“No man is good enough to govern another, without that other’s consent.” Abraham Lincoln.
It has been ten full years of civilian dictatorship and nothing really has changed from the days of military dictatorship except that the civilian wing of the Nigerian bug are now running the show, all of them impostors and usurpers of power, never deriving their positions from the will and mandates of the people of Nigeria.
Every where you go, it is lack of leadership and performance across the land, and this is because the so-called leaders were not elected by the people and therefore not answerable or accountable to them. They only steal the commonwealth and share with the godfathers who imposed them on the people in the first place. It is only logical that if the people’s vote doesn’t count, the leaders can only be accountable to the “stakeholders” who imposed them on us. No where is this malady so destructive than in the local governments where nincompoops and clueless touts are imposed by godfathers as chairpersons and councilors across most of Nigeria.
Ordinarily the locals would have known decent materials for these positions and would have voted for them if allowed to exercise their democratic rights, but they are denied this inalienable rights of choosing who should represent them by local warlords and godfathers who determines who gets what position in the local areas, so long as they in turn share monthly allocations and make monetary returns to them at the expense of the people and therefore nothing is happening at the local levels in terms of development despite the huge allocations to the local government s from the federation account.
The very evil PDP party that boasts of been the “largest” political party in Africa is so afraid of elections; even within their party it cannot conduct anything remotely close to fair elections in any of its primaries and the situation has deteriorated over the years progressively such that the Ogbulafors, The Bellos and Prof Alkalis were all imposed on the party in so called fake conventions without any semblance of election. Bully tactics, arm-twisting and brow-beating were often used by Obasanjo and his cronies in that ghastly political impose questionable characters as party leaders. If a party cannot allow for internal democratic practices in the selection of its official why should anyone think that they will ever give Nigerians free and fair elections? What you don’t have you cannot give!
General Obasanjo, after he tried all the tricks he could muster to foist himself on Nigerians for a third term in the name of constitutional review, made sure he planted his stooges everywhere in the political firmament of Nigeria. He made sure that clueless nincompoops got selected to the House of Representatives and Senate- those bootlickers who supported his third term fiasco and every other PDP member that opposed his bid where thrown out and never allowed to get party nominations, let alone “win” the general elections to the house. Do you then wonder why barely literate Madam Patricia Etteh, who can barely read a sentence in English language was selected and rubber stamped to be the “Speaker” of the House of Reps. In 2007? Had the calibre of the current National Assembly leadership been there when the third term debacle was raging Obasanjo would have had his way and Nigeria would be grappling with a “life president” in addition to all the pains they are experiencing in the hands of the PDP. Lets thank God for Senator Nnamani who stood his ground against evil dictatorship and all the antics of Obasanjo.
But what is more worrying is the huge amount of resources in cash, logistics and the people’s time and energy put in every election time, when it is clear there will be no elections or at best the votes will not count. Why spend so much money- mostly by INEC- and indeed waste the people’s time in coming out to register for a voters card-often more than a day is involved on this- and then fooling the people to come out on designated election days, only for the people to waste their day under the sun and rains waiting for ballot materials and INEC officials that will never come for duties or when they do turn up with fake ballot papers when the real ballots have been thumb printed by a few hired PDP thugs, the night before?
Nigeria is one poor country where corruption and wastes mean little or nothing to the political elites and even the people. Costing of projects and activities are hardly done and no one even thinks of nominal and opportunity costs of those waste and mismanagement going on there repeatedly. Can someone put a fair value of the cost of the electoral fiasco of 2007 and subsequently across the states in where governors and local godfathers hand picked chairmen and councilors while the people were again fooled to turn up for elections? In Oyo state, chief Adedibu, before he died, and Alao Akala single handedly picked the 30 chairmen now holding forte there and majority of them are barely literate touts and thugs. Same case is replicated across the states where the likes of Saraki, Ibori, Orji Kalu, Igbinedion, Markafi, Isa Yagudu, Abdullahi Adamu, Jonah Jang and so on determine and imposed their cronies as councilors and chairmen in their states of “ownership” ceded to them by Obasanjo before he left the throne with ignominy in 2007.
Fake Elections are costing Nigeria a fortune! So why can’t we just say: This is our own version of “home grown democracy” let a few PDP clique, the likes of Obasanjo, Saraki, Ibori, Igbinedion, Markafi, Ogbulafor, Alkali, Aneni, Bello, Adamu and a few more decide who occupies what position from the presidency to state governors and local government officials? That way the money wasted in charade after charade called “elections” will be saved for other purpose, including improving the comatose infrastructure, health care delivery and decent education.
And more importantly lives would be saved- elections are do-or-die in Nigeria- and people would save their two days of vote registration and election days to do more meaningful things for themselves. Can someone give a financial equivalent of what these charades are costing the country? Capital and Recurrent votes to INEC wasted, Security personnel deployed in terms of their wages and opportunity costs, the people’s time computed in money terms per day at the minimum wage level for the number of people registered to vote, and then those killed in the process of trying to snatch ballot boxes by party thugs. The cost is just enormous and unnecessary if all that will come out of it are predetermined results written days before election day, and handed over to INEC to announce to unwary public.
Do not get me wrong I believe in genuine democracy where leaders are chosen by one man/woman one vote. For me you must lack conscience to want to rule another person without that person’s consent as the quote from Abraham Lincoln above reveal.
But Nigerians are helpless and hopeless in their bid to choose leaders of their choice in a so-called Nigerian democracy. In 2007 the Obasanjo’s PDP used Prof Maurice Iwu’s INEC (Electoral commission) to impose Yar’Adua as president as well as impose another 28 PDP governors on unwilling Nigerians. Those who resisted were either hounded by state security services or killed and maimed by PDP thugs armed by PDP warlords who have stolen more than enough cash from government treasury to buy entire state machinery of violence.
And there don’t seem to be any let up by the rogues who are now running our affairs even at the states and local government levels. If anything I foresee a worst election in 2011, if what happened in Ekiti state in the recent re-run election is taken into account. Despite the resolve of the Ekiti people to throw away the PDP plague in their state, Iwu’s INEC and Yar’Adua’s PDP still violently and most flagrantly imposed PDP’s Oni on the Ekitis against protestation of the people. No one should be deceived by President Yar’Adua’s half-hearted Electoral Reform. First the man is neither sincere nor committed to any electoral reform. What you don’t have you cannot give! If the president has any conscience or iota of sincerity in him and wants credible election, he would have long shoved that demon called Iwu out of INEC since the show of shame he brought to Nigeria in the “s-Election” of April, 2007 which both local and international observers rated the worst ever election in the history of electoral processes, even by third world standard.
Why should a man sitting and enjoying a stolen mandate, crowded and directed by fellow crooks and election riggers worry about reforming the electoral system so that Nigerians would have credible elections?
Please Nigerians, I think we should cede the selection process to the cabal that own Nigeria and help save monies and our precious time, instead of been deceived and going through another treacherous and tom-foolery “election” in 2011. Why not? Lets have selection, disband INEC now and stop wasting funds, especially in these times of global economic recession.
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