By Theo Adebowale
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A people passing through economic challenges need to be properly managed in order not to self destruct. Has it not been said that a hungry man is an angry man? More than angry, he is irrational, open to temptations, ever unfaithful. A people that have watched free funds dispensed and loafers living big would have formed an image of a good life. When change comes, they believe it would only open the floodgates of riches and prosperity in their direction.

When such change comes and all they see is austerity, they become prey to hustling looters who easily provoke their quest for the good life. They begin to nurse a dream for an opportunity, an access to the national purse where they can make a cut without lifting a finger, without sweat. They crave for a breakthrough that would turn financial misery to pecuniary plenty. Some would remember that Jesus directed a disciple to draw down coins from the mouth of a fish and consider that a basis for the magician to draw one thousand naira notes from a tortoise.

They do magic with woman panties to make naira notes her vomit. Those that are more daring than fetish have embarked on cybercrimes hacking into bank accounts to dispossess legitimate operators of their savings and loans. Smuggling, which the more enterprising had dabbled into to earn good money has become a great risk. There is a class of criminals with access to sophisticated weapons supplied by their political mentors as in the case of Ofa, Kwara State, Islamic fundamentalists, Boko Haram, al Qaeda, ISIS, and even criminals in the Police. They are all bye-products of corruption, which were aforewarned, would fight back and fight dirty.

If you carefully observe and meditate on the current state of the economy, you would easily discover that the war against hunger and hardship is about to end. The practictioners and direct harvesters of proceeds of collective misfortune of Nigerians who are operators of the corruption cartel are not going to surrender without a showdown. They have been crying foul attracting sympathy at home and the diplomatic circle. The publicity arm of the All Progressives Congress and the Minister for Information are already getting bewitched to spit fire at the international community which is a bait to avoid. Gullible Nigerians and errand boys of the looters would not allow this ‘ample’ opportunity to slip by.

The only thing that can save Nigeria now is the vote. Emboldened by the show of shame at the Abeokuta campaign ground, Monday 11 February, the rogues on rampage can easily sell the dummy about that the party at the center has been rejected and, that is falsehood. When indiscipline has been tolerated too much, it translates to public embarrassment, and that is a topic for another day. Now, we have a responsibility to reach out to our siblings, friends and colleagues with a message to vote progressive. After victory, we have a lot of family meetings to hold to educate ourselves on party discipline, and party supremacy without which, the enemy may prevail.

We would need to remind ourselves that attention given to transportation by governments at federal and state levels have a more devastating blow on poverty. This attention is already yielding fruit. More hands would invest in agriculture, there would be great yield and hunger would diminish. The few thousands of naira made available as TRADERMONI would bring relief to market women empowering them to meet basic responsibilities. Apart from the monthly stipends, N-power opens graduates to skills knowledge and communities of prosperity. The war against corruption is a window for honest Nigerians to socialise their offsprings and wards to a lifestyle of honesty, hardwork and excellence to counter the culture of money rituals which is a threat to corporate Nigeria; health, security and safety of citizens.

We have a duty to mobilize support for a leader that makes corruption unattractive not because he would distribute money to individuals. No, he would not. But because the atmosphere is created for us to think out and invest in legitimate business. There is no community that prospers by investing in crime or criminality, just as no economy would flourish on pilfering either by individuals or a privileged group. Let us screen out looters at the center, we shall carefully do that at state and council levels later. It is systematic, and the national elections are the best point to commence the exercise. February 16 is an opportunity not to miss. Let us therefore go to our various polling booths to obtain our ballot papers that we may exercise out franchise and install reliable representatives in office. That is our immediate concern. Citizens and public officials must conserve their energy to carry out this assignment. We must refuse to be distracted from victory because the enemy has tasted defeat and exclusion and knows that it is a sorry situation.