December 30, 2008
Nigerians have religiously stood by with open mouths and eyes, and with helpless askance watched as our country, children’s future and national resources are wasted by a popularly unelected president whose leadership style is comparatively unsufficing, practically and figuratively rudderless and with no discernible guiding force or strategy. President Yar’Aradua’s horde of soulless, self-gratifying schemers, whose characteristic putrefactive veins, debased integrity and susceptibility to bribery are anything but nationalistic, are studiously spiraling our homeland into a cataclysmic unrecoverable economic crisis, religious mayhem and intentional perversion of the electoral process. What is happening in and to Nigeria today sends a cold chill down the spines of even the most ‘spineless’ but concerned Nigerians. How did we get to where we are today? A mental excursion into Nigeria’s history would reveal most of the answers. But that would be for another day.
A clear message has been boldly sent by the tergiversating triangular axis of president Yar’Adua, Attorney General of the Federation Michael Aondoakaa, and indicted corrupt governors (symbolized by former governor James Ibori, et al), with the invisible pudgy hands of the “evil genius” calling the plays, to anyone concerned enough about corruption in Nigeria as to really do something about it – as Ribadu did. The clear message with president Yar’Adua’s blessing is, if you prosecute corrupt government officials, you would be persecuted. As much as such a message is disconcerting and a morale killer in the resuscitation of a crippled nation, it does open up a lot of counteracting avenues.
Politicians with less moral burdens would not allow themselves to be blackmailed and would not compromise themselves in the future as is the case with president Yar’Adua. The era of political godfatherism may belong to the past in the general scheme of things. Adoption of godsons as former president Obasanjo adopted Yar’Adua may not thrive in the future based on the recent statements by OBJ and Yar’Adua’s non-performance as a selected president. Nigerians are increasing becoming aware that the nation belongs to them. As such, being silent in the face of massive corruption, mindless looting and in-your-face election rigging does nothing constructive to advance the collective interests of the citizens of our potentially great country.
But the most vexing issue is electoral fraud and the connotations for perverting the electoral process. If politicians occupy positions they did not win electorally – clean and square, citizens become irrelevant and would not be factored into any economic equations relative to governance. If our votes no longer count, politicians become less concerned with re-elections and accountability. Consequently, frugal and parsimonious management of resources take backseat. Taking away our votes and crowning favored candidates is no different from a military coup. Only a military coup is not paid for from the national treasury. A military coup, a relativistic causality, is an exercise embarked upon when there are no longer legal and constitutional avenues for rejecting those in power in the ballot booths. If our votes are now meaningless, then, it behooves right thinking patriots to re-examine the differences between the methodologies of a military takeover cum governance versus a civilian takeover and governance relative to monetary costs, management styles, punishment of errant public officials and the overall benefits to Nigerians.
Nigerians have come to equate the mental epileptic, Abacha, and economic kleptomaniac, Babangida, as the true and legitimate faces of Nigeria’s military. That is absolutely a false premise, too reductionist, as such grossly misleading, transparently far from the truth and unnecessarily deterministic. Those men do not represent the best and brightest men and women in Nigeria’s military, period. In essence, Nigeria’s military must not shy away from both speaking out and taking correct positions in times of political absurdities and economic and moral decadence. They must hold their heads high and be proud of their selfless and patriotic commitments to their fatherland - and not let the tainted, neurotic criminal actions of a few to irreparably stigmatize them. If belonging to the same military that Babangida and Abacha belonged to taints all military officers, what about belonging to the same political parties with James Ibori, DSP Alamieyeseigha, Dr. Umaru Dikko and AGF Michael Aondoakaa, or belonging to the same Police force as former Inspector General of Police, Taffa Balogun? While people may belong to the same associations or professions, their priorities, moral values and angelicalness, perspectives and virtuousness could be direct opposites and inverses of each other.
Chief Gani Fawehinmi can no more take responsibility for the conducts of AGF Michael Aondoakaa because they belong to the same legal profession as any serving military officer would of Banbangida’s record as president. Just as no Nigerian in the United States can take responsibility for the despicable 419 criminality of Nigerians by virtue of being born in Nigeria. President Bush can no more be responsible for the conducts of David Koresh (the dead leader of the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas) just because they were both born in Texas. President-elect Obama can equally not be responsible for comments made by his former pastor because they are both blacks or because they worshipped in the same Church. In essence, no Nigerian military officer, serving or retired, can be held responsible for the conducts of Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha, or fail to rise-up to nationalistic causes because of the criminality and irresponsible conducts of a negligible former and present uniformed few.
Almost every civilian (s)election in Nigeria has been very costly and fraudulently conducted, with inflated financial appropriations, unexecuted but fully paid contracts and avoidably replete with cold blooded murders of political opponents, tumultuous disorderliness, violent and tempestuous disturbances, knock-down-and-drag-out general uprising, systematic terror, obstreperous and ethnocentric perturbations, cankerworm of care, bullyrag conturbation and intentional creation of an irrational environment of trepidation. In each case, who has always been the loser? The law abiding Nigerian with nothing more at stake except to live peacefully and harmoniously with his kit and kin, raise his/her children with the fear of God and feed two/three times a day as the case may be.
As we evaluate and re-evaluate the rewards of this current democracy in Nigeria, we must not shy away from assessing the visible dividends. The easily discernible dividends include but not limited to daylight kidnappings and the targeting of innocent Nigerian economic skedaddlers and escapees in North America and Europe for elimination and money-based atrocious acts. Payment (in Euros) to foreign attorneys for their services in preventing the repatriation of Nigeria’s funds in Britain; cold-blooded murders of political opponents; daylight robberies of Nigerian banks; killings of police/servicemen and women, bank employees and civil servants; elevation and enthronement of favored but unqualified politicians into plum offices; open disenfranchisement of Nigerians; wasteful and irrational spending of national resources in conducting sham elections; elevation of appellate justices who gave favorable rulings to the ruling class; persecution of real corruption busters for daring to arrest and prosecute economic felons and moral vandals; creation and perfection of corrupt conduits through which Nigeria’s petroleum derived revenues are secretly siphoned out of the country; a general atmosphere of unrest and fear of being killed or kidnapped. Termination of employment based on political disagreements and false accusations of inappropriate behaviors and conducts through planting and dissemination of false stories aimed at character assassination in the mostly cash-for-print media; intimidation of morally upright professionals; arrests of bloggers for zealously writing about the sorry and sad state of the Nigerian nation; frequent power outages; non-availability of germ-free drinking water; death traps in the guise of roads; conflation of poverty; depreciation-prone currency; more bad name in the international community; dearth of well-trained professionals through brain drain; mortuaries disguised as hospitals and flight of capital through corruption, and preventable stalemate in the Niger-delta crisis. Above all, non-existent checks and balances. Are all these the expected and desired results and rewards of democracy? If a government cannot protect the lives and properties of citizens within the constitutionally defined boundaries of that country, what is the usefulness of that government?
In 1990, General Ibrahim Babangida abandoned the seat of Nigeria’s central government to Lt. SOS Echendu. A general as well as a head of state took to his heels like a rain soaked chicken as he abandoned the [federal] seat of power to a lieutenant. When Babangida denied the above named military officer and all Nigerians the right to accept or reject his administration via the ballot box, Echendu was left with no other option(s) or alternative(s) than to use what he had - armoured vehicles. He used them so effectively that Nigerian civilians emulated him in 1993 - which ultimately led to the “stepping aside” of Babangida from power. The relevance here is Nigerians are being denied the right to have their votes meaningfully counted and to have their ballot box choices validated. The consequences of these atrocious actions by the Nigerian government can be catastrophic and could potentially change the map of Nigeria as we know it. We are not, and definitely do not pray for that, nor wish that to happen.
By Obinna O. Obinna
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