Thread by @AsiwajuTinubu

A CHOICE BETWEEN PROGRESS AND RETREAT

The future is uncertain until we enter it. February 16 is Election Day and on that day Nigeria shall step into its future.

1.How you vote on that day will determine whether we walk into the future in a manner that guides our subsequent steps toward the national greatness that calls to us or will we walk into it backwards as if feebly trying to reinvent the past.

2.One road leads to a certain replay of the economic injustices of the past. It is a road well-worn with familiar pitfalls and setbacks built into the very nature of it.

3.The other road provides the truest, brightest chance for us to enter into our hopeful future but only if we are brave enough to believe in our capacity to improve our nation.

4.This election is more than a contest between two men, President Muhammadu Buhari and former VP Atiku Abubakar, for that one exalted chair. The election is nothing less than a historic encounter pitting one vision and version of our future against another.

5.Since walking backwards has never appeared to me as an efficient or responsible way for a person to proceed, let alone for a nation to surmount the difficult obstacles that nations must overcome, I cannot find much good in the policies and programs announced by the PDP.

6.Former VP Atiku misappropriated his eight previous years in high office. His occupancy of high office was best characterized by low deeds. Self-enrichment occurred at lightning speed but social welfare moves slower than a dousing snail.

7.Just a few weeks ago, Atiku offered his vision of the economy when he said that enriching his friends would be an appropriate objective of any government he led. At best, patronage is a regrettable and necessary reality of politics that should be severely curtailed.

8.But Atiku goes in the opposite direction. He bypasses patronage to brazenly elevate the much greater evil of cronyism from the shadows to make it the central plank of his national economic policy.

9.Look, I have made no attempts to hide my friendship with Atiku. We were friends before this election and hopefully we will be friends after February 16 when he goes into retirement.

10.Despite our friendship, I must say the type of enrichment of friends he envisions does not recommend itself to me. It is unjust and impoverishes all but a handful of Nigerians.

11. I want no part of such enrichment for my love of Nigeria and its people is far greater and deeper than my friendship with Atiku. For the good of Nigeria and even the good of Atiku himself, we do well to send him into retirement on Saturday.

12.Here I must relate a comment a friend recently made that shows the wide difference between the two parties and their presidential candidates.

13.My friend observed that if you make a deal with President Buhari, you can always be sure of his intention to follow through. Do the same with Atiku, he said, and prepare yourself for disappointment.

14.Atiku is not alone in his disregard for the common man. Such disregard is the true brand name of the PDP and its powerful, rich allies. Several weeks ago during a television interview,

15.Atiku’s Chief Economic Advisor Chike Obi intimated a strong preference to discontinue the social welfare payments the Buhari government established for the poorest of the nation’s poor.

16.Obi’s rationale was that the nation could not afford to offer even this modest safety net. While in Obi’s eyes a nation possessed of the abundant material wealth of Nigeria could ill afford to give its poorest citizens enough naira merely to survive,

17.Obi’s boss was reveling that he would further enrich already wealthy cronies. Obi was completely wrong that the nation does not have nations must overcome, I cannot find much good in the policies and programs announced by the PDP.

18.Just a few weeks ago, Atiku offered his vision of the economy when he said that enriching his friends would be an appropriate objective of any government he led. At best, patronage is a regrettable and necessary reality of politics that should be severely curtailed.

19.But Atiku goes in the opposite direction. He bypasses patronage to brazenly elevate the much greater evil of cronyism from the shadows to make it the central plank of his national economic policy.

20.Look, I have made no attempts to hide my friendship with Atiku. We were friends before this election and hopefully we will be friends after February 16 when he goes into retirement.

21.Despite our friendship, I must say the type of enrichment of friends he envisions does not recommend itself to me. It is unjust and impoverishes all but a handful of Nigerians.

22.I want no part of such enrichment for my love of Nigeria and its people is far greater and deeper than my friendship with Atiku. For the good of Nigeria and even the good of Atiku himself, we do well to send him into retirement on Saturday.

23.Here I must relate a comment a friend recently made that shows the wide difference between the two parties and their presidential candidates.

24.My friend observed that if you make a deal with President Buhari, you can always be sure of his intention to follow through. Do the same with Atiku, he said, and prepare yourself for disappointment.