WHILE WE WERE ALL POLITICKING….

If I say I am glad the elections are over, I will be lying. I am actually more than SUPER GLAD it has all come and gone. In the past few weeks we have done nothing but talk about nothing else but the elections. I had no inspiration whatsoever to write. It felt as though as my brain was on pause like most work places were because of the elections. By the way, most of these offices say they are now waiting for May 29^th before job applications and contracts can be attended to. Don’t we always love to find a good reason for our ineptitude?

We cannot deny that this is by far the most interesting election we have had as a nation filled with everything you can find in an A-rated Hollywood movie: suspense, action, intrigues, thrilling, hilarious etc. Beginning with the much anticipated presidential elections which brought about mind-bulging arguments and analysis of the prominent actors, their parties and their loyalists/followers; to the wonderful comedy performed by Orubebe; to Jega’s display of extreme calmness (kai, that man must be from Pluto!) ;to GEJ’s heroic CALL; to the outrageous comment made by the monarch (which some people think should be swept under the carpet all in the name of moving on) which sparked a lot of wires, raised eyebrows, opened old wounds and brought the Lagos drama to light; to Adichie’s “controversial” piece(story for another day!); to the history the only female governorship aspirant nearly made (we are still waiting for it to happen) and all the other governorship election dramas. Oh! And not forgetting the man who promised to WALK from Lagos to Abuja in honour of GMB’s win and is almost done! He was last sighted in Niger State (CLICK HERE)

Of course we cannot ignore the mass migration of politicians to the new “powerful” party sweeping across the nation all because the new opposition party  had previously provided us with vacuum cleaners but with no electricity to power it (in the words of my friend. Lol). This however, confirms to me that Nigerian “political parties” are not political parties in the true sense of the word. They are not at all based on any ideologies like we see in western politics (e.g Republicans and Democrats in the United States) else these irresponsible cross-carpeting will not be happening. Who then will be left to keep the serving party in check?  By and large it has been an eventful month indeed!

Sadly, we have all watched as friends became fast enemies just because they didn’t agree on a candidate, tribes attacking tribes etc But then again, I must admit that the elections had a lot of pros the biggest of which was AWARENESS. Recently, the social media has played a major role in creating a platform of information for everything under the sun. This was no different. For the first time in our history, everyone who had a smart and not-so-smart phone was aware and participated in the election arguments/debates. Even those who were not so politically inclined (like me) were forced to participate and learn a little about our politics. If you were not commenting/arguing about each unfolding event, you could not escape reading about them.

In the midst all these happenings, I (we) nearly missed two important events that happened.

• TWO 17 YEAR OLD NIGERIANS GOT ADMITTED INTO ALL 8 IVY LEAGUE
  
  SCHOOLS!  Yes, Harold Ekeh  and Victor Agbafe both Nigerian born  but resident in the

  

  HAROLD EKEH

  United States, applied to 13 and 14 universities including the 8 ivy league schools respectively and got accepted into all. This is an amazing feat by all standards! Strinkingly, both want to

  

  VICTOR AGBAFE

  become neurosurgeons. Nigerians repping! ( SEE STORY HERE and HERE)

• SUPER FALCONS QUALIFY FOR THE ALL AFRICAN GAMES. This for me is a case

  

  HAPPY FALCONS

  of “what a man can do, a woman can do” but MUCH BETTER! Well since our Super Eagles have refused to fly, our falcons have not relented in making us proud so they should be celebrated! These super ladies scored 8 un-replied goals during their second leg All-African Games final qualifying match against Mali at the National stadium in Abuja last Friday. It should be remembered that they had earlier secured a ticket to Canada for the FIFA World Cup after their comfortable victories against Namibia, Zambia and Côte d'Ivoire, South Africa and Cameroon. Good job!

Ok, now the elections are over and it is time to work together to become the CHANGE we expect to see in our country. It will not fall on our laps like some deluded people think (Gosh! You need to hear some people talk about this). I sincerely hope that in all this we have learnt to become more accommodating, tolerating and peaceful.

GOD BLESS THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA!