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 each 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 neighborhood to say that the battle for a greater Nigeria 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 growth class. Nearly 20 million kids are out of faculty—one of many highest figures on the planet. Our healthcare system ranks 187th out of 191 international locations in accordance with the World Health Organisation. Multidimensional poverty traps 133 million Nigerians, or 62.9 per cent of the inhabitants, in accordance with the National Bureau of Statistics.
Between July 2025 and June 2026 alone, 7,825 folks have been kidnapped and 1,142 killed. These usually are not summary statistics. They are moms, fathers, college students, merchants and farmers whose lives have been lower quick or completely altered by a failure of governance. This isn’t destiny. It is the accrued consequence of management that has prioritised energy over folks, patronage over efficiency, and short-term political survival over long-term nationwide growth.
The 2023 Elections and the Trust Deficit
The 2023 presidential election deepened that belief deficit. Data from Mundx.com, an election monitoring software, revealed critical anomalies. Forty-eight per 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 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 models had no brokers from any political occasion in accordance with the Form EC8A paperwork uploaded to IREV. Yet the All Progressives Congress received nearly all of them. More troubling nonetheless, these outcomes have been uploaded from simply two areas—one in Omuma in Oru East and one other on the Owerri-Port Harcourt highway, close to the state INEC workplace. The images of the Form EC8A sheets from these models have been taken a day after the election, not on the polling models themselves.
These findings don’t require embellishment. They communicate 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 depend. 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 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 permits Nigerians anyplace on the planet to donate in help of grassroots work and civic schooling. 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 easy – each polling unit ought to have illustration; each end result 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 gives cause for hope. The SBM Intelligence Voter Sentiment Tracker, carried out throughout Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, reveals Peter Obi with a +58.3 web favourability score. Bola Tinubu stands at –58.5. Obi leads on favourability in each zone besides the Northeast. When respondents have been requested about occasion 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 just about 80 per cent of Nigerians imagine the nation is heading within the fallacious path, 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 know-how 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 neighborhood. And for these within the diaspora, it reduces the fixed strain of sending cash dwelling to cushion the results of a failing system, as a result of the long-term resolution is a Nigeria that works. Every kobo will likely be accounted for. Transparency 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 information and instruments they want. Third, defending the vote by way of know-how that makes citizen monitoring sensible and public.
This is about multiple election cycle. It is concerning the survival of Nigeria as a coherent, hopeful nation. It is concerning the dignity of our kids and the opportunity of a rustic that works for the numerous reasonably than the few.
We have come this far collectively, by way of the campaigns of 2023 and now 2027 beckons, by way of the disappointments and the renewed willpower. The journey isn’t completed. History continues to be being written.
Why can we combat? Because the choice is give up. Because a nation of 200 million folks can’t proceed to rank close to the underside of each significant human growth 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 vitality, the rising organisation on the bottom all level to a second of chance. What stays is the desire to transform that chance into actuality, polling unit by polling unit, end result by end result, citizen by citizen. Thank you. And could 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.
