“Stuck in the Race: When Elders and Opportunists Collide”

By Moses Wawah Onapa

Every election cycle in this blessed republic carries a predictable rhythm: freshly ironed shirts, dusted microphones, a surge in public generosity, and the hopeful faces of candidates; some young, others immortal stepping forward to save the country.

And yet, somehow, we’ve ended up in a political film on repeat starring the same veterans, returning with the same speeches, chasing the same office with a vigor that age and past performance can no longer justify.

These are the elder statesmen and women who refuse to read the room or the calendar. With manifestos that smell faintly of mothballs and political ideas that expired before the first smartphone, they march back into nomination centers with confidence only rivaled by denial.

Their speeches, seasoned with quotes from leaders long buried and ideologies long debunked, ring out in town halls: “We have unfinished business,” they declare. Indeed, the business was so unfinished that it was forgotten altogether. Promises of rural electrification, better pay for teachers, and health centers within walking distance still linger in the air like expired perfume.

These same leaders voted out for underperformance, public fatigue, or plain irrelevance now claim they were “misunderstood,” “sabotaged,” or “betrayed by their own party.” Some even blame the weather. Accountability, it seems, is still on recess.

But just as the crowd tires of watching political ancestors try to relive their glory days, a new trend enters stage left: the Cash and Clout Candidates.

They come, not with plans or purpose, but with bulging envelopes and borrowed applause. They wave at crowds like celebrities and throw money around like it’s an election strategy because, in their minds, it is. They take selfies with struggling mothers and toss banknotes at funeral committees, believing this is how nations are built.

Ask them about their legislative agenda, and they’ll quote a campaign jingle. Mention health policy, and they’ll talk about how they built a toilet in their uncle’s village. When given the microphone to speak on the floor of Parliament if they ever make it there they stare at it like a foreign object and mumble something about youth empowerment before sitting down to scroll TikTok.

Some have never read a bill. Others can’t pronounce “appropriation.” But all believe they are entitled to leadership because they trended on social media, or because a political godfather said so, or because they funded five weddings in their parish.

And while the elders are stuck in the past, these new gladiators are riding waves they don’t understand surfing public excitement, avoiding scrutiny, and confusing visibility with vision.

So here we are, caught between two tragic extremes. On one end, a band of seasoned, serially rejected politicians staging their grand return tours like aging rock stars promising to fix the very systems they once broke.

On the other, a generation of pretenders mistaking performance for policy, and airtime for achievement hoping to dance and donate their way into public office without the burden of actual thought.

The voters, weary but wiser, are stuck in the middle. They’ve seen roads launched but never built. They’ve heard slogans shouted but never fulfilled. They’ve clapped for handouts and cried over abandoned hospitals. Now, many watch silently, wondering: Is this really the best we can do?

Leadership should not be a retirement plan for those who ran out of ideas, nor a jackpot for those with the deepest pockets. It should not be inherited like a family bicycle or auctioned off to the loudest bidder at a community fundraiser.

If we are to move forward, we must demand more. More than nostalgia. More than cash. More than names we grew up hearing and faces we no longer trust.

Let the tired brooms finally rest. Let the clueless dancers sit. And let real leaders rise—not from the past or popularity, but from preparation, principle, and purpose.

Until then, the race continues—loud, crowded, and depressingly familiar.

The writer, Moses Wawah Onapa is a social commentator and a senior educationist
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