Forces that have kept Nigeria in chains are stronger than the Prince of Persia that withheld Daniel’s answers for 21 days.

Tell me how else to describe the frustration faced by candidates who seek redress in court after INEC had declared winners in an election fraught with bare-faced irregularities and deliberate manipulations?

The style now is “Let us win first and let them go to Court.”

Yes, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a candidate to prove electoral fraud at the Election Petition Tribunal. What is the cost of hiring lawyers, collating evidence, and even paying witnesses?

The winner uses state resources to fund his case while the petitioner continues to borrow to get justice. What is the price of Justice? How many can afford it? This is one reason many exchange their tickets for bags of Ghana-Must-Go made easier in US dollars.

The 2023 election ought to have further added a feather to Buhari’s hat but has instead imperiled whatever legacies he would have left for our democracy!

We’ve gone from bad to worse except that physical unrest has shifted to the cyber onslaught and has obliterated whatever was left of our fragile peace and unity.

We are now a people filled with much acrimony, more than what our known national faultlines- religion, and tribalism have served for over five decades.

Building a new Nigeria has been the mantra of successive governments, yet we have remained at the foundation level without any progress since the Independence.

The glorified uninterrupted democracy has left nothing much to be desired except for a renewed hope that is aborted even midway before fruition.

We are promised yet another “renewed hope” but it exists only on paper for the sake of soothing our frayed nerves.

I hear someone saying we must have faith in the next administration, but wait a minute, are the players anyway different from those who have been there in the past twenty-three years?

No man can add a new wine into an old wine skin, so says the Holy Book.

We are gradually drifting to a decent and only determined people who can rescue Nigeria from the shackles of the likes of Mahmood Yakubu. We thought we had seen the worst with Maurice Iwu.

May our renewed hope not become renewed captivity for how shall we ever sing the Lord’s song?

Chief Obiaruko Christie Ndukwe, a socio-political commentator, analyst and columnist based in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.