Dear friends, readers and followers on this platform, permit me to seize this opportunity to send this letter to the concerned electorates and youths of Ebiraland ahead of forthcoming 2019 general elections. Nobody can convince me that this letter is not coming at the appropriate time in our journey towards the next political dispensation in Kogi central.
Indeed, the time has come for all stakeholders in Ebiraland to redirect our attention and focus to this group of people who may likely play a very vital and decisive roles that will change the course of our collective history and destiny come 2019, the year the Independent National Electoral Commission has decided, in their own wisdom, to conduct four different elections, namely presidential, senatorial, House of Representatives and House of Assembly polls in Kogi central just as it is applicable in other states of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
In my own opinion, it has become very imperative to demand from our electorates and the teeming youths in the land to conduct themselves in tandem with civilized democratic culture and behavioral tendencies applicable in other climes of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Today, I have decided to speak truth with all candor and sincerity to this group of people who would step out next year to take decisions that will most likely affect the rest of us.
First, our electorates, armed with their PVCs, should vote based on the dictates of their conscience for any candidate of their choice, they should not be swayed by the attraction of pecuniary gains and other mundane financial inducement and such material items as rice, salt, beans that will be dangled at them by the candidates. They should not indulge in any unwholesome practice, buying and selling of votes, for instance, during any of the four elections earlier mentioned above.
In the same vein, our teeming youths should be told to stay away from thuggery and brigandage as we have witnessed in recent past, if they all refused to be recruited into thuggery, at the end of the day, Ebiraland would be better for it.
This is the time to remind them that so many of our youths had lost their lives because they were stupid and foolish to allow themselves to be recruited into an army of thugs by conscienceless political leaders who were so desperate to ventilate their inordinate ambitions through the barrel of AK47 as we had seen in past electioneering periods.
In conclusion therefore, I want to seize this opportunity to call on relevant security Agencies to rise up above any partisan tendency and conduct themselves properly in tandem with their oaths of office which they solemnly sworn to when they were being recruited in line with constitutional demands.
Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come too for all of us to wake up from our slumbers and pay attention to how elections are conducted in our fatherland, the days of nonchalance and indifference are over. The last time I checked, the children and dependants of our politicians are in the best schools in Dubai and other countries of the world.
Those of them who are too young to travel abroad are in the best private schools in Abuja or Lagos, such is life. Aluta continua!
– Otori Ozigi is a former Public Relations Officer of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Journalist and PR Expert
