Charles Odibo
We combat as a result of Nigeria, our nation, blessed with huge assets and good folks, stays trapped in a disaster of management that has diminished the lives of thousands and thousands to a every day battle for survival. We combat as a result of the promise of independence, of democracy, of a rustic that works for its residents, has been repeatedly betrayed. And we combat as a result of silence within the face of such failure is complicity.
On this sunny however resplendent day in Houston, about 10,480 kilometres away from Nigeria, I stand earlier than you dedicated Nigerian diaspora group to say that the battle for a greater Nigeria just isn’t confined to geography. It lives in each Nigerian who refuses to simply accept that the poverty, insecurity and institutional decay – inflicted on us by this APC authorities – are our everlasting future.
A Nation in Crisis
The numbers inform a narrative extra brutal than any speech. Nigeria ranks 161st out of 193 international locations within the UNDP 2023/24 Human Development Report, firmly within the low human improvement class. Nearly 20 million youngsters are out of college—one of many highest figures on the earth. Our healthcare system ranks 187th out of 191 international locations in keeping with the World Health Organisation. Multidimensional poverty traps 133 million Nigerians, or 62.9 per cent of the inhabitants, in keeping with the National Bureau of Statistics.
Between July 2025 and June 2026 alone, 7,825 folks had been kidnapped and 1,142 killed. These usually are not summary statistics. They are moms, fathers, college students, merchants and farmers whose lives had been minimize brief or completely altered by a failure of governance. This just isn’t destiny. It is the collected consequence of management that has prioritised energy over folks, patronage over efficiency, and short-term political survival over long-term nationwide improvement.
The 2023 Elections and the Trust Deficit
The 2023 presidential election deepened that belief deficit. Data from Mundx.com, an election monitoring utility, revealed critical anomalies. Forty-eight per cent of the consequence sheets uploaded to the IREV portal weren’t transmitted from BVAS machines however from greater than 800 cellphone units—opposite to the regulation. In Rivers State, Peter Obi recorded the best variety of votes on the IREV portal, but the Independent National Electoral Commission declared Bola Tinubu the winner. In Oru-East Local Government Area of Imo State, over 100 polling items had no brokers from any political celebration in keeping with the Form EC8A paperwork uploaded to IREV. Yet the All Progressives Congress received nearly all of them. More troubling nonetheless, these outcomes had been uploaded from simply two areas—one in Omuma in Oru East and one other on the Owerri-Port Harcourt street, close to the state INEC workplace. The images of the Form EC8A sheets from these items had been taken a day after the election, not on the polling items themselves.
These findings don’t require embellishment. They converse for themselves. They clarify why thousands and thousands of Nigerians, particularly younger folks, really feel that the electoral course of has been compromised and that their votes don’t rely. When residents lose religion within the integrity of elections, democracy itself is positioned in danger.
From Voices to Organised Action
We have shouted. We have marched. We have demanded change. Now we should organise. Obidient Connect was born from that recognition. It just isn’t one other speaking store. It 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 polling unit. It organises for efficient voter mobilisation and election-day vigilance. It allows Nigerians wherever on the earth to donate in assist of grassroots work and civic training. Critically, it gives real-time transmission of licensed polling unit outcomes to a central dashboard, creating an impartial layer of transparency that may flag discrepancies as they happen.
The objective is simple – each polling unit ought to have illustration; each consequence needs to be seen; each try to control the method needs to be uncovered in actual time for the world to see.
The Wind Is in Our Sail
Public sentiment affords purpose for hope. The SBM Intelligence Voter Sentiment Tracker, performed throughout Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, exhibits Peter Obi with a +58.3 internet favourability ranking. Bola Tinubu stands at –58.5. Obi leads on favourability in each zone besides the Northeast. When respondents had been requested about celebration or coalition voting intentions, the NDC related to Obi and Kwankwaso was considerably forward of each the APC and the ADC. A Reuters survey in August discovered that almost 80 per cent of Nigerians consider the nation is heading within the incorrect route, with financial hardship and insecurity cited as main considerations. These figures verify that a big and rising part of the inhabitants is hungry for another.
Why Your Contribution Matters
This is funding, not charity. Your contribution helps defend votes. It helps rent and practice ballot watchers. It helps present meals and water for residents who select to occupy INEC places of work in peaceable defence of the electoral course of. It sustains the expertise that flags IREV discrepancies in actual time on the Obidient Connect platform. It strengthens our impartial real-time vote transmission functionality in order that outcomes might be seen stay by Nigerians and the worldwide group. And for these within the diaspora, it reduces the fixed strain of sending cash house to cushion the results of a failing system, as a result of the long-term answer is a Nigeria that works. Every kobo will likely be accounted for. Transparency just isn’t a slogan; it’s a pledge.
The funds will go into three core areas. First, connecting Obidients, constructing a dense community in order that no polling unit is left with out eyes and voices. Second, organising the grassroots, coaching, mobilising and equipping native volunteers with the data and instruments they want. Third, defending the vote by means of expertise that makes citizen monitoring sensible and public.
This is about multiple election cycle. It is in regards to the survival of Nigeria as a coherent, hopeful nation. It is in regards to the dignity of our kids and the opportunity of a rustic that works for the numerous moderately than the few.
We have come this far collectively, by means of the campaigns of 2023 and now 2027 beckons, by means of the disappointments and the renewed willpower. The journey just isn’t completed. History continues to be being written.
Why will we combat? Because the choice is give up. Because a nation of 200 million folks can not proceed to rank close to the underside of each significant human improvement index whereas its leaders congratulate themselves. Because the younger individuals who fill our streets and our social media feeds deserve greater than empty guarantees. Because these of you within the diaspora who ship remittances, who watch from afar as insecurity and poverty deepen, nonetheless carry Nigeria in your hearts and refuse to look away.
The wind is in our sail. The knowledge, the power, the rising organisation on the bottom all level to a second of risk. What stays is the need to transform that risk into actuality, polling unit by polling unit, consequence by consequence, citizen by citizen. Thank you. And might God bless you all.
Odibo, Coordinator, Obidient Connect, delivered this keynote presentation on the Texas Obidient Connect Rally held in Houston, on October 10, 2026.
