DEAR LORD, WHOM SHALL I VOTE FOR?!

Next Saturday, the long awaited April 2011 general elections will begin. I know that many of you wonderful readers out there, more brilliant, more decisive, and more deeply involved in the scheme of things already have your list of candidates – at the various levels. I truly congratulate you. I really do wish I were that smart, but believe me, tried as I have, I still don’t know who to vote for! That wouldn’t be such a problem were my blankness limited to the local governments and state legislature, where nobody bothers to campaign, anyway. But even at the presidential level, I am still in a dilemma.

Of course, there are the obvious front runners – incumbent Goodluck Jonathan/Namadi Sambo (Peoples Democratic Party, PDP); Nuhu Ribadu/Fola Adeola (Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN) and Muhammadu Buhari/Tunde Bakare (Congress for Progressive Change, CPC). Two others worth mentioning, in my opinion, are Ibrahim

Shekarau of All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and Pat Utomi (Social Democratic Mega Party, SDMP).

I have taken a close look at the candidates and I would like to state, up front, that none of the three front runners cuts it with me on the basis of a set of criteria I have formulated, based on my understanding of what I consider as the key requirements for leadership as this stage of our national evolution. These are: integrity, consistency, antecedence, and intellectual capacity. Of course, you may have your own set of criteria, which might even be better, but, as far as I am concerned, these are it.

Let me also state, for purpose of full disclosure, that I consider Pat Utomi as the only candidate, of the lot, who meets my set of criteria and for whom I just might vote. The reason for using the word “might” will become clear later in this piece. Now let’s look at the three front runners using the criteria above, beginning with the incumbent.

Dr Goodluck Jonathan is an amiable man who affects a kind of humility uncommon in the history of our presidency. But I submit with all sense of responsibility, that the very fact that he is in this race on the ticket of PDP, puts his integrity to test. I do not support zoning, but he did. He is a signatory to the initial document that affirmed the scheme within his party and a beneficiary of the arrangement. To try, as he did, to sophistically repudiate the arrangement is sheer opportunism. Affecting to be different, he has nonetheless manifested the same double standards, which successive Nigerian leaders have institutionalized. He knows that the use of government facilities for partisan political purposes is, at least, opportunistic and immoral, if not fraudulent. Under his watch, impunity has returned, with the legislative crisis in Ogun state, denial of access to campaign venues, by governments run by PDP as in the case of Buhari at Mapo Hall, Ibadan are poster examples.

The point being made here is that the president’s rhetoric has not been matched by his actions and omissions. As for his intellectual capacity, I’ll just ask one question: has he demonstrated an ability to think on his feet?

Nuhu Ribadu’s claim to fame is his role as chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. As readers of this column might recall, I am on record as stating that the fact that he could not prosecute Chief Bode George exemplified the truth that he was little more than Obasanjo’s attack dog. While his personal incorruptibility has not been in doubt, his double standards, his Machiavellian disposition leading to Gestapo tactics makes trusting him with State power quite risky.

The ticket’s claim to being a breath of fresh air may well be true because neither Ribadu nor Adeola have ever run for the presidency. But, Adeola resigned from Goodluck’s Presidential Advisory Committee, only a few days before publicly announcing his decision to run with the ACN candidate. He was involved in the controversial Transnational Corporation (an Obasanjo idea) and served as chairman of the National Pensions Commission the same man. So it can be correctly said that he had been a part of the system. While none of these disqualifies him, it does raise questions of consistency; not to talk of street hints about the place of Obasanjo in all of these. Intellectual capacity?  Very little doubt about that and they have youth on their side too!

Buhari is just an older version of Ribadu in that incorruptibility is the reason he is a front runner in this three-horse race. That is evident in the paucity of his personal assets in spite of the many high and “lucrative” offices he has held. He approached his job as military head of state with such zeal that all human rights considerations and legal niceties were thrown out the window. To put it starkly, General Buhari has his hands soiled by innocent blood; including governors who died as a result of the trauma they went through in undeserved detention and convicted armed robbers, Ojulope and co, who should have had between seven and 14 years in jail under existant laws, but were executed under a retroactive decree. The way he ran the economy then, was a throwback to the Stone Age. As for Pastor Tunde Bakare, I shall pass, because he is a man of God whose integrity I don’t doubt, even if the consistency of his public statements over time is hard to avow.

Governor Ibrahim Shekarau has an enviable track record of infrastructural development in Kano state and has proven to be an intelligent debater, but I do not knoow enough about him to comment on integrity and consistency. His highly experienced runnung mate, John Odigie-Oyegun is however wel known for consistency and integrity. they are a pair to watch.

As for Pat Utomi, all I need to add to what I said earlier is that he also has no baggages from the past that can hinder him in  office. But Social Democratic Mega Party? They dont seem on ground anywhere, which makes his chamces very slim indeed.

Having said all of this, the big question I am asking, and which I enjoin everyone to ask, is this: “Father, since you are the only One who knows the heart of men; the only One whose counsel for this nation will stand, and who definitely Has a candidate you have chosen to use at this phase of our national journey, whom do you want me to vote for, in order to use my vote to enforce your will?”

That, in my opinion, should be the recourse of everyone who believes that God is interested in the affairs of this nation. So who will I vote for? It’s got to be that man that God will lay upon my heart to, either directly or through a vessel I get a release in my spirit to trust. So help me, God.