The 2023 presidential election is a make-or-break moment for Nigeria, in which it can either die permanently or experience a miraculous resurrection.
Nigeria cannot afford to fall behind in the digital democracy era, where an analogue president would be completely out of place.
This is the reasoning of a good friend who recently gave me a stunning snapshot of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan in his prime, operating a laptop computer.
Some vocal Nigerians condemned poor Goodluck Jonathan as "clueless" and replaced him with an analogue oldie.
As the saying goes, a woman can only recognize the necessary difference after marriages with two men.
Enlightened Nigerians are aware that the suffering-and-smiling country cannot afford to remain in the dark days of computer illiterate and innumerate politicians.
There was a time when the Nigerian leader was identified solely by his colorful agbada and the stack of unread papers in front of him.
Now, the leaders must embrace the computer and the digital potential of the new era.
It had been Nigeria's misfortune that no Nigerian Head of State or President had passed within the four walls of a university since independence, with the exception of the briefly sad arrival of the lamented ex-President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua and, of course, Goodluck Jonathan.
It should be noted, however, that simply attending university does not guarantee success as a leader.
Having said that, not having a decent education is not the ideal preparation for modern leadership.
There was a time when the Nigerian leader was identified solely by his colorful agbada and the stack of unread papers in front of him.
Now, the leaders must embrace the computer and the digital potential of the new era.
It had been Nigeria's misfortune that no Nigerian Head of State or President had passed within the four walls of a university since independence, with the exception of the briefly sad arrival of the lamented ex-President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua and, of course, Goodluck Jonathan.
It should be noted, however, that simply attending university does not guarantee success as a leader.
Having said that, not having a decent education is not the ideal preparation for modern leadership.
One tries as hard as possible not to blame Nigeria's numerous issues on its colonial rulers, but the evidence is all too clear that colonial Britain never truly desired educated and informed leaders for this country.
The British despised Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and ensured that the independence election was rigged in favor of the feudalists.
Chief Obafemi Awolowo's support of free education ideas posed a danger to Britain's neocolonial intentions.
Working with the feudalists, the British ensured that even when a military revolution was launched to depose the incompetent civilian rule, fundamental issues were smuggled in to confuse the entire population.
It is noteworthy that the coup's main architects, especially Majors Emmanuel Arinze Ifeajuna, Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, and Wale Ademoyega, were intellectual luminaries in the then-military.
Nzeogwu underestimated the bravado of his touted buddy, then-Major Olusegun Obasanjo, which explains his choice not to notify him of the coup plots.
According to new evidence regarding the first putsch, the coup plotters intended to free Chief Awolowo from jail in Calabar and establish him as the country's leader.
The coup leaders had no intention of taking "No" for an answer from Awo; they intended to compel him to reign by order!
Nigeria would have therefore been provided with educated leadership, such that laptop computers would have been the forte of succeeding Nigerian presidents many moons ago.
We would not have had to wait until well past the millennium for the upper echelons of Nigerian leadership to embrace the computer, only to retreat practically shortly after.
They ruled a "lootocracy" that effectively grounded the otherwise affluent country.
When the military brass-hats conducted so-called elections to restore the country to civil government, they guaranteed that power was placed in the hands of a hesitant Alhaji Shehu Shagari, a man who simply hoped to be a senator.
Awo had stated during the 1979 elections that he could only talk education with Zik, but not with Shagari, who had nothing to contribute in that department!
The tragedy of Nigeria is that supremacists who profess to know all about what is best for the country could not perceive anyone better than Obasanjo to saddle with civil authority in 1999.
Stuck in analogue backwardness, the country squandered eight years during which she could have gone straight into the stratosphere given the massive quantities of resources available.
under Obasanjo on God's world
Yar'Adua almost came along by mistake, but death would not allow him to stay long enough to embrace the laptop and all the computer era perks.
President Jonathan stumbled into the computer essence and the singsong of digital presidency, but then the 2015 analogue transition occurred, and Nigeria was moved to the next level of returning back to worse than square one.
Analogue backwardness is no longer an option now that the presidential election for 2023 is underway.
Nigeria can no longer afford a grandiose principal who knows next to nothing about laptops, the internet, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so on.
Nigeria does not require an analog president who has been engrossed in digital wonderland.
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