By Prince Uthman Shodipe-Dosunmu
It is impossible to separate the nation from the people who are its natural summative constituent whole. For a nation is only acknowledged in the genuine fealty of its people, in their shared values, defined common journeys, in the formative essence of their agreed undying ideals.
But nations do not arrive in some conjured perfection. Never. Nation building is always about hurdles and the smoothening of the edges. It is about the twists and turns; the tumbles and the risings, the cracks and the mendings, the healings, the rectifications of the broken places.
The Nigerian state is not an exception. It is hobbled presently by the challenges of nation building. It is much latched in ethnic centrifugal divisions. It is challenged by variegated ills, hindered by the scourge of a melange of outlaws bent on destroying the progressive possibilities of the Nigerian state.
This is our current burden. This is our albatross, sworn to halt the Nigerian journey towards enlightened civilized clime.
But the thronging paces of evil only succeeds when patriots choose to straddle the fence of neutrality. Patriots must speak out wherever evil is perceived.
Patriots must assert themselves in heroic articulations, battering the cordon of retrogressive forces with the iron sturdiness of the truth.
Today, our nation now stands on the precipice of another new dawn, of a renewed hope, of another beginning, of a rebirth and a new helmsman that will steer the rudder of state.
There is no perfect leadership. There is no leadership that resides in pristine, baptismal innocence. We are all flawed.
But at the same time, we all should be discerning as constituents of the Nigerian state. We are all capable of enlightened decision that will guide our nation aright. This time, we dare not get it wrong.
We do acknowledge that the political fray often degenerates into a mine field of deliberate falsehood, manufactured histrionics, outrageous idiocy and scripted malady, where dwarfs become giants, where dark arbiters are woven with the light, where truth is twisted to suit the moment.
We dare to defer. We, at the Patriots Roundtable, are sworn to the indivisibility of the Nigerian Union, where the nation is steered by genuine patriots, who will promote excellence instead of mediocrity, who will spur national rectitude regardless of ethnic provenance or sectarian alliance.
Here and now, we are bold and dare to submit that the Nigerian fragile union can be made stronger, more developmental and merit worthy in the hands of the Tinubu-Shettima ticket.
We have arrived at this position with the proven, observable demonstration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s leadership precedents. He is a nation builder. He is an instinctive cultivator of talented men and women, indifferent to their ethnic or sectarian provenance. He is ultimately defined accommodating largeness of the best and the brightest.
Tinubu is a builder of institution, an instigator of the expanses of merit, aiding the growth of knowledge with the tools of distinction; a bold standard bearer of the best and the brightest of the Nigerian Union.
We do acknowledge that we are all flawed as human beings. We only struggle towards perfection. In this conflicting field of presidential candidates, we, at the Patriots Roundtable, have no doubt at all that the best option on the table for the viability and the sustainability of the Nigerian Union towards nationhood is the Tinubu-Shettima ticket. This is our resolve, predicated on the indices of political balance, pivoted on the tableau of national acceptability, reposed on the doctrine of amity and progressive enlargement and beatific possibilities of the Nigerian space. This is our appeal to the larger Nigerian Union.
Let us vote for a promise keeper. Let us endorse a visionary team player and a creative leadership. Tinubu now stands atop of a distinguishable totem, shining in a pulchritude only the heavens can fathom. Fate is fate. You cannot quarrel with the certitudes of Heaven.
Let us therefore embrace what is right and just. Let us, therefore, embrace the progressive ideals. Let us, therefore, cultivate the path of rectifying the present and the ancient wrongs. Let us, therefore, register the approving stamp of national amity, of justice and fairness.
Let us embrace the candidate that will kindle the equitable progressive path.
Let us start anew in national rebirth and salvaging attestations. Let us sweep clean the Augean stable of rot, of diseased corruption of virulent banditry and nepotistic withdrawal.
There is no other way. This is our moral challenge. Let us seize the moment of rectifying the pervading national ills. This is our patriotic duty.
Like Churchill told us: We dare not fail nor falter. The horizon beckons with promise, with truth and triumph, with the clear certitudes of the redeeming light. Let us go forth to make Nigeria great again.
•Shodipe-Dosunmu is the National Coordinator, The Patriots Roundtable, Lagos.
