Charles Odibo
We struggle as a result of Nigeria, our nation, blessed with huge assets and good other folks, stays trapped in a disaster of management that has diminished the lives of thousands and thousands to a day by day fight for survival. We struggle since the promise of independence, of democracy, of a rustic that works for its electorate, has been time and again betrayed. And we struggle as a result of silence within the face of such failure is complicity.
In this sunny however resplendent day in Houston, about 10,480 kilometres clear of Nigeria, I stand earlier than you dedicated Nigerian diaspora neighborhood to mention that the fight for a greater Nigeria isn’t confined to geography. It lives in each and every Nigerian who refuses to simply accept that the poverty, lack of confidence and institutional decay – inflicted on us by means of this APC executive – are our everlasting future.
A Country in Disaster
The numbers inform a tale extra brutal than any speech. Nigeria ranks 161st out of 193 nations within the UNDP 2023/24 Human Building Record, firmly within the low human building class. Just about 20 million youngsters are out of faculty—probably the most perfect figures on this planet. Our healthcare machine ranks 187th out of 191 nations in step with the Global Well being Organisation. Multidimensional poverty traps 133 million Nigerians, or 62.9 according to cent of the inhabitants, in step with the Nationwide Bureau of Statistics.
Between July 2025 and June 2026 by myself, 7,825 other folks had been abducted and 1,142 killed. Those aren’t summary statistics. They’re moms, fathers, scholars, investors and farmers whose lives had been lower brief or completely altered by means of a failure of governance. This isn’t destiny. It’s the accrued end result of management that has prioritised energy over other folks, patronage over efficiency, and temporary political survival over long-term nationwide building.
The 2023 Elections and the Agree with Deficit
The 2023 presidential election deepened that consider deficit. Knowledge from Mundx.com, an election tracking software, printed severe anomalies. 40-eight according to cent of the end result sheets uploaded to the IREV portal weren’t transmitted from BVAS machines however from greater than 800 telephone units—opposite to the regulation. In Rivers State, Peter Obi recorded the perfect collection of votes at the IREV portal, but the Impartial Nationwide Electoral Fee declared Bola Tinubu the winner. In Oru-East Native Executive House of Imo State, over 100 polling gadgets had no brokers from any political celebration in step with the Shape EC8A paperwork uploaded to IREV. But the All Progressives Congress gained nearly they all. Extra troubling nonetheless, the ones effects had been uploaded from simply two places—one in Omuma in Oru East and any other at the Owerri-Port Harcourt street, close to the state INEC place of business. The images of the Shape EC8A sheets from those gadgets had been taken an afternoon after the election, now not on the polling gadgets themselves.
Those findings don’t require embellishment. They talk for themselves. They give an explanation for why thousands and thousands of Nigerians, particularly younger other folks, really feel that the electoral procedure has been compromised and that their votes don’t depend. When electorate lose religion within the integrity of elections, democracy itself is positioned in danger.
From Voices to Organised Motion
We now have shouted. We now have marched. We now have demanded alternate. Now we should organise. Obidient Attach was once born from that reputation. It isn’t any other speaking store. This is a sensible platform designed to show frustration into structured civic energy. In Nigeria, it connects Obidients and different well-meaning Nigerians polling unit by means of polling unit. It organises for efficient voter mobilisation and election-day vigilance. It permits Nigerians any place on this planet to donate in improve of grassroots paintings and civic schooling. Severely, it supplies real-time transmission of qualified polling unit effects to a central dashboard, developing an impartial layer of transparency that may flag discrepancies as they happen.
The purpose is easy – each and every polling unit must have illustration; each and every end result must be visual; each and every try to manipulate the method must be uncovered in genuine time for the sector to peer.
The Wind Is in Our Sail
Public sentiment gives explanation why for hope. The SBM Intelligence Voter Sentiment Tracker, performed throughout Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, presentations Peter Obi with a +58.3 web favourability ranking. Bola Tinubu stands at –58.5. Obi leads on favourability in each and every zone apart from the Northeast. When respondents had been requested about celebration or coalition balloting intentions, the NDC related to Obi and Kwankwaso was once considerably forward of each the APC and the ADC. A Reuters survey in August discovered that just about 80 according to cent of Nigerians imagine the rustic is heading within the improper route, with financial hardship and lack of confidence cited as main issues. Those figures ascertain that a huge and rising phase of the inhabitants is hungry for another.
Why Your Contribution Issues
That is funding, now not charity. Your contribution is helping offer protection to votes. It is helping rent and educate ballot watchers. It is helping supply meals and water for electorate who make a choice to occupy INEC workplaces in non violent defence of the electoral procedure. It sustains the generation that flags IREV discrepancies in genuine time at the Obidient Attach platform. It strengthens our impartial real-time vote transmission capacity in order that effects may also be noticed are living by means of Nigerians and the global neighborhood. And for the ones within the diaspora, it reduces the consistent force of sending cash house to cushion the results of a failing machine, since the long-term resolution is a Nigeria that works. Each and every kobo will likely be accounted for. Transparency isn’t a slogan; this can be a pledge.
The price range will cross into 3 core spaces. First, connecting Obidients, development a dense community in order that no polling unit is left with out eyes and voices. 2nd, setting up the grassroots, coaching, mobilising and equipping native volunteers with the data and gear they want. 3rd, protective the vote via generation that makes citizen tracking sensible and public.
That is about a couple of election cycle. It’s concerning the survival of Nigeria as a coherent, hopeful country. It’s concerning the dignity of our kids and the potential of a rustic that works for the various relatively than the few.
We now have come this a long way in combination, throughout the campaigns of 2023 and now 2027 beckons, throughout the disappointments and the renewed decision. The adventure isn’t completed. Historical past remains to be being written.
Why can we struggle? For the reason that selection is give up. As a result of a country of 200 million other folks can’t proceed to rank close to the ground of each and every significant human building index whilst its leaders congratulate themselves. For the reason that younger individuals who fill our streets and our social media feeds deserve greater than empty guarantees. As a result of the ones of you within the diaspora who ship remittances, who watch from afar as lack of confidence and poverty deepen, nonetheless lift Nigeria to your hearts and refuse to seem away.
The wind is in our sail. The information, the power, the rising organisation at the flooring all level to a second of risk. What stays is the desire to transform that risk into truth, polling unit by means of polling unit, end result by means of end result, citizen by means of citizen. Thanks. And might God bless you all.
Odibo, Coordinator, Obidient Attach, delivered this keynote presentation on the Texas Obidient Attach Rally held in Houston, on October 10, 2026.