Today’s Headlines: Tinubu won but Peter Obi did not lose, Jonathan Mourns late Ondo Gov. Akeredolu

The 2023 presidential election was a great leap forward for Nigeria. For the first time, either by design or coincidence, we had three industrialists, namely, Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP; Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC; and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, led in the race. 

This marked a total departure from the era where retired and tired army generals dominated the political scene.

You won’t be wrong defining 2023 as the end of an era and beginning of another. In the unhappy era that ended May 29 2023, Nigeria was a political disaster. Under the retired military officers, who initially came to power as young revolutionaries, Nigeria abysmally failed to grow on all indices of power- political, monetary, intellectual and religious stabilities. You now begin to question the rationale for returning them to power as civilian presidents

We are convinced there is a direct link between the long period, January 15th 1966 to May 29 2023, Nigeria was exposed to the clueless leadership under the old guard and high levels of violence and corruption of today. Isa Sanusi of Amnesty International revealed that within the first three weeks of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu government, 123 Nigerians were killed by non-state actors; a spillover from the General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) government, for instance.

Agreed that a probable great future beckons; we must still interrogate the leaderships of the past six decades. Such exercise, apart from engendering the much needed national relief, will also bring about foreclosure to an unproductive epoch

This article comes in two parts. In part one we shall look at the revolutionary forces that brought the generals to power as young officers and still retained them as civilian presidents. Did they advance or hinder Nigeria while in public office? What other profitable ventures can we put them to, if only to wean them from politics? In part two we shall look at our national quest for industrialization. What do Nigerians stand to gain under Industrialist-President Tinubu?