By Jude Atupulazi
The Vice Presidential Candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in 2019 elections, Mr Peter Obi, has decried what he described as a painful level of rot and decay in Nigeria’s political system, saying that a New Nigeria will emerge if honest men can join Nigeria’s political space with the intention of causing positive change.
Obi, who made this known during his appearance on Nigeria Leadership Series, hosted by Pastor Ituah Ighodalo, said the Nigerian elite were part of the major problems facing the nation.
Obi said the elite and informed citizens who were at the fore-front of change had refused to contribute positively to nation building, but were bent on finding ways of satisfying their selfish interests.
‘What we see in Nigeria today is a situation where people are getting greedier and becoming less caring about the less privileged. The learned and averagely comfortable ones in the country have little or no virtue of contentment. The less privileged ones who need all the opportunities in life to become rich, now appear to be more honest than the elite,’ Obi said.
The former Anambra governor expressed the hope that Nigeria would become a better place if men of integrity brought honesty into Nigeria’s political landscape. Obi said, the current evils of god-fatherism, bribery and corruption, abuse of public office, and so on, would be reduce when people who had the nation’s interest at heart joined politics.
He argued that politics would arguably remain dirty as long as people who had selfish interests continued to parade the corridors of power.
He further noted that the fear of criticism, verbal and physical attacks, and in some cases death, had made many well-meaning Nigerians to stand aloof from the political process of the nation. Obi urged them to live above their fears and understand that building Nigeria was a collective responsibility, even as he called on men of integrity to always speak out for the sake of the nation.
‘Once you decide to stand on the path of truth in a country like ours, people are going to question you, attack you and even victimise you. But you need to keep examining yourself if you are saying and doing the right thing. Once you are convinced that you are on the path of truth, you have nothing to fear.
We cannot remain docile while our nation sinks from one level of failure to another. Light will shine in darkness and darkness will not comprehend it.
‘Every country that has progressed from failure to national success passed through the same phase. Men of vision, sincerity, uprightness, probity, honour and moral rectitude, always rise up to cause a wave of change that turns around a nation for the better. We have such men in Nigeria. This is the time for them to rise up and join hands to save our country,’ Obi stated.
