Renowned human rights lawyer and activist, Professor Mike Ozekhome, SAN, has assured that the incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will be running against himself in 2027 unless Nigerians prove him wrong about them.
Ozekhome, while appearing on Channels Television’s Hard Copy, expressed a strong opinion that Nigerians are resilient and happy despite the hardship in the country. He described them as fearful of confronting authorities over the difficulties that have engulfed the nation. Their silence according to him has allowed the president plant his men everywhere in the country.
In his words:
“Our resilience is simply incredible, unbelievable. You push an average Nigerian to the wall. Rather than recede or turn around to fight the aggressor, an average Nigerian will rather break the wall to further run away rather than attack. Even a goat, when pushed to the wall, will turn around and bite, but Nigerians don’t. We are docile; we want to stay in our comfortable cocoons. No one wants to stick out his or her neck. Everyone is afraid of his or her shadow. That’s not how to grow a country.”
Instead of being silent in the face of hardship, he nudged Nigerians to engage in civil populace agitation.
“A leadership without checks and balances can become dictatorial, absolutist like Louis XIV of France, who on the 13th of April, 1566, stood in front of parliament and famously declared, ‘L’état, c’est moi’ (I am the State). Because he had no checks and balances, even in our own homes, if we don’t have checks and balances from our wives, from our children, and husbands, we will become dictatorial.”
“Thomas Jefferson once said that the only price we have to pay for our liberty is our eternal vigilance. When the leadership fears the people, there is governance and justice; but when the people fear the leadership, then there is autocracy. Is that not what we are experiencing? Can Nigerians really challenge their leaders now? Everyone wants to join. If you cannot beat them, you join them. That appears to be the Stockholm syndrome.”
“An average Nigerian has been so pauperized that he is no longer in a state of melancholy or dejection, but rather in a state of helplessness and hopelessness.”
Regarding the floods in Niger, he stated, “Nigeria has the Nigeria Meteorological Services and NEMA; some of these things are known ahead, that there will be floods. What did we do, or what have we done, to stop it? It is due to lack of accountability, negligence, and not holding anybody responsible. We are even lucky that we are not experiencing severe natural catastrophes; some countries suffer tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and landslides.”
Talking about his kidnapping, he said, “The irony is that I was not targeted; they operated randomly in the hot afternoon around past 2 PM on the 23rd of August, 2013. I was released on the 12th of September, three weeks later. That it could happen on a government highway near a police post or a police station on the way to Ekpoma, and the four policemen who were coming to my aid were brutally gunned down in my presence. The kidnappers made it clear that they didn’t profile me; they didn’t know who I was. It was about two days later when the news filtered that they realized who I was, and they came to me and said they didn’t know it was me they kidnapped. ‘Had we known, we would have dropped you back because you have been fighting for the common man,’” he concluded.
