Lagos and its residents would live to tell the story of their pains and sufferings as their lives is abruptly disrupted and put on hold with grave economic and social loss because the person they voted, campaigned and some of them even starved to put in power through the ballot came visiting them. Can any visit be more historic than that?
In a world where Presidents commute in public transports and even have coffee right in the midst of the city square, Nigeria is still gauged with so much of nothingness and ravaged with so much of charades paraded across the length and breadth of our dear country. It is obviously like Emir Sanusi described recently, a country where the few decide the cause of the life of the majority when the few are visiting, the majority should suffer. What a country!
There is no doubt that Lagos woke up this morning to untold hardship. Lagos is the economic base of Nigeria and to imagine that the most viable economy base of Nigeria is under lock and key for 48 hours simply because the President is visiting at a time they claimed Nigeria is coming out of recession. Yet they call it historic…how more historic can it be to lose about N8billion in revenue when a nation is just trying to recover? The question is which competent manager or leader have done this?
To make it more historic a visit is to put that average boy and girl on the street of Lagos who earns and survives on the daily earnings to hungry and fasting for today, and to get every nook and cranny taken over by traffic gridlock, and then the major highways of Ikorodu Road and Victoria Island cleared for Mr President just to commission a bus terminal, and yet the people who voted him are trekking miles to reach their destinations, simply to get them to come out and welcome their historic visitor according to the Governor of Lagos State.
What a price Nigerians have to pay to get the change that really has no change to offer. A change from bad to worse. A change where the average Nigerian amounts to nothing and the interests of the very few is considered well and above that of the hundreds of millions that elected them to represent them in government with a view that they would offer them a future without pain, but this is a far cry from expectation. And Lagos is in chains for President Muhammad Buhari to visit Lagos.
Nigeria must come forth anew. A New Nigeria is imminent, Alliance for New Nigeria is the difference. For the truth is that we cannot be having the same people and expect them to bring forth a New Nigeria where this kind of visits happens, and life goes on without anyone and everyone experiencing this type of pain.
Today, we relate the voice of millions of Nigerians. He may be poor because they have made him so. She may be sick because they have offered no quality health care or social security. But this Nigerian will rise again and make his or her voice count come 2019 when the Nigerian shall form an Alliance to birth a New Nigeria that when the President is visiting any part of Nigeria, the Nigerian would have no reason to be in pain or his or her city in chains.
As a party, we want to register our condemnation of this act and do not think it reflects and shows any change from the old. Therefore we are registering our voice in alliance with the people of Lagos State who have gone on social media and have registered their pains for the chains Governor Ambode put on Lagos today because of his cohorts who are visiting. We are calling on all Nigerian youth and those young adults across our nation that we cannot continue to allow this type of leadership and governance anymore, and we are going to be trusting that through the instrumentality of the ballot we shall change this, because a NEW NIGERIA must emerge where life is valued and catered for.
