SOMETHING WILL HAPPEN IN 2014 AND 2015

Henry Brooks Adams, the foremost American historian once said, ‘politics, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds’. Definitely then, bitterness has been long identified as the defining character of politics here and abroad. People are segregated along party lines based on certain hatred that might be either temporary or permanent. In countries where democracy has been strongly entrenched, these hatred-induced segregations are fairly permanent and often do not go beyond garrulous asperity. That is the reason why the Republicans and Democrats are two parallel lines that will never meet at any point.
In our country, the systematic organization of hatred is often temporary, but fiercely violent in nature. I could be disillusioned with the ways of PDP yesterday and go about singing their praise the next morning. Where the politics of the United States is based on a hateful segregation based on difference in principles, the politics of Nigeria is a hateful segregation which is often fluid and constantly changing, but based on GREED. Politicians in US do not cross-carpet from one party to the other because there is a wide difference in principle, politicians cross-carpet and cross-carpet again in Nigeria because they feel the need to satisfy their immediate greed and selfish desires.
There are varying forms of greed and selfish desires that breeds hatred in Nigerian politics. You hear of tribal differences, religious differences, financial differences and all manner of greed-induced self-aggrandizing desires. When a politician in Nigeria realizes the PDP cannot feed their greed, they cross-carpet to APC just to actualize their desires. I shake my head for this nation!
As the year 2014 (gubernatorial elections in Osun and Ekiti States) and 2015 (general elections), there has been political permutations resulting in political cross-carpeting here and there. These games of greed are not the motivation for this piece. However, the inflammatory statements accompanying much of the cross-carpeting processes are what give a cause for alarm.
Asari Dokubo said earlier this year that if President Goodluck Jonathan is not allowed to run a second term in office, the entire nation will be on fire....I mean real fire, but that was not too scary!.Just recently however, Mallam Junaid Mohammed came up with the northern version of the threat when he threatened that blood will flow freely in Nigeria should President Goodluck Jonathan win a second term in office! Now that is some real inflammatory statement and a direct counter-threat to the statements of Asari Dokubo. If the Niger Delta people are threatening fire and the northerners are threatening blood, it means Nigeria is on the road to a Civil war in 2015.
In the south-west where elections where gubernatorial elections will hold in 2014, there has been various threats emanating from various quarters in the region. Initially, one will think the threats are only likely from two quarters, the PDP and the APC, but the situation seems to be getting a lot more complicated. The Labour Party seems to gathering more momentum in the south-west too as they continue receiving angry members of both the APC and PDP into their fold. Thus, the threat is fast becoming three-dimensional to the region. It is said that when two elephants fight, the grass under will suffer....but three elephants are about to suffer in the south-west...possible calamity wouldn’t you say?
Some over-optimistic people will say there will be no violence in 2014 and 2015, I beg to differ. If we face the reality of the situation, the body language of these greedy politicians is such that they are preparing very hard for violence in these election years. So I insist, something will happen in 2014 and 2015, something that might be really bizarre depending on whether or not some form of divine intervention helps us avert the looming danger.
I believe however, that the divine intervention that we so urgently need will be more effective if we prepare our minds for the possibilities of these years ahead and we as citizens of the country take decisive steps towards averting the danger. First, all youths must resolve not to be used as agents of violence. These politicians are old, fatigued, pot-bellied men who can hardly throw a stone not to talk of wield a weapon, they all require the strength of certain youths. Let us make a resolve as young persons not to give up our productive energy for proliferation of violence in Nigeria. When the dog becomes toothless, its barking becomes loud music.
Second, all citizens of voting age must seek to vote only on the instruction of their conscience and not by the power of any stipend paid to them by these greedy politicians. When we vote in good faith and guard our votes well, it becomes even more difficult for those elections to be rigged in any form. We can only avert the looming danger if we do these things and allow for the true power of the electorates to run its true course.
If we fail to discharge our duties as Nigerians to decisively say no to these agents of destruction, we are bound to be enslaved to them for years to come. Before the years to come however, something will definitely happen in 2014 and 2015 and unless we act to stop it, we are better off running to our most remote villages as there will be scarcely any hiding place from the kind of violence that these people threaten everyday.
God bless Nigeria.