By Basil Okoh
The tower of babel is the archetypal symbol of vain ambition. The builders of the tower of babel believed that heaven is a physical place that can be reached by high ambitions and building higher physical structures to reach it. They were wrong. Heaven is not a physical place. It cannot be reached through any physical structures.
That is the gossamer nature of vanity; intangible but powerful and ultimately destructive. The builders started on assumptions, not facts. Wrong, uninformed assumptions to serve vain and narcissistic purposes.
It is so prevalent in Nigerian politics and in our national life. We have pure disdain for facts and for knowledge. “You too sabi”. So we build our ambitions, hopes and investments on assumptions, not facts.
It is usually because the Pastor said so, the seer saw it in his nightly trance. God spoke to the prophet and approved it. The marabout assured us. No investment analysis, no opinion polling, no laboratory tests, no market research. We assume and our assumptions translate to ambitions on which there are no basis in facts or evidence of possibilities. Life or death decisions are made on these assumptions.
Take our friend Atiku Abubakar and his presidential running mate, Arthur Ifeanyi Okowa.
Their ambition for the presidency was deeply flawed by wrong assumptions from the get go; the massaging and promotion of personal egos against the interests of the wider society, egged on by vanity built on falsities.
Atiku wanted to be president and was determined to pull down every structure and convention in PDP to get the nomination of the party for the presidential office. He had no consideration for the political party and it’s rules, only the consideration for his interest to be president. He met his man Friday, Ifeanyi Okowa, who was ready to betray heaven and earth to lick the spittle of the buccaneer that he has wanted to be all his life. And both worked together as soul mates to betray half the country and spit on the faces of the rest.
In 2019, the way was cleared by the PDP for only northern candidates to contest for the presidential primaries. No southern candidate breached the rule. Only northern candidates contested for PDP presidential primaries in 2019.
Atiku Abubakar emerged from the presidential primaries 2019 as candidate of the PDP but lost to the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari in the general election. Contrary to the known practice of the man who had eaten “sokugo”, the Fulani wandering disease, he stayed on in PDP, without Nigerians suspecting that he had a future plan to disrupt the party in 2023.
Like a surreptitious snake, he was stalking his prey the PDP, springing on the delegates in May 2022 during the season of the presidential primaries. He ferociously and mindlessly upturned the established order, trashing the practice of the PDP which favoured him in 2019 and which required him in 2023 to stay off the presidential primaries for the presidency to move to Southern Nigeria.
But Atiku would rather die than obey rules made by men. He elicited the conspiracy and help of emirs, Sultan and retired generals to mobilize American dollars and defeat everyone else flashing Nigerian currency in the primaries.
And did he borrow? Yes, in American dollars as well. To defray part of it, $2 million was ferried to him by a member of the House of Representative from the treasuries of Delta state.
Lurking in the shadows was his stoolie, his man Friday, Ifeanyi Okowa, snitching on the south and providing the seed capital for a bogus enterprise to build another tower to heaven. It was at that point that Atiku Abubakar missed the purpose and the politics became foggy. And all these was before Nyesom Wike came in with his big fat phallus into the orgy room and all the PDP beauties followed him out to the turnpike and the gates were locked.
Just as heaven is not in the skies and the tower of babel was pointless, so the presidency of Nigeria is not in the north or south, not in the hands of the emirs or generals to give but in the heart of the voters of Nigeria to be won. No matter how high Atiku’s tower of babel, it will not reach heaven. No matter how many endorsements Atiku receives from emirs, sultan or the old generals, it will not win the election in Nigeria 2023 to make him president. This is a democracy and the power is with the people who vote, it is not under the command of the emirs, generals or the divination of the marabouts.
Those fat bribes in American dollars that Atiku used to purchase the ticket at the presidential primaries only dazed him to miss the mark further. Bribes will never be enough to make you president of Nigeria just as stones laid atop each other in babel could not take anyone to heaven. Heaven is not in the skies just as electoral victory is not in the palace of emirs and the generals but in the heart of the masses who vote.
It was a fatuous hope, believing that the wrong moves not based on the truth will work to make him president. The marabouts will always be wrong. So also will the prophets, seers and Pastors who surround man Friday score nought. Prophets and marabouts do not have the scientific facts or persuasive skills required to help win elections. Those who carry the curse of the fold will always be losers in the end.
The polls undertaken by NOI, a purely scientific undertaking (no prophet or marabouts) is showing correct performance results so far in the campaigns but we know that PDP will reject it because it contradicts what the marabouts , the prophets and the seers say. But we urge that you wake up sirs, this is the information age.
Out of five states polled by NOI for governorship elections north and south, only Rivers state goes to PDP. Rivers state goes to Nyesom Wike, not to PDP presidential campaigns.
The states polled are Abia, Lagos, Rivers, Kano, Kwara. They are representative of the entire Nigerian electorate. Three of these states, Lagos, Kano and Rivers are the undisputed deciders of Nigeria’s presidential elections since 1979 when we started practicing presidential democracy.
If PDP lost these three states, then it stands a good chance to lose the presidential election, no marabouts or prophet can change that. It is still three months to the election, maybe correctional actions can be taken and prophets and marabouts abandoned for real pollsters.
No matter what the marabouts and prophets are saying, no true pundit can see the pathway to a PDP presidential victory based on the present scientific polling result. The deep and still growing divisions in the PDP coupled with the obvious paucity of funds to finance campaigns, for a party which depends on big money to win elections, means that the PDP is out of presidential contention in this election cycle. The tower of babel built in the many conspiracies before the presidential primaries cannot take any one to heaven in this election.
Neither the prophet nor the marabouts have shown that they have research laboratories. The test inputs and test reagents are the huge sums paid to them but they will present no test results. When you’re duped, you go home and mourn. Life nor balance.
@basilokoh.