Let anybody who wants to run, run, including Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu.  Those who prefer to walk, will walk along. Yet, others who opt to crawl, will crawl behind.

Our ultimate goal is the proverbial Promised Land. Remember, it took the ancient Israelites 40 years to get there. Imagine a “short” trip of 40 days taking that long.

Already, we have surpassed them.  This is our 56th year of running, trekking, walking, crawling, et al. We are yet to get there. We are still a very far distance from the Promised Land.  There is even no sign or signal in sight.

Just like the stiff-necked Israelites of old, we are very riotous and chaotic. We have been fumbling and stumbling all these odd years. We have been making fruitless efforts.  The harder we strive, the slower we move; motion without movement.  It has been one step forward, 10 steps backward.

That is why we are more backward than when we started the journey on October 1, 1960. Despite our awkward foundation, we started well. Our leaders then are like saints now. Mention them: Nnamidi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Tafawa Balewa, Ahmadu Bello, Samuel Akintola, Michael Okpara, etc. You would marvel at their monumental achievements.

So, let anybody who wants to run for us now run very fast. We are in a hurry more than ever before. We are dead late already. Look at where we are after a turbulent journey of more than 56 years.

Look around and see what our contemporaries have made of their trips. We almost started together with Malaysia, India, Ghana, etc.  Imagine where they are today! The time is grossly not on our side.

We have wasted all these past years on a platter of gold. We need the fastest runner even now. We have had such a turbulent trip, full of bumpy traps.  Yet, we never picked any useful lessons from our ugly past.

What else have we not tried? We took off with self-government in the 1950s. We graduated to the parliamentary system at independence on October 1, 1960.  That was what our reluctant British colonial masters angrily bestowed on us. We swallowed it hook and sinker. But it never sank into our consciousness.

Three years on, in 1963, we moved a step further into being a so-called Federal Republic of Nigeria. We believed erroneously that we had shed all colonial colorations.  But we merely deceived ourselves, as we were still in colonial era in our thinking and thoughts. This glaringly showed in our actions and inactions.

That was how we ran into troubled waters.  The political weather was getting harsh and unfavourable. Instead of fixing our future, we spent our energy and resources on our perceived political enemies.

Just like that, our firs attempt at democracy collapsed on January 15, 1966. The military borrowed a leaf from the then neighbouring Dahomey, now Benin Republic. They made use of the lesson and came calling that early morning, and buried our First Republic.

All the labour of our founding fathers since the early 1950s nearly went down the drain. The forceful changeover was bloody. The losses were massive and unimagined. It was a very unkind action.

We were yet to get over it when a counter-coup came in July/August 1966. It was purely for ethnic cleansing and everybody agreed.  We sank further into the mud as a nation. We were fast losing our bearing as a nation.  The fabric that held us together was becoming fragile by the day.

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We began to shift our orientation. What our fathers who fought for independence put together, we laboured hard to put asunder. The drift was alarming. We focused on our weaknesses, instead of our strengths.  We began a dangerous discourse. We were strengthening reasons why we should not stay together as a nation.

That led to a tragic civil war in July 1967.  It lasted for 30 cruel and gruesome months and ended in early January 1969. The effects of those dark months are with us till today.

Yet, we did not see any reason to learn from that experience. In other serious-minded climes, they usually come out of civil wars stronger, better and more united. The United States is a classical example of that experience and experiment.

All the same, we floundered and staggered along. For 13 years, the military and militarism were in our innocent consciousness. We were ruled and ruined.

Glaringly, our progress was retarded. We were under the strong arms of the “Khaki-boys.”  And we had them in various shapes, shades, forms and modes.

Yet, we endured.  We had no choice, no viable alternative. And it was as turbulent as ever. They unwillingly promised us democracy in 1974.  That was to be a failed promise.  We did not get one until October 1, 1979. It ushered in the Second Republic.

Sadly, we were allowed to operate for just a little over four years.  The military came back to its vomit on December 31, 1983, when it thwarted that arrangement. The “Khaki boys” this time around were more ferocious.  They blamed us for our predicament. They told us we never learnt anything, which was true.

But it was never their business to teach us democracy. They were to defend us. They ought to have left us alone. They had no business coming to power on January 15, 1966.

If they had not poked their nose into our business, we would have sorted ourselves out by ourselves and for ourselves. Their comings were aberrations. They came to destroy whatever democratic values we had built, even if built on a shaky foundation. We would have fallen in line by now.

But they would not let us be, until May 29, 1999.  Even then, they imposed one of their own, Olusegun Obasanjo, on us. We grudgingly accepted because we did not want to give them any excuse. We just wanted them to go, anyhow.

I bet that was our greatest undoing, which is why our present attempt has been what it is. Since 1999, we are convinced to believe that our leaders have hardly meant well for us. From Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Goodluck Jonathan, even now! Things have been going from bad to worse.  We have been thoroughly deceived, abused, bruised and neglected. That has been our relationship with our leaders.

They have largely messed us up. There is practically no exception. Not even one we can vouch for. They are all shame of the same shame. No matter their pretension; they are birds of the same feather.  And they arrogantly flock together.

So, if any of them now says he wants to run, so be it.  We don’t give a hoot. Such can run aground for all we care.

Dare you, run now or never!