Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
It is not debatable why I stand with Atiku Abubakar, the next President of Nigeria by the special grace of the Almighty God. There is no controversy about it. This is the man I believe can be the solution to our economic and sociopolitical challenges, aside from the fact that he is the candidate of my Party, the African Democratic Congress. Atiku Abubakar is a pragmatist, by his exposure, his record as Vice President of Nigeria when this economy grew from 58 billion dollars to 270 billion dollars, and his successes as a businessman, entrepreneur and industrialist who has created jobs for thousands of Nigerians.
With Atiku on the ballot, is it not commonsensical that we should not allow the All Progressives Congress to delude us a fourth time? Twelve years ago they came as the proverbial beggars huddled at the entrance of St Peter’s Cathedral, requesting to have our votes.
THE BEGGARS OF 2015
First, in 2015, they appeared armed with sugar-smudged speeches. They arrived with the mantra of Change, swearing heaven and earth. They said they would change the lives of the Nigerian people for the better. They professed jobs for the army of unemployed youths, food for millions of empty stomachs, roads and infrastructure, security for every home. They vowed that if they did not live up to their promises, we should stone them.
But no sooner were they elected than the excuses began. Things were terribly bad, they said. They craved more time, and we waited patiently, having faith that these were men and women of honour. The Change mantra failed, and when they sought an extension of their rule they repackaged it as Next Level. Some Nigerians took it with a pinch of salt, but many took the bait.
THE THIRD COMING OF 2023
Eight years rolling, and with nothing to show, they came a third time. Their master in choreographed promises, vast in dishing out sweet talk, became the candidate. On ethnic demands, sentiment and a naked sense of self entitlement, our votes were harvested. Renewed Hope, they called it.
What has it renewed? On his very first day, without plan, without cushion, without consultation, the pronouncement fell: subsidy is gone. Petrol that sold below 200 naira a litre in May 2023 now sells at several multiples of that price. The naira that exchanged in the region of 460 to the dollar was thrown into the market and has since traded above 1,400. Even the government’s own officials have admitted that the trillions supposedly saved from subsidy have been swallowed up, with nothing visible in the lives of the people. Let it be clear: the crime is not reform. The crime is recklessness without a plan and savings nobody can account for, while the people carry the cross.
THE HARVEST OF ELEVEN YEARS
Eleven years after the beggars of 2015 knocked, what is the harvest?
The World Bank tells us about 6 in 10 Nigerians now live in poverty, roughly 140 million souls, and the number rose again last year. The minimum wage of 70,000 naira is worth barely 47 dollars a month, and even that is not paid everywhere. Food inflation continues to climb while families skip meals. Nigeria sits at 26 out of 100 on the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, ranked 142nd in the world, yet the President travelled abroad to boast that corruption has been eliminated.
Where are the jobs they promised the teeming Nigerian youths? Our universities keep churning out brilliant graduates who are marooned in joblessness or fleeing through every airport in the japa wave. We deferred to their promise of good roads, but our highways remain death traps and easy snares for kidnappers to pick us up. We lingered for good healthcare, but our hospitals have been reduced to mere infirmaries while those who promised us good health shuttle abroad for their own treatment.
We waited for security. Instead, killings and abductions have continued in abattoir proportions. When a retired Major General can be seized on our roads and die in the hands of his captors, as the nation witnessed only months ago, what hope is left for the market woman on the same road?
NOW THEY ARE COMING AGAIN
They are now coming again, a fourth time. The same Party must sweet talk us again. They expect us to forget the multiplied cost of fuel and food, the collapse of the naira, the darkness in the land, and the frustrations that have gripped our people for over a decade. They have busied themselves harvesting governors and decampees into their fold, boasting of controlling almost every state, as if elections are won in Government Houses and not in polling units. They forget that in 2023, with all his machinery, their candidate lost even Lagos, his own fortress. Governors do not own the votes. The masses do.
Will you vote for the All Progressives Congress again in 2027 while Nigeria remains the poverty capital of the world and life expectancy keeps falling? Will you vote for them again, deceived by fallacious promises and claims? Will you vote for them just because they distribute bags of rice, salt, semovita, wheat, sugar, souvenirs, stipends and money on the eve of the election? A bag of rice that lasts two weeks, in exchange for four more years of hunger?
STONE THEM WITH YOUR VOTES
Now is the time to begin to stone them, as they themselves requested when they swore that we should stone them if they failed. We do not need to pelt them with stones. We shall pelt them with our votes.
Let them be pelted with rejection at marketplaces, motor parks and relaxation places. Let us consistently engage communal associations, students, youths, women, workers and artisans on the need to vote the All Progressives Congress out and vote for Atiku Abubakar and the African Democratic Congress. Collect your PVC. Guard your vote. Turn out in numbers no manipulation can bury.
They asked to be stoned if they failed. They have failed three times. Stone them with your votes on 16 January 2027.
143 days to go.
Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Director General,
The Narrative Force
thenarrativeforce.org
27 August 2026
