March 4, 2010
As a public intellectual, yesterday was one of my happiest days in this life so far. I didn’t win the lotteries, because I don’t play them. The Save Nigeria Group, SNG made my day. The Group made my day when I learnt that some of the honest men and women who energize it got together and made yet another worthy move in the current efforts to re-assert our dignity as human beings who inhabit the territorial space carved into Nigeria, when they rightly demanded for and had a meeting in Abuja with Mr. Goodluck Jonathan.
As a public intellectual, yesterday was one of my happiest days in this life so far. I didn’t win the lotteries, because I don’t play them. The Save Nigeria Group, SNG made my day. The Group made my day when I learnt that some of the honest men and women who energize it got together and made yet another worthy move in the current efforts to re-assert our dignity as human beings who inhabit the territorial space carved into Nigeria, when they rightly demanded for and had a meeting in Abuja with Mr. Goodluck Jonathan.
That encounter which took place right after the bunch of rogues who call themselves governors rose from their own meeting with Mr. Jonathan is both symbolic and significant: It is a righteous counter to evil and brigandage. If everyone in the land had remained silent as used to be the case after the rogues rose from meeting Jonathan and admonished us albeit shamelessly to continue to lay prostrate while they sustain their violation of our dignity, it could not have been good for my spirit at all. Thank goodness the SGN gave them notice that the tide is turning, and made my day by so-doing.
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One was reeling in anger over the continuing brazen impunity and arrogance from this bunch when the SNG stepped forward and rightly admonished them in a biblical fashion, to go behind us like the Satan they are. No one has found cause to explain to us yet why those characters behave like our conquerors. None of them is better educated or cultured than any of us. Otherwise they wouldn’t be involved in their acts of theft and dishonesty. Properly raised, educated and cultured people have the requisite conscience that wouldn’t let them steal and loot public wealth the way the rogue governors do.
One has been wondering why we have tolerated the mounting insult and dehumanization for as long as we have from the rogue governors. These are characters who benefited from massively rigged elections to get into power. From the very time when they were rigged into office, each one of them embarked on and has sustained systematic looting of public funds with nauseating relish. Come to think of it, they have been doing that so brazenly, too. On top of that, time and again, they take the liberty to step forward to declare that they are rightfully entitled to do that. Don’t they deserve every manner of outrage from us in return? But because of our silence, their evil penchant to dehumanize us the way they do is wrongly reinforced. Who has forgotten that the one, Mr. Bukola Saraki who parades as their leader is the son of Olusola Saraki, an individual who left one of the most sordid records that anyone can imagine in public office. In itself, his father’s awful antecedence in public office is sufficient to banish Mr. Saraki to a life of shame. But nay, he struts around festering us with his own dirty brand as a shameless advocate and purveyor of illegality in public service.
The SNG has made it self-evident that the will to push back on the madness going on in the land is there. The determination to sustain that will to push back on evil must not flag. One has not found any fact to the effect that our forebears were conquered by a Saraki, a Sylva, or any of the names that is associated with the bunch of rogue governors. Why then must we let them trample and humiliate us at all? One is privy to some of all that were said in the course of the SGN’s encounter with Mr. Jonathan. Of all, one is encouraged by the unequivocal assertion made by the SGN therein to him that it will not relent in its determination to rightly continue to push for the expansion of the boundaries of participation and leadership responsiveness in the land. One is convinced that what the SNG has initiated is a viable way to go. I have cast my lot with the Group henceforth as it proceeds on this quest. That will include finding my way to some of the demonstrations that it will call in Abuja in the future. That will be the least that I will do to express my gratitude to a Group that gave me a happy day.
●E. C. Ejiogu, is a political sociologist.
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That encounter which took place right after the bunch of rogues who call themselves governors rose from their own meeting with Mr. Jonathan is both symbolic and significant: It is a righteous counter to evil and brigandage. If everyone in the land had remained silent as used to be the case after the rogues rose from meeting Jonathan and admonished us albeit shamelessly to continue to lay prostrate while they sustain their violation of our dignity, it could not have been good for my spirit at all. Thank goodness the SGN gave them notice that the tide is turning, and made my day by so-doing.
articleadslinks
One was reeling in anger over the continuing brazen impunity and arrogance from this bunch when the SNG stepped forward and rightly admonished them in a biblical fashion, to go behind us like the Satan they are. No one has found cause to explain to us yet why those characters behave like our conquerors. None of them is better educated or cultured than any of us. Otherwise they wouldn’t be involved in their acts of theft and dishonesty. Properly raised, educated and cultured people have the requisite conscience that wouldn’t let them steal and loot public wealth the way the rogue governors do.
One has been wondering why we have tolerated the mounting insult and dehumanization for as long as we have from the rogue governors. These are characters who benefited from massively rigged elections to get into power. From the very time when they were rigged into office, each one of them embarked on and has sustained systematic looting of public funds with nauseating relish. Come to think of it, they have been doing that so brazenly, too. On top of that, time and again, they take the liberty to step forward to declare that they are rightfully entitled to do that. Don’t they deserve every manner of outrage from us in return? But because of our silence, their evil penchant to dehumanize us the way they do is wrongly reinforced. Who has forgotten that the one, Mr. Bukola Saraki who parades as their leader is the son of Olusola Saraki, an individual who left one of the most sordid records that anyone can imagine in public office. In itself, his father’s awful antecedence in public office is sufficient to banish Mr. Saraki to a life of shame. But nay, he struts around festering us with his own dirty brand as a shameless advocate and purveyor of illegality in public service.
The SNG has made it self-evident that the will to push back on the madness going on in the land is there. The determination to sustain that will to push back on evil must not flag. One has not found any fact to the effect that our forebears were conquered by a Saraki, a Sylva, or any of the names that is associated with the bunch of rogue governors. Why then must we let them trample and humiliate us at all? One is privy to some of all that were said in the course of the SGN’s encounter with Mr. Jonathan. Of all, one is encouraged by the unequivocal assertion made by the SGN therein to him that it will not relent in its determination to rightly continue to push for the expansion of the boundaries of participation and leadership responsiveness in the land. One is convinced that what the SNG has initiated is a viable way to go. I have cast my lot with the Group henceforth as it proceeds on this quest. That will include finding my way to some of the demonstrations that it will call in Abuja in the future. That will be the least that I will do to express my gratitude to a Group that gave me a happy day.
●E. C. Ejiogu, is a political sociologist.
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