Ahead of the Presidential and National Assembly elections, a two-time Chairman of Rivers State Council of Traditional Rulers and former member of the defunct National Political Reform Conference, Oba Chukumela Nnam Obi II has urged “the electorate to take responsibility and discharge their civic responsibility by electing leaders capable of tackling the nation’s myriad problems and the degradation of individual well-being.”
Oba Obi 11 who is also the Oba, Eze Ogba of Ogbaland, gave the charge, Tuesday, in an interview with newsmen in Port Harcourt.
Likening the parlous state of the nation’s economy to the Biblical 7-year lean period of the Egyptians, he said four years are enough for any leader to prove to the people whether he or she can compound their misery or ameliorate their anguish, saying that “Nigerians now have yet another opportunity to choose sincere and competent leaders who can steer the ship of state away from the troubled waters in which we presently find ourselves.”
He regretted that” central to Nigeria’s problem is the misfortune of having come under leaders, almost all of whom have proved far too incompetent to meaningfully address the country’s many challenges and give our beleaguered people an abiding sense of direction.”
The monarch enjoined Nigerians to “shun politicians that are mindlessly desperate for power and cast their votes for those’with pristine virtues, and also ensure that their votes count.”
He advised eligible voters yet to collect their permanent voters card to go for them without further delay adding: “We all have responsibility to make Nigeria a better place by ensuring that the elections are (free, fair, transparent, credible, peaceful and successful’.

Victor Tew