its in the air

this morning started out normal for me. as usual, thursday mornings are the worst of the week when the excitement of a monday morning (yes i said excitement) has worn off, and the drive of wednesday has finally gone. its the morning when i struggle to wake up and always get out of the house late. the soul is willing but the body is weak. luckily, in lagos nigeria, thats the environmental sanitation day every week for traders and all markets in the state remain closed until ten o'clock. you won't believe how much relief that creates for other road users like me so i still manage to get to work in decent time to do stuff like facebook and blog. okay, so why am i telling you all this? i can't quite remember but anyways...

so i was going past my fave spot - iyana ipaja under bridge - yes, thats where everything happens, when i suddenly felt my spirits lift. in fact my spirits lifted me so high from my half-asleep state that i began to hum to myself. why this sudden joy you might ask? i had just beheld the very first election poster!!! why do i have a feeling you don't quite share my excitement on this one? okay, as you know i criticize everything that goes by and for me the 2011 election is the moment i have been waiting for. the truth is that i am more aware of the political issues in lagos state more than ever before and i cannot wait to see if the new generation of politicians and facebookers are just going to sit on their whining asses and allow the garage touts take every councillorship position away from them again.

yesterday on facebook, my friend rotimi happened to posit that anyone who has up to 400 friends on his facebook page can run for elective office. as you can imagine, i had a ready response, which is that: "rotimi, here's how it works. 400 will get your facebook status posts about running. 300 will advise you on how best to run. 200 will help you tell others about your quest for office. 100 will join your campaign committee. 50 will register to vote at the elections. 20 will eventually vote for you. meanwhile, your opponent chief tawakalitu owolobe, doesn't even know what facebook is. all he needs is the new polimer notes to spread the love. he gets 30 million votes out of lagos alone (altho we're not up to 30 million). trust INEC".

i guess that just shows you how much confidence i have in the elction process. i think the time has come for us to stop treating elections in nigeria like its the preserve of a few uneducated folks and through our collective voices, force prospective candidates to address major issues that affect us in all our local governments, and then the state. by my estimation, the biggest political move that the AC has made is in ensuring that Bode George got sentenced to jail just in time for the campaign countdown to the elections in 2011. thats not to insinuate any wrongdoing on the side of the judiciary but it works in favour of tinubu and co, to have the man who boasted that PDP would take lagos, behind bars when the time came to test the strength of the AC.

Just a little context for y'all who don't live in nigeria no more. there are 30 registered parties in Nigeria, but all are aligned in 4 groups. there's the People's "Democratic" Party (that foists its candidates on others during party primaries - cue Mr. Soludo - how ironic), there's the Action Congress (who's only claim to "action" is in breaking down structures in lagos, planting flowers and building new roads, not that i'm complaining), there's the All Progressive Grand Alliance (thank you Wikipedia, who only claim to fame is the leadership of Dim Odimegwu Ojukwu of the Biafran War fame) and the All Nigeria People's Party (that has fielded the same single man as presidential aspirant for 3 elections in a row - how serious minded). Truth is, at last count (i'm a nigerian in nigeria relying on information on wikipedia about nigeria) there were about 32 registered parties at some point ranging from such unknown names as the Masses Movement of Nigeria, to the Communist Party of Nigeria (i'm sure Fidel Castro is grand patron etcetera).

Now you understand why i'm so excited. Nigerian politics reads like the script to a bad nollywood movie. in the past we've had pastors run for president on the assurance that the Almighty God had asked them to do so...and then they proceeded to lose woefully. Someone said its cos God wouldn't rig the elections but i'm not there o! so anyhows, watch this space for my biased view on the goings-on in the race to the new nigeria. and be sure to disagree with me anytime, just don't resort to violence please...cos i still hope to run for senate in 2024.

later peeps.