 2023 in view. This is a make or break point for Nigeria, but the irony of it is we have gone past breaking point and are now bent to a point of utter disrepair. We are contorted past the point of recognition and a once beautiful tree is mired to a grotesque state. In Nigeria, the beauty of promise is now beastly and charred. We have seemingly lost whatever it is that made us the pride of a continent. The stance fire that has burned over so furiously since independence has grown into a massive conflagration. The elephant has become the elephant in the room and is no purple elephant by any imaginings. So while 2023 is supposedly a crossing, it really is no more than the symptom of a fire was Malay. This is what Nigeria is now. This is what we have become a parable of how the mighty fall. Nigerians are either thieves or beggars generally. No one in their wildest nightmares will have thought this. No one will have contemplated this scenario. In 1998, 1999, we thought the wars had come to an end and with an election they are brought in a seeming consensus process and we hoped the future was bright. And it was. We could see it. In the horizon we saw a rising sun, a big ball of light, life and hope. And we raised our hands in delight, but we didn't know that the orange glow we could foresee was going to burn our beds and our farms. Well, 2023 is here. And the confusion of our future is upon us. We are four main candidates for the election, out of which three seem to be in the forefront. You know, the youth or young people have a champion in the person it will be. The ruling party is fielding a controversial candidate and opposition has a divided house. As powerful and as strong, as powerful and as strong as these three seem, I see a hit or miss option for the three. The fourth candidate, funny enough, is barely ever mentioned in the fray and he just might be the best option in this rofo-rofo match of wits, guts, jabs and of course, lucre, filthy lucre to boot. This is where we stand between devils known and unknown and a sea of ignorant, emotional, ranting populace, each pelting dung at his neighbor and a beat to get a grip on the political future. It is mayhem. Well, the only constellation I can foresee is there is no other leadership you can have that can do worse than what we currently have. Oh well, maybe except one. But we wait to see. Nothing is cast in stone. Nothing is written in tablets of clay. All is scripted in ink on wooden slates and can be washed away. We are left with nothing than hope. Hope for the best that somehow a divine hand will come to our rescue, even as we dance the dance of the blind and swing our walking canes widely and ineffectually hoping we will strike and make a hit and make a difference and maybe finally make a country, make a nation, make history and fulfill the greatest potential that is inherent in us. But first, there is 2023, a crossroad. I like the way you come from a Puerto Rican, philosophical, metaphorical group to describe what will happen next year. Where somebody, a particular spokesperson, was trying to denigrate one of the political candidates and say you had a Bachelor of Philosophy, the list qualified. I guess he will come and learn from you that philosophy is very important. Actually, what you've said is Nigerians have to be mindful this time around. We have to be mindful. We know it's not about the euphoria of chanting, solidarity for your candidate. Less kind of sit back and look, what do we really want as a nation? What do we want? 2023 is indeed a crossroad. Whatever happens to you will determine the fate of Nigeria and the effect will be catastrophic, either positively or negatively. If we make a wrong now. Yeah, if it's a wrong decision, we will suffer the effect very well. No doubt about it because already you see a security problem, you see an economic problem. Yes, there is an excuse of the global meltdown from the spillover from COVID. From COVID, we've not recovered from COVID to Russia, Ukraine, to some other things. But that's just an excuse. That's right. COVID, Russian, Ukraine, are set. There's all called Dutton level. It has altered the Dutton level of the world. But any country that can beat that Dutton level will do well. So we cannot just be using COVID as an excuse. But that's just the Dutton level. We have a leadership that is very adept at the blame game. It's not my fault. Yeah, it's not my fault. This is just what is incredible what's going on. We have the most immature leadership I can imagine. We have to be patient. You grished up Sage, I mean, I think at some rise, everything that you're reading in that nice poem as hope. Hope is super important. And it's a currency that lots of Nigerians are beginning to go bankrupt on. Because we've been hoping, we've been hoping as far back as 2011, we've been hoping for a better time. I think that we need to pretty much transcend beyond hope. And this election is going to be very decisive. It's almost like this should just be this spiritual, divine hand. I do design, so there's a magic one too. Just wave a magic wand and you just bring the person we think we need. Again, towards the end of your poem, I will use that to describe what you just said. I mean, you said something around the first, the second, the third, and the fourth candidate. You know, everybody thinks that we know the right person that will take Nigeria to where it should be. And the shocker is that the person that we think collectively is the person might not be the person. So I see this election as something we should not approach with some just intellect. There should be a deeper level intelligence, some supreme level intelligence. So I mean, this is like a clarion call to Nigerian. And if you know what you pray to, I think you should start praying to that thing. If we miss it, it's going to be very good. We don't seem to be ready for 2023. We don't really seem. But I have just one last hope. My hope is that what you just mentioned, the providence. My hope is that the people who seem to be running things, the people who are going to be vital in determining who comes or who doesn't come, you know, might be struck by a sense of patriotism, by a sense of honesty and decency and say, you know what, this country depends on us to do the right thing now. So I'm saying maybe, somehow, the people who are pushing wherever they're pushing will be struck by this sense of responsibility and say, you know what, let's save this country. And that's my hope. Last hope. Let's turn it now to Suleiman Inabuja. What do you have to say to this incredible poem that Sage has delivered to us here at the studio? Yeah, I was looking at Sammy from that wonderful view. And I almost forget myself when he was reading the Go Introduce Wonderful, it's wonderful to be about 2023. I want to almost say it is, just as Daniel has said, we must be very, very careful in choosing leaders in 2023. It is a, we have the chance to get it right once it comes 2023. And we need to, by now, start looking at the manifestos of each of these candidates. I remember in one of our advocate week, like last month or the other, we discussed that we must look at manifestos beyond a glossy paper. But what does that manifesto have on endurance? I should understand one thing. There is no angel or someone that will come. At least we have like 18 candidates just in for the highest office in the land. One thing we must understand is that we have a very, very, aside from what is expected from the political actors, we as a citizen too, we have a role to play. It was like it has shown that all these candidates have something to offer. They've also shown that they have their plans and their manifesto, the best player-speller. But one thing is this, we must be very careful in investing our emotion. The same way we have been doing it from 1999 down to 2019. I remember this mood that we had as a country, as a people, was the same mood we had in 2015. So your guess is as good as mine. So one thing we must take away from here is that in 2023, we must have an holistic approach to leadership. And my point as always in this, our focus has always been on who occupied the office of the president. We used to forget that the president is not done around the government. We have the senators, the House of Rep, and even the governors. So things that are even basic, that have been devoured as a nation, that is things like primary education, primary health care, among other things. We forgot that it falls under the whole view of some selected people. So we must get it right, right from the top down to the bottom. So we have the chance in 2023 and I'm very hopeful that we'll get it right. All right, we've got more important top-code issues coming just right after the break and Sileman Akonde would be next after the break. Do stay with us.