2023 Elections and Our South Eastern Neighbors

If you’re a football lover and a follower of English football you would have heard of the term “noisy neighbours”, a term coined by Sir Alex Ferguson during his tenure at Manchester United

But I’m not here to write about English football, I’m here for politics and the permutations for the 2023 general elections, it’s no longer news the presidential election is either going to swing to the South or to the North, with Atiku Abubakar still in the plot, but most political analysts will tell you with high level of certainty that the presidency is coming to the South

We’ve heard of the SWAGA AGENDA, the South West are ready to “GINGER the SWAGA” but one isn’t certain who will be the lead actor, but will the people be ready to SWAGA with Tinubu’s candidacy?

Trust me, the SWAGA AGENDA is definitely going to be filled with suspense, because there will be so many twist and turns, and people are already drumming support for Vice President Yemi Osibajo, who also belongs to the political camp of Jagaban.

We are in for more drama, trust me, because Senator Ibikunle Amosun, SIA is also set to SWAGA as a lone ranger and you really can’t rule him out, I’m sure there is enough ginger in the SWAGA camp to look forward to.

On the Northern part, they are the deciders. Let’s not fake it, they have the numbers and we know which zones are trying to pitch their tent with them. Even the South South are making frantic effort to align their interest with the North and even they are even having a kind of political romance with the South.

We have a particular zone, our neighbors, but I tag them the noisy neighbors in politics, this particular zone has all it takes to clinch the presidency but it’s just this noise and initial gra gra that won’t allow them clinch it.

This is a zone with great intellectuals, individuals who have made impact on the economy, proven to be winners even with limited resources yet one supreme master orders them to sit at home on a Monday, and you want the presidential sit?

According to the words of Rudyard Kipling when he said,”borrow trouble for yourself, if that’s your nature but don’t lend it to your neighbours”, the IPOB brouhaha is a kind of borrowed trouble the South East didn’t deal with well enough. The senseless attacks on constituted authorities and the elites was a disastrous move to their 2023 chances, that’s if there was any anyways.

When the South West saw that Sunday Igboho was going to destroy their SWAGA, well, you know the rest of the story. It will be funny for anyone to think South West leaders are not in the know of his present predicaments, he will be out surely, but by then we will be on the SWAGA train.

Alhaji Tanko Yakasai, a founding member of the Arewa Consultative Forum and elder statesman, was once quoted by the press saying:

“the secessionist agitation and antecedents of IPOB, has weakened the chances of the Igbo people to produce a credible presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections”.

Our neighbors have all it takes, and for me they really deserve a shot at the presidential sit, but politics isn’t about noise and initial gra gra, it’s about reaching out. The North can’t be your enemy while you label another tribe as betrayals and you want to become the president, it doesn’t work that way

It’s about building a formidable relationship, you don’t hate the core players in the nation’s political space and you think power will be handed over to you. Power isn’t served a la carte, you have to work for it and actions and inactions are part of the work.

If only our neighbors can keep their head when everyone is blaming them, if only they can win others trust even when they doubt, if only…