So it’s my birthday today, I’m 23. Yeah yeah who cares; OBJ is 79 and is gunning for another four years. Ok I kid, I kid; dude is 69 and wants to be life President. Yep, we all got the third term blues. At times I wish I wasn’t so interested in politics and could just take the passive/siddon look approach. Anyways being that I am interested I’m going to roll out some of my observations on the third term issue.

1) Asking OBJ to continue for a third term in office is like asking Austin Jay Jay Okocha to continue playing and captaining the Super Eagles (defying age and despite all the bright young talent out there) for another four years. Agreed, Okocha is one of the best Nigerian players ever but without him we ended our WorldCup/Cup of Nations campaign on an excellent note and still went on to win bronze at Egypt 2006. Word is born Okocha is not indispensable to the national team. In the same vein in a country of over 120million people OBJ is not the only person who can run things well. And please don’t come with that stuff that the devil you know is better than the angel you do not know. What we’re fighting for is to get it into the Nigerian psyche that no matter how well (you think) you’ve done you should never overstay your welcome.

2) The NTA we’re seeing these days is slowly turning into the NTA of the 1998 era. Then everything was pro-Abacha. Abacha for president this, Nigeria needs Abacha that. Nowadays if the NTA is your only source of news you’d be fooled to think the nation overwhelmingly supports OBJ third term bid. But after thinking the issue over being that the NTA is the government’s baby it’s to be expected. Compare the NTA-OBJ situation to a large household. If something really bad happens within the household like a scuffle between sibling A and B and sibling B is left critically injured you don’t expect the household’s spokesman to come out publicly and rubbish siblings A’s image. Surely he’ll be admonished but being that blood is thicker than water it won’t be a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water. The case would be acknowledged as an unfortunate incident but the dirty incidents won’t be washed in public, everything would be dealt with on the low low. Nonetheless NTA still owes it to the public to always portray both sides of the story.

3) The NTA issue can make you want to cry, but thank God for little mercies like the independent press. Yes kudos to AIT, Channels television and co for correctly feeling the pulse of the people. Political discourse phone-in programs on the stations lets us know that unlike the claims of Mantu and co Nigerians as a whole are anti-third term. There are other news outlets like the radio, newspapers and the internet but being that television is king it’s good that our leaders some of who don’t know better can at least know what the word on the streets is by simply switching channels.

Picture originally available at foolscap