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By Prof Chris Mustapha Nwaokobia

The worst part of a Society manipulated by politics is to see the poor defending the rich who are responsible for their poverty. – Paulo Coelho.

I woke up around 3am here in Houston Texas to join most of today’s (19 August, 2025) bit of THE MORNING SHOW on Arise TV, and stumbled at the Spokersperson of the APC Mr. Felix Morka laboriously toiling to excuse the huge larceny that defined the Bye-Elections which happened in Nigeria last Saturday.

It’s no news anymore that the 2025 Bye-Elections that took place in 12 States, in 32 Local Government Areas, in 356 Registration Areas, across 6,987 Polling Units, and involving 3,553,659 Registered Voters was largely flawed. It is lucid that since the APC got to power in 2015 they have progressively shattered whatever was left of the credibility of the electoral process in Nigeria. Every successive election since the APC got in the saddle have been worse than the former. We thought that the 2023 electoral larceny was the height of it, but in the off-season elections that followed ditto Imo, Kogi, Edo, Ondo et al INEC was saying to Nigerians, you ain’t seen nothing yet. And in the latest of the seemingly incorrigible script of electoral larceny INEC is saying to Nigerians, believe it or not, “it’s not who votes that counts, it’s who counts the votes” apologies to Joseph Stalin.

Outright Rigging ditto Vote Buying, Mutilation of Votes, Thuggery, falsification of figures/results, and Electoral Violence of benumbing and befuddling dimensions have become excusable and permissible such that a certain garrulous and canterkerous lead Spokersperson of Mr President Egbon Bayo Onanuga on his X (Twitter) handle shamelessly approved of the murder of democracy by his Party and INEC. He thought he was putting a slap in the face of the opposition by asking them ‘….how market?’ whereas he was indeed putting a long nail in the coffin of democracy in Nigeria.

Yes, the APC has killed democracy in Nigeria, you kill democracy when you allow rigging and electoral larceny, you kill democracy when you stifle dissent, you kill democracy when you celebrate flawed polls, you kill democracy when you consistently lower the moral bars and margins that must attend the electoral process, and you kill democracy when you excuse electoral infraction and subterfuge. So the APC, and the Partisan obscurantist that defends the indefensible are guilty of murder.

Countrymen and women, the challenge before us is certainly beyond politics, politricks and or partisanship, it is about the life and the soul of our nation. It is about the collective duty of retrieving this nation from the present slide to Golgotha under the invidious watch of the most kamikaze gang of rampaging buccaneers and soulless Power-mongers known to our nation’s history.

Everything now in Nigeria is about 2027, they excel in looting, rigging, vote buying, criminality, roguery and outright wickedness because they must remain in power. They steal soullessly. They break all moral bars. They budget to loot.

They mouth infrastructure but eat everything. They pad and inflate the budget and thrive in profligacy. And they engage in sycophancy and debauchery to deceive the gullible. Nigeria has never had it this bad, Folks. We must therefore forge a Pan-Nigerian force that must lift our nation out of the moral, economic, and socio-political nadir that defines today’s Nigeria.

The Ministers are in a contest of who out-budgets the other in Billions and Trillions. They lie about the importance and the urgency of the inflated and criminally contrived and structured projects. One wants 712 Billion naira to renovate a section of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos (what happened to concessioning as obtains in other climes?), another wants 3.5 Trillion to renovate The Third Mainland Bridge a Bridge that he spent 46 Billion naira on less than 14 months ago, did a third one not tell us two months ago that he spent 39 billion to renovate the International Conference Centre that was built for far less than 300m naira some 34 years ago (just renovation), no conscience, no soul, no scruples, and no fear of God. Clearly Folks, we have the most corrupt administration in our nation’s historicity blindfolding and gaslighting the gullible with the ‘we are building the nation and her infrastructure’ gibberish. All na lie.

The degeneration to idiocy has become more profuse because we allow and oblige their deceit and falsehood. Everything they say and talk about are projects on paper far far away from reality. The Coastal Highways and Roads are projects for which funds are drawn with little work on the ground. The few projects that are visible are demonically overpriced and overcosted, and you think that politics is the problem? No, it’s more than politics, we are a nation in trouble, a Rogue state super-intended over by Rogues, and a mess calling for urgent redemption. We must understand it as such… For, only the TRUTH can set us free.

We are a people blessed by the Almighty with amazing resources and riches ineffable, yet the poorest and hungriest in the face of abundance. We have the most ratio of out of school children in the world, yet no Trillions or Billions are budgeted for schools.

We have very poor healthcare facilities, yet no Trillions are thought of as necessary to build ultra modern Medical Facilities in the Federal Universities to enhance medical research and improve the entire Healthcare Sector. They want to build new Roads without first maintaining the old ones, afterall na through the new ones dem fit steal plenty money. You will only lampoon this effort from critical partisan cocoonery, but las las na all of us go cry… We are in this Titanic seeking urgent rescue together, if you like call me names.

Our democracy, Oh sorry, our civil rule is in great danger, the danger posed by a gang that wants a One-party State, the danger posed by a tendency that stifles dissent and protest, the danger posed by a pestilential hoard of politrickcal operators that see nothing wrong in rigging, in electoral larceny, in electoral malfeasance, in thieving, in looting, in insecurity, and in electoral subterfuge. Yes, we are in trouble Folks, we have in power people who rig elections and go to the Church and to the Mosque to give thanks depending on their religion.

We have men and women in power who are so Godless and soulless they rig elections and ask you to ‘go to court’. We have in power the worst specie of political operators known to humankind, and they want to continue beyond 2027, herein lies the challenge, here is the call for redemption, here is the battle for the soul of our nation, and here is the unalterable commitment that Statesmen and patriots must make, to save Nigeria, and to build a nation that works for all MUST become our collective trust and pledge, for democracy dies where the freedom to vote and be voted for is abridged, stifled, compromised and thin.

Rise up Folks let’s get the job done, for the power of the people is greater and mightier than that of those in power.

God Bless Nigeria.

Prof Chris Mustapha Nwaokobia Jnr. is the Convener of the COUNTRYFIRST Movement, a good governance advocacy group.

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