United States of America’s Secretary of state, Senator Hillary Clinton’s visit to Nigeria this August had certainly opened the door for an unending discussion on the illegitimacy of the Yar’adua regime. Speaking at a town hall meeting in Abuja during a state visit re-echoed the bitter truth by saying: “Nigerian leadership has failed has failed at all levels with poverty deepening and corruption firming its roots”.
Certainly, Senator Clinton has spoken the minds of almost all Nigerians. Despite the resources at the disposal of the government, particularly at the centre, there is virtually nothing on the ground to show that billions of dollars that accrued have been judiciously used.
Blunt as she has always being and despite the warm reception the government offered her, Secretary Clinton did not mince words in further observing rightly: “the lack of transparency and accountability has eroded the legitimacy of the government and contributed to the rise of groups that embrace violence and reject the authority of the state”. However one need to correct the impression Mrs. Clinton has about the legitimacy of the Yar’adua government. It must be said that this government lacks any legitimacy. It came through the massive rigging machinery of the PDP led Obasanjo government in 2007.
In most cases, in most polling booths in the country, elections were not conducted but PDP cooked up figures were announced as results of election by PDP government’s electoral department called INEC. So one will ask which legitimacy Clinton is talking about.
Surprisingly and regrettably the poverty level in the country today do not adequately reflect the fortunes coming into the coffers of the government irrespective of the fall in the international price of crude oil. Even Senator Clinton had admitted that Nigeria produces two million barrels of oil per day and is the 7th largest oil reserve in the world but its poverty level had shot up to 76% from 46% in the last 13 years. Shouldn’t this be a great source of concern to leaders duly elected by the people and all men of conscience?
Nigerians from all walks of life, politicians or not, must therefore work assiduously towards putting in place a workable and impartial political reform in the country that will be the turning point in our democratic movement.
The Senate and the House of Representatives must commit themselves into passing the electoral reform bill but not as passed to it by President Yaradua. The bill Nigerians need today is what the Uwais political reform committee handed over to the government, which is surprisingly all encompassing.
Nigerians must wake up to fact that enough is enough of the bastardization of our elections, particularly in the hands of the PDP governments at the centre and the states since our return to democracy in 1999. No foreign country of national would come to our rescue. And the time is now or never. Otherwise the PDP and its agents in and out of government will do the worst.
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