By Fricky Hayes Awala Esq.
Nigeria’s streets are alive with prophets of panic, keyboard warriors, and self-styled saviours, all claiming to know the nation’s destiny. But who truly steers the ship, and who merely waves from the shore, shouting directions that change with the wind?
I hear a familiar wail in the marketplace of our politics, rising above the hum of traffic and the chatter of vendors, a voice trembling yet full of certainty, draped in prophecy:
“Hear me! The pilot of our vessel is Daniel. Remove him, or the ship will sink. We shall never berth at Neville. There shall be turmoil and banditry. Even the Lord of Garri has sworn not to descend.”
And I ask myself, yet again: who are these prophets of perpetual doom? Who anointed them custodians of the nation’s anxiety? Who set them up in this cathedral of convenient outrage, lighting candles to shadows, casting spells over every passing citizen, as though their cries alone could redirect the tides?
Since the disputed dawn of 1993, when ballots bloomed only to be plucked before harvest, I have watched the choreography of opposition in Nigeria, not as a spectator, but as one forced to remember, again and again, how ambition dresses itself in disguise. Outside a principled few, including the current President, who once wore opposition like a badge of defiance , many who chant resistance today are not pilgrims seeking truth; they are merchants trading in relevance. Their creed is not reform; it is proximity. Their altar is not principal; it is convenient.
Opposition, to them, is not a party or an idea. It is a vehicle. And when the steering wheel slips from their hands, they do not retreat into quiet reflection. No. They reinvent themselves. Yesterday’s ministers become today’s martyrs. Former courtiers return as town criers, robes red, candles white, foreheads wrapped in black, mourning a ship they once helped steer into the rocks. And in their mourning, they imagine the world is listening, and perhaps it is, because the spectacle is irresistible.
Denied a seat at the banquet of governance, they transform overnight into apostles of salvation. They claim celestial endorsements. They prophesy presidencies as though heaven were a polling unit, while ordinary citizens shuffle along below, caught between curiosity and incredulity. They mobilise battalions of keyboard gladiators, who manufacture narratives at the speed of outrage. Rumour becomes revelation. Conspiracy becomes canon. And the vulnerable, hungry for hope, swallow fiction as if it were a sacrament.
In this theatre of absurdity, the carpenter becomes a cardiologist of the economy; the mechanic lectures on constitutional law; the barber drafts fiscal policy between haircuts; the drug peddler tweets democracy from the comfort of anonymity. Every man suddenly a philosopher king, every whisper a revolution, every idle hand a director of destiny. And the streets hum with their half-understood truths, sometimes louder than the engines of buses, market cries, or prayers.
Like zombies summoned by digital incantation, some march for causes half understood, cloaked in borrowed freedom fighter garb. They harass dissenters, canonise any loud voice, and never pause to wonder how a man with one shoe now walks comfortably beside those who looted warehouses of footwear all to push “Daniel” overboard. And why do they care, really, except for the thrill of standing in the storm, shouting over the waves?
Yet Nigeria is not a canoe paddled by prophets of panic. She is a vessel of over 200 million souls , too vast, too deep, too many, for wolves dressed in wool to navigate. With more registered political parties than coherent ideologies, Nigerians can choose their “Saviour,” but let the choice be deliberate. Let the loudest drummer not dictate the rhythm of the nation.
Examine the architects of every new coalition and alliance. Ask quietly, between the lines of speeches and the smoke of rallies: what have they built? What did they defend? Where were they when the roof leaked and the foundation cracked? Were they not sometimes the termites gnawing at the beams?
Are there truly no Nigerians of integrity, competence, and courage? Must leadership always recycle ambition dressed in fresh rhetoric, like old wine in new bottles, or the same dust in a new jar? If the cupboard is truly bare, some will choose to sail with the known captain, Jagaban, flawed but familiar, rather than gamble on prophets who once sold the compass for silver.
Nigeria deserves opposition, opposition of substance, not spectacle. Critics must build, not merely curse the wind. A nation cannot sail by noise alone, nor anchor in accusation.
The ship will not reach Neville by hysteria. It will reach safe harbour only when sincerity outweighs ambition, when patriotism ceases to be a costume worn only in seasons of exclusion, and when the voices of the many finally rise above the theatrics of the few.
