The Case For Dangote As President Of Nigeria

Alhaji Aliko Dangote delivering a speech recently

“…Leadership Is The Great Unifier, The Builder Of Nations, The Spearhead Of Progress…”

Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe

Aliko's story is the recall of an ardent historicity, defined by the culture-set of his (Hausa-Fulani) family and lineage. He daringly traversed for a spot outside of the limitations imposed upon him by his clan allegiances, to find resonance, far away from his comfort zone, in the progressive muster of Lagos state. He hustled. He connected. He networked. Along the line, he built a dream that indexed his prosperity to the continued growth of a nation. He refused to leave when others were fawning the gambling floors of Monaco. “there is no better place to be, than Nigeria,” he would say...

An OP-ED by: Stephens A. Obomese

Using what he called a ‘simple descriptive analysis of historical materials,’ Oladipo Ojo (2014) argued convincingly in his ethnological work, that Nigeria is a country where its citizenry have become infra-humans; and a debilitating British creation, whose essence and manifest subsistence, have been cremated by leadership(s) imposed to serve British imperial knock-offs  -  a leadership whose longevity is, sadly, perpetuated by the docility of a socially-muzzled citizenship. Of the many concurrence that I have seen, the analogical contest in Annegret Mähler’s (2010) articulation of ‘The Rentier State’ situation and the ‘Resource Curse’ of the Nigerian realism (my context), provides a morphological framework to contextualise the ‘patronage networks, widespread clientelism, and assistentialistic distribution policies’ that ‘attributes the linkage between [crude] oil and its [governing] authoritarianism.’ Within these mechanisms of dominance, which seemed more pronounced at moments of populist interregnum, are Interpretivist paradigms which instinctively insulates current (Nigerian) power architecture from their deontological accountability. These paradigmatic elements then permeate the inter-woven constructs of our politics; our religion; our tribal allegiances; and the transcendentality of our communal culture. As a consequence, our reckoning, becomes more solidified into the burgeoning fault-lines (within our politics), towards what Peter Lewis (1994) intoned as [Nigeria’s] dynamics of political contention. The more these fault-lines are consummated, the more the civic loins that buoys our collective purpose, frails.

Within these mechanisms of dominance, which seemed more pronounced at moments of populist interregnum, are Interpretivist paradigms which has, instinctively insulated current (Nigerian) power hierarchy from their deontological accountability...

Today’s Nigeria is dominantly overflowed with comorbidity of toxic subjectivity, extreme affects, elevated friendship of class relationships, and other idiosyncratic trade-offs. We have a governmentality (a. la. Foucault) that despises the conditions of its publics. We have a country which depressingly paraphrases its anthropological allures to seek the least rent in global considerations, while subjectified in a minimalist wonder of self-imposed myopia. The confliction is as bad as its contradictions. I know it because I am a Nigerian in good standing. To non-Nigerians, it is the kind of lived experience which precipitates a re-introduction to the Nigeria that is in need of impulse and surgery. Attempts at triangulation by progressive forces [since her independence in 1960] have been thwarted, inadvertently, by the boorishness of the Nigerian intelligentsia (and its delinquent power hierarchy). Yet, the story of the craftsmanship whose guidance has managed the delicate ecology of the competing nationalism from within, since 1914, is asymptotic to the same story of our enduring the conflicts of reasonings, that has beguiled our propitiation for national renewal. In Kantian philosophical speak, we have been seeking the endorsement of competing cultures within the Nigerian body frame, by demanding the neutrality of ‘self-interested’ postures which naturally oscillates between ‘epistemic vices’ and 'epistemic virtues’ (a. la. Dalston & Galiston, 2007). This, we have done with the least appeal to the subset of commonality that accommodates the true centrist within our current political milieu. We have, in like manner, duplicitously declined to extend ourselves to the “categorical imperative,” of imposing the utility of the humanism of others, upon ourselves. It is the sad realism of a country whose collective indigeneity can be mapped from a tapestry of oral traditions, enduring folklores, and anthroposemiotic conclave of culture symbolisms (which extends to its supernatural agency).

 Today’s Nigeria is dominantly overflowed with comorbidities of toxic subjectivity, extreme affects, elevated friendship of class relationships, and other idiosyncratic trade-offs........We have a country which depressingly paraphrases its anthropological allures to seek the least rent in global considerations, while subjectified in a minimalist wonder of self-imposed myopia

As we inure the realisms of the Nigerian experiment, blending towards a possible convergence between the experiential formation of class hierarchy, AND the perspectival formulation of tenets of true justice (a seeming impossibility, I would argue), we are stuck to deploying the forms of nature (at our disposal), against the necessities of candour (that we must grow), in other to inform the needed pragmatism (with the highest probability of making a growth difference), in our polity. We are, then, back to my quip in the preamble of this OP-ED, that: “The confliction is as bad as its contradictions.” It is as bad when you watch existing connoisseurs of our bloodied politics, become obsessed with taking from Nigeria to the extent that the effervescent mind knows no other, than to recourse to the path of looting when called upon to deliver public service.  That we need a 'Beekeeper' who would go beyond the call of the moment, to protect and sustain the hives, is not in doubt. What is, is the person-sole with the fervency and the pungency to overwhelm the takers. For the Beekeeper will always protect the hive because he has his skin in the game.

In Kantian philosophical speak, we have been seeking the endorsement of competing cultures within the Nigerian body frame, by demanding the neutrality of ‘self-interested’ postures which naturally oscillates between ‘epistemic vices’ and 'epistemic virtues’ .... This, we have done with the least appeal to the subset of commonality that accommodates the true centrist within our current political milieu... 

I have never met nor spoken to Aliko Dangote. Neither have I asked for his support directly or indirectly, for anything. But I have keenly followed and studied his career (in my 30-year odyssey of monitoring, and empirical reviews), morphing from an Originalist Trader of goods and services (like Peter Obi) to a Pioneering Builder of goods and services (like Henry Ford). I have watched him blossomed from a place of interest to a place of country. I have seen his contemporaries never leaving their place of self-interest. But chose to be part of the hive, without the willingness to save a country....our country! They looted. They plundered, until they bludgeoned the survival of our colony to a certain death, akin to social apocalypse. Yet Dangote stayed and flowered our collective sense that Nigeria is truly possible, in his own way. Say what you want about him, he’s still resident with the hives, albeit, from the paradox of our dishevelled country.

Aliko's story is the recall of an ardent historicity, defined by the culture-set of his (Hausa-Fulani) family and lineage. He daringly traversed for a spot outside of the limitations imposed upon him by his clan allegiances, to find resonance, far away from his comfort zone, in the progressive muster of Lagos state. He hustled. He connected. He networked. Along the line, he built a dream that indexed his prosperity to the continued growth of a nation. He refused to leave when others were fawning the gambling floors of Monaco. “there is no better place to be, than Nigeria,” he would say. Fellow Nigerians, I am yet to see a greater love for country than this. And I pray to God, that you see what I see.

The Nigerian confliction is as bad as its contradictions. It is as bad when you watch existing connoisseurs of our bloodied politics, become obsessed with taking from Nigeria to the extent that the effervescent mind knows no other, than to recourse to the path of looting when called upon to deliver public service.  That we need a 'Beekeeper' who would go beyond the call of the moment, to protect and sustain the hives, is not in doubt. What is, is the person-sole with the fervency and the pungency to overwhelm the takers. For the Beekeeper will always protect the hive because he has his skin in the game.

Epistemologically-speaking, I see Aliko Dangote as the serendipity in our search for a skilled, kind and benevolent leadership in Nigeria. I’ll support this argument by recalling Alfred Tauber (2020), who hypothesised that epistemologies meet at the juncture of objectivity, and [where] the panoply of subjective factors influences interpretation. There is no way a rational consensus can be built in a discombobulated society of many colliding factors (and other fault-lines), without an imposing figure, whose commitment to objective governance is guaranteed by his exposures to the harmony and/or disharmony of the hives within, and of the colony. We are on the edge of bust, ready to be ignited by the glazing fire of despondency. Still, the current hierarchy find contentment in the hype of their sycophants, that they flippantly ignore that old Yoruba adage: “t’oju b ani suuru, a r’imu.” (meaning “it is when the eyes settles down that it sees the nose). God has been kind enough to give Nigeria a gift in Aliko Dangote. But we are underutilizing him. And that is depressing!

I have never met nor spoken to Aliko Dangote. Neither have I asked for his support directly or indirectly, for anything. But I have keenly followed and studied his career, morphing from an Originalist Trader of goods and services (like Peter Obi), to a Pioneering Builder of goods and services (like Henry Ford). I have watched him blossomed from a place of interest to a place of country ... Still, he stayed and flowered our collective sense that Nigeria is truly possible, in his own way. Say what you want about him, he’s still resident with the hives, albeit, from the paradox of our dishevelled country....

This OP-ED is to logically make a case for Dangote as the most skilled hand, at this moment, to protect the hives and save our country. I am not searching for a moralising mind but an ethical hand. I am not looking for the most religious, but the most pragmatic and the most commonsensical. Neither am I looking for a talker of national unity (like the many actors who currently dominate our public space), but someone who has put all his eggs in the Nigeria basket  -  risking it all. As you begin to think what I am thinking, I’ll briefly outline three subjective factors which I believe, must be considered by the kind of President that Nigeria truly needs.

Firstly, Managing Our RELIGIOUS Fault-Lines:                                                                            

To bring illumination to the management of our religious fault-line, I’ll adopt the thought-provoking articulation by Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1972) on “STATE AND RELIGION,” in which he insisted that "[a] nation is not a given natural entity, but an entity created by consciousness.” I am minded thereto, to defer to a leadership who would instinctively, recognise the [Nigerian] state, and its instrumentality, as an ‘apparatus of power and coercion.’ And that, the state thrives when “humanistic (anthropocentric) approach” to governance, is properly differentiated from its natural default of fascism (my reasoning). With this, the chosen one must concede that the purposeful management of our religious fault-lines (which has bedevilled Nigeria to date) is sine qua non to the innate consciousness that, religiosity of the self (however the certainty of our convictions), is (and should be), subject to the utility of the kind of secularism that the Nigerian state proposes. The chosen one must further concede that while the transcendental construct of any religion is to reject the possibility of nuance or dubitability, for it to subsist as the lot of an esoteric reality (or a formulation of divineness); HIS progressive mind must constantly challenge his own doctrinal certainties, so he can fulfil the vital needs of the citizenry. For, it is in these moments (of thought-vulnerability), that self-interest, in and of itself, becomes vulnerable to the sacrosanctity of our collective national interest. This is why the Whig tract of 18th century England, was titled Vox Populi, Vox Dei (meaning "the voice of the people is the voice of God"). 

Aliko Dangote has consistently shown the qualities of snatching understanding from the contagion of religious monomania, currently eating deep, into the very fabric of our social consciousness.... Picture this: an orthodox Muslim, educated at the oldest Islamic university on the planet (situated in Cairo, Egypt), doubling-down on the predominantly Christian south (of Nigeria); with his life’s work (of pioneering industries) indexed to the continued growth of Nigeria; and building the largest private sector workforce in Nigeria (glued together by the ribbons of clinical meritocracy). It is a glorious story to tell of a Nigerian!

Now, considering Nigeria, as an anthropological remit, one is pressed to acknowledge that our communal space is saturated with many commanding, and there I say, competing publics; differentiated by differing formations of worshipful god masters. As weird as it looks, it is what we (as Nigerians) do with gusto and vine. And it is what demands that, any Ogre or benevolent title, wishing to preside over Nigeria, must afflict upon himself the endurance reflex of the honey badger; and the unbreakable resolve of the scarlet pimpernel. And if I dare submit today, that Aliko Dangote has consistently shown the qualities of snatching understanding from the contagion of religious monomania, currently eating deep, into the very fabric of our social consciousness; You might ask: how? My response will still be the same. Which is to say that he did it by his skilful navigation through the vagaries of our religious melodramas (over many decades of his career), without his commitment to functional secularism questioned. Picture this: an orthodox Muslim, educated at the oldest Islamic university on the planet (situated in Cairo, Egypt), doubling-down on the predominantly Christian south (of Nigeria); with his life’s work (of pioneering industries) indexed to the continued growth of Nigeria; and building the largest private sector workforce in Nigeria (glued together by the ribbons of clinical meritocracy). It is a glorious story to tell of a Nigerian!

Secondly, Managing Our ETHNO-TRIBAL Fault-Lines

It bears repeating that ethnic conflicts are mostly the consequence of unmanaged ethnic competition within a defined political whole. And, even moreso, where the mechanism for managing conflicts (arising from unmanaged ethnic competition) are either weak, corrupted or non-existent. Arguing that “the political economy is both Nigeria’s most important centripetal and centrifugal factor,” and how “its management will determine Nigeria’s future unity,” Gerald McLoughlin and Clarence J. Bouchat (2013) curiously posits in their monograph for the US Army War College, that “Identity affiliations can be instrumentalized by groups to protect or enrich themselves through political power and economic resources, and cumulative bouts of violence make each instance of organizing such instruments easier.” Complimentary to this argumentation, is Julius O. Ihonvbere’s review of Rotimi Suberu’s ‘Federalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nigeria,’ in which he expounded on Suberu’s admission that the Nigerian federation is "hypercentralized," and that a devolutionary construct is needed for a more institutionally balanced ‘multistate federal structure.’ Within this frame, if Nigeria is a federalism of constituent ethnicity, then harmonising our ethno-centric identities through the freezing of competitive ethnicism, allows for the consociational re-organizing of our current unitary statehood. Which brings me to Imuetinyan Festus’ (2015) antonymic (my view) considerations that, the ethnographic estate from which we may bond our national identity (as a federated Nigeria), must be rooted in longsuffering synergy between our indigeneity; between our culture originations; between our social memories, between our exploratory artistry; and between our ethnicised power orientation. When this milestone is achieved, we’ll be better codified (as a people) to ward off the scavengers on the trail of our anthropological allures (of shrines; of ancestors; of cosmogony; of linguistics; of fabulous imagery; of talents; of natural resource; of works of arts; of ethnic identities; of sincere religiosity; of heritage; of social artifacts; and of a sense of country).

If Nigeria is a federalism of constituent ethnicity, then harmonising our ethno-centric identities through the freezing of competitive ethnicism, allows for the consociational re-organizing of our current unitary statehood. Therefore, the ethnographic estate from which we may bond our national identity (as a federated Nigeria), must be rooted in longsuffering synergy between our indigeneity; between our culture originations; between our social memories, between our exploratory artistry; and between our ethnicised power orientation. When this milestone is achieved, we’ll be better codified (as a people) to ward off the scavengers on the trail of our anthropological allures (of shrines; of ancestors; of cosmogony; of linguistics; of fabulous imagery; of talents; of natural resource; of works of arts; of ethnic identities; of sincere religiosity; of heritage; of social artifacts; and of a sense of country).

Nigerians do not need the horror show of military adventure, to get her groove back. Neither is she seeking the complementarity of violent change to harness national cohesion. We are not a complicated people to govern. This is true to the empiricism of Ali Mazrui’s postulation that ‘Africans have a short memory of hate.’ And as such, exceedingly forgiving to those who have turned us to hewer of wood, and drawer of water. To rejig our national essence, thereto, we need a pioneering engagement with an imposing figure, who is endowed with the phenomenalism to inspire purpose, and offer us something to live for, as Nigerians. We don’t mind if its an experiential filter, whose life has been the story of being bullish on the Nigerian project (for the last forty years). So long as he rejects nihilism, and dutifully embrace Jordan Peterson’s anti-Nietzsche’s posture of not creating his own values (while there). But would rather accept that values will impose themselves on him, independent of his personal will. In search of a more perfect union therefore, we are called as citizens, to have sentience regarding the consanguinity of our pre-colonial culture forms; which according to Okpeh Ochayi Okpeh’s treatise (on ‘patterns and dynamics of inter-group relations in Nigeria’), were acquired through multi-dimensional encounters with the culture systems of other constituent ethnicity within Nigerian Historiographical paraphernalia. Anecdotally, I suspect that the Nigerian consciousness has overcome its ethno-tribal quagmire. And that, we just do not know it yet. But, until that knowledge comes, we can, at least, comport ourselves with the reflective words of Aliko Dangote, that: “If people look inward, they would see the opportunities for greatness.”

The road to the promised and begins with every one of us, taking a second and deeper look at Aliko as the best possible facilitator of a new story for Nigeria, whose pan-Nigerian instincts is matched by his ‘unitarized panethnicity,’ at least, to the reality that his life’s work is benchmarked to the progress and growth of the Nigerian story. I am throwing this out there for thinkers and readers to challenge it (with facts and scholarship). Nigeria, to my mind, does not need democracy. We need constitutional republicanism (like America had), anchored on the benevolence, authenticity, inward-looking and purposeful leadership (vicariously constructed to deepen it)....

Thirdly, Managing Our Collective Need For THERAPY and NATIONAL HEALING

Every Nigerian needs therapy. And that include me and you. This is both my opinion and my cognitive telling. Over 60% of the current population of Nigeria, are under thirty years. The only world they’ve known, is the lifetime of zero-worth (wrapped around the preponderance of inequality, hardship and proprietary discrimination). The few who’ve governed us, are drowned in a cycle of importunacy. The intelligentsia amongst us (who pretended to fill the void of dept and exceptionalism), is ravaged by the Dunning-Kruger-Effect. We have been socially re-engineered (as a citizenry) to give irrational reverence to those who stole the lives of our children and buried the conscience of our neighbours; while The-Halo-Effect is much more descriptive of every Nigerian, currently living through the tragedy of everyone’s exercise of his hurt. The gods, in obeisance to the damage in our collective soul, chose the place of quiet many seasons ago. Yet, we misinterpret the tingling of the good old days, as the possibility of solemn deeds. We blessed those who abused us; and celebrated those who exploited us. We have become a depressed people under the tutelage of a centre that has fallen apart. We have lost the phenomenological rights to continue the blaming of the gods; and have hyped the much ado, that was rambling about nothing. As individuals, we serve in the benevolence of our persons and acclaim. Yet, as a commonality, we die more than a hundred times while staring at the dissipation of our country (Nigeria). We have lost our national conscience and vitiated the ‘governing paradigms’ (my view) which William Wade (1987) once suggested to be the “harmonious balance between the powers in the state which will check abuse, but which will not in itself be productive of abuse.” In this context, the current leadership of the Nigerian Trust, both at the federal and state levels, have become aberration, that is lacing our national wound with the salt of fascism and wholesale opportunism. Still, we must find the innermost strength to seek therapy for the healing of our land  -  this multi-cultural stead called Naija! And so, the journey to the promise land starts from here…

The Road To The Promise Land:

It begins with the beekeeper (off whom I believe should be Dangote) whose leadership will, more likely than not, be inspired by his skin being already in the game; and who has bet his earthly possessions and wherewithal on Nigeria  -  risking it all. It begins with every one of us, taking a second and deeper look at Aliko as the best possible facilitator of a new story for Nigeria, whose pan-Nigerian instincts is matched by his ‘unitarized panethnicity,’ at least, to the reality that his life’s work is benchmarked to the progress and growth of the Nigerian story. I am throwing this out there for thinkers and readers to challenge it (with facts and scholarship). Nigeria, to my mind, does not need democracy. We need constitutional republicanism (like America had), anchored on the benevolence, authenticity, inward-looking and purposeful leadership (vicariously constructed to deepen it). Ghana had it in Kwame Nkrumah and Jerry Rawlings. Tanzania had it in Julius Nyerere. Kenya had it in Jomo Kenyatta. Indonesia had it in Gen. Suharto. For God’s sakes, Azikiwe preached it in our early days. But was squelched by the noisy mantra of Burkean Nationalism supported (erroneously  -  in my view) by Obafemi Awolowo, and the leader of the northern territories (Ahmadu Bello). In a premium presentation by Wale Adebanwi (2019), an allocution was adduced, that the contestation against Azikiwe’s preference for the Jacobin form of nationalism, was spearheaded by Awolowo’s preference for the Burkean notion of nationalism, which they believed “fitted Nigeria’s multicultural nature, even though it had the potential to acerbate ethnic tension and deepen existing conflicts.” Nonetheless, based on the French experience of ‘la nation une et indivisible,’ with the stated goal of combining “the heritage of the different regions … in one national heritage, as it produces a republican monocultural universalism from disparity,” Azikiwe’s embarked on the “most vociferous campaign] about creating a nation that … transcended … emergent ethno-regional arrangements.” His loss of that argument at the outset of the Nigerian experiment, still bear the consequences of the washed-up Nigeria of 2024.

The healing process for the Nigerian state begins by learning the difficult lessons of the Igbos on how they were able to re-direct their trauma of the loss of Biafra, towards re-integration into Nigeria. This, they did, by focusing on those values and deeds that sought reconciliation, boosted their self-worth, and developed a roadmap which led them through the narrow path of collective therapy, and on to national healing. This is what we must study and codify for our various peoples, as we navigate through the current multi-dimensional crisis rocking Nigeria...

The road to Nigeria’s promised land is the path of the straight and narrow. It is the path that must be defined by that famous Zulu word (Ubuntu) which presents African justice as more interested in the consciousness that “the individual’s rights to prosecute are superseded by society’s right to live in peace” (a. la. Graybill, 1119). It is akin to Desmond Tutu’s attestation that “African jurisprudence is restorative rather than retributive … [and that it] … is linked to justice as defined not as punishment, but as reparations to victims and rehabilitation to perpetrators (a.la. Final Report of TRC). This has given perspective to Olajide Oloyede’s (2009) deployment of applied conceptual tools to explore the relations between cultural trauma, and the connecting reality of shattered ethno-national dream of the defunct Biafra republic. In which, he was minded to elevate the critical notion of rebuilding the Nigerian state, in the aftermath of its “attendant [Biafran] war and violence,” by inquiring into the ‘assumptive world’ of its peoples. He articulated the value of a “…reminder of things [yet] unsettled, the recollection of which is an excursion into meaning reconstruction, albeit, in the context of perceived marginalisation…” Nonetheless, he dutifully hypothesized (in my reasoning) that, since Biafra was a nation almost brought into existence, it still exists in the psyche of its people, whose loss is one of a ‘shattered assumption.’ And that, the collective trauma of the loss of Biafra is mediated through the continuous practices of an aspect of their self-worth; [and] through the re-direction of their anxieties towards their migratory ‘instinct’ to integrate with other parts of the country. By deductive syllogism thereto, I am able to propose a premise (based on Olajide Oloyede’s work, and others), upon which we, as ethnicized Nigerians, can begin the healing process. How? By learning the difficult lessons of the Igbos on how they are able to re-direct their trauma of the loss of Biafra, towards re-integration into Nigeria. This, they did, by focusing on those values and deeds that sought reconciliation, boosted their self-worth, and developed a roadmap which led them through the narrow path of collective therapy, and on to national healing. This is what we must study and codify for our various peoples, as we navigate through the current multi-dimensional crisis rocking Nigeria.  

By letting us into his story, Dangote has inadvertently, provided us with hands-on schematics for managing our religious, tribal and pseudo-nationalistic fault-lines (with grit and candour). In Dangote’s story, we know Nigeria is possible when we leave our comfort zone to invest our hearts and deeds in the truism of our nation. In Dangote’s story, we know that ethnocentricity is functionally subject to the reality of Nigerian republicanism. In Dangote’s story, we see the indefatigability of the Nigerian spirit, willing to subject his religiosity to the consideration of those who are quick to make judgements. Still, in his story, we smell a breath of fresh air in seeing a Nigerian putting all he owned, I mean, everything he owned, in the Nigerian basket, with no fear of ruination....

Finally, in making the case for Dangote as the President of the Nigerian Republic, I have carefully eschewed the denigration of others; and elevated the discus to the politics of the moment, in juxtaposition to some complex readings on Nigeria’s political ontology. I have also formatted my considerations outside of the bubbles of current cliches and/or stereotypes. In that, the intentionality behind the craftsmanship of the Nigerian state, demands subdued re-interrogation, so we can re-discover her purposive value. In this, I can tell that Dangote has inadvertently, provided us with hands-on schematics for managing our religious, tribal and pseudo-nationalistic fault-lines (and along the line, inspired the criticality of [each and every one of us] walking through therapy towards national healing), by allowing us to share in his story. In Dangote’s story, we know Nigeria was possible when we leave our comfort zone to invest our hearts and deeds in the truism of our nation. In Dangote’s story, we know that ethnocentricity is functionally subject to the reality of Nigerian republicanism. In Dangote’s story, we see the indefatigability of the Nigerian spirit, willing to subject his religiosity to the consideration of those who are quick to make judgements. Still, in his story, we smell a breath of fresh air in seeing a Nigerian putting all he owned, I mean, everything he owned, in the Nigerian basket, with no fear of ruination. Like I alluded in the preamble, this single feat is reflective of the Beekeeper who would do everything to protect the hives because he has his skin knee-deep in the game. With this, I have answered Kenneth Okonkwo’s perspectival demand for a more assertive Peter Obi, who would fight for what the commoners (of all stripes in Nigeria) has placed in his hands. Afterall, Aliko Dangote has been telling this to us in his own words: “all my life, I have been fighting; and I’ll continue to fight.”

I welcome dissent, challenge or support for this OP-ED and my campaign to draft Aliko Dangote for the presidency of the Nigerian republic. I see this as my little contribution to the development of my country, Nigeria.  

Stephens A. Obomese is a Journalism Researcher & Media Consultant, based in the UK. This is his Blog