on complaining and giving lazy excuses.
Let them hear this: We cannot be bullied, cajoled or coerced by delusion. It is very obvious they are not sincere with truth. They talk from both sides of their loud mouths, far away from the stark reality.
Imagine what the polls shift has violently thrown up: The likes of shoot at sight; kill in sight; maim on sight; et al.
The failure to take responsibility for their actions and inactions has led us to this embarrassing election crossroads.