There is no doubt that Nigeria’s old brigade of political leaders have to the best of their abilities, paid their dues. It is also very glaring where their highly vaunted “leadership prowess” has led us as a nation. Beyond equivocations, history has also already commenced it’s compilation of a grim verdict on their chequered stewardships. Like a hunter, who has had enough of hubris time gloating over successful hunts, skills and kills, they should quit the stage of active leadership to save what is left of Nigeria.

An aged man who thinks that he is still strong and agile for the intense challenges of leadership because he still feels young at heart and full of ambition would not just be overstretching luck, but could be putting the interest of the collectivity in serious jeopardy as well. Our veteran leaders who can no longer cope with the leadership demands of physical presence and mental alertness, should be told in words and actions that do not lack clarity, to take a rest from active service. They should desist from impeding or even obstructing the evolution of an all inclusive and adequately responsive system that offers to a dying nation the only hope of survival. Everything that has a beginning, must come to an end!.

For the sake of country, a new paradigm of leadership that is not bogged down with blood feuds, long overdue, should now emerge. The greatest political questions now confronting Nigerians are serious decisions bordering on results-oriented captainship of the national ship. They do not include issues of revenge, recrimination, ethno-religious supremacism or political demagoguery. We certainly have lost precious time and opportunities, but we can still begin the process of getting things right if we think and act beyond the inhibiting influences of sectionalism as defined by ethnicity and religion. Let us unlock the conscience of our nation for the common good.

As we take stock of the past and position for the 2027 general elections, it is very important that the opportunity to redefine the leadership recruitment process in a manner that conforms with the yearning for a resourceful leadership, is not wasted again. The task of repositioning Nigeria in terms of the quality of leadership it gets going forward, should be undertaken as a dispassionate process, with no holds barred. It’s success cannot be realized except the right attention is given to the subversive ideology of political exclusion of people from some sections of Nigeria.

In addressing the issue of political exclusion, some very critical questions would have to be answered: What is the right approach to the accommodation question in Nigeria? Is punishing a section of the country through indiscriminate political marginalization and surreptitious economic subjugation, a project that cannot end? Can the Nigerian nation enjoy national health and thrive well if a section of it, by a criminal conspiracy of the rest, continues to have its path to equity, fairness and justice blocked? Nigeria’s political elite and the forces that dictates it’s national directions must decide on what to do about equity and fairness as an issue of national morality now. If they fail to address the issues of political justice now, the law of cause and effect will not stay docile.

When loose-mouthed politicians, religious and tribal bigots come out openly to campaign for themselves or their candidates on the basis of identity, Nigerians should regard such excesses as red flags exposing untrustworthiness to hold top leadership positions. They should be taken to tasks to explain in the light of our national diversity, what exactly they meant by that. Apart from a free for all exploitation of the nation’s resources, can such political blackmailers produce enough evidence of their much touted superior citizenship, love and commitment to Nigeria than the people they malign?

Everyone who is genuinely interested in Nigeria’s national survival and progress should be adequately worried about the reality of unending cycles of political underperformance. As a negative phenomenon, wishing that it soon goes away or may not affect us personally, the results of irresponsible leadership we are saddled with for choosing leaders, based not on competence and character, but on tribal or religious identity is enormous and bitter.

The asphyxiation of political emasculation through exclusion in Nigeria, is a situation that constantly compels sections of the country to cry out against what they see as a conspiracy to reduce their citizenship status. It has bred a political dilemma that for a long time, has been sustained by the efforts of the serial beneficiaries of the tragic exclusion of others in the conundrum of the Nigerian political system. If the political exclusion of another section is not for your benefit, why would you be promoting it with both blackmail and vehemence?

Unfortunately, when the excluded grumbles, it is frequently explained away by the beneficiaries of exclusion albeit, irrationally and unconscionably, as a demonstration of ingratitude. Elements whose insatiable appetite for advantage has cost Nigeria much progress resist the push for equity and insist rather, that the cry for inclusiveness must be checked “at all costs”

Certainly it is a huge mistake to think that the benefits of injustice can be sustained. And certainly it cannot survive in a situation where the demands of the oppressed does not include seeking to gain advantage over others. If the demand is for a level playing field for all, should not that be addressed with fairness? It therefore beats the rationale mind that a people could get criminalized and vilified unendingly for asking for an environment that is fair to all!

The fact cannot be denied that sociopolitical and socioeconomic injustice have become regular occurrences in the management of our national relationships. Two questions that should constitute the crux of an honest discourse are: Who benefits from the exclusion of other sections in Nigeria? The second question is, Can Nigeria afford eternally, the inherent consequences of yielding to the desires of those political forces who keep using the exclusion project to establish dominance over the entire country?

If justice, equity and inclusivity are truly the key drivers of social cohesion and harmony in nation building, the rest of Nigeria’s ethnicities who chose to go to war ostensibly, to keep the country united, should not remain silent in the face of the crude subversion of the very thing they fought for. Patriotic Nigerians should indeed be soberly concerned about how the unity they fought for has been mismanaged and is still being mismanaged by those who have ruled and some would say, ruined the country. How has Nigeria fared politically since the war ended over fifty years ago?. If the civil war was fought for the sinister objective of ethnic enslavement such a mission will definitely perish with time.

The politically excluded needs political justice in Nigeria. Working more deliberately and assiduously to give them a sense of belonging by ensuring political justice for the group, rather than what the present attitude betrays, stands a better chance of making Nigeria a stronger country than it presently is. When politicians employ the cliche, All hands must be on deck, there should be no secret exclusion of any section.