If you think this is sheer speculation, remember that dark horses are hardly seen emerging from the night. Did Shagari, whose greatest ambition was to be a Senator, not become President? Did Aremu, whose only wish was to be freed from Yola Prisons, not become President? Is Umaru, the recluse from the remote not President? If you think Turai’s ascension (or either of her sons in-laws) to the Presidency is improbable, open your eyes very wide. And your ears. The contest for 2011 is a complex context.
But before Turai becomes President, be reminded of the promises that came with democracy. After decades of brutality by brothers in khaki, we were told that the end of thievery by the military over. We were told that the days of governance without purpose were over. We believed we would be beneficiaries of social processes and governments dedicated to selfless service, collective approaches to societal challenges on issues of growth and development. We were not told that democracy would become a big, black burden.
So before Turai becomes President, recall we were told democracy would give us freedom, but got chains. We were promised progress, but returned to the dark ages. Where we expected bread, it fed fat on our hungers. While we prayed for hope, it grew on our fears. When we dared to cry, silence was decreed by beasts in black bearing big batons. We never thought democracy would become a family club.
Before First Lady becomes First Citizen, please recall that some in the Diaspora came back home with ambitions in their hearts. They came back home with greenbacks in their bags. They came back home with ideas and ideals. They parted ways with hosts to locate long lost homes. But the democracy they see is of a different hue. They see freedom supported by chains. No one expected the burden of democracy to be this heavy.
Before that familial change of guards, remember that many of us stayed back because they believed the promises we were plied with to fight familiar fears. With the flagstones of democracy, we laid the road to the path of our collective futures, slow in recognizing the entrenchment of potholes of ruthless greed and reckless conduct. We never envisaged that the dividends democracy will only be reaped by one class, the burden borne by the other.
They promised the rule of law, but what we see is the ruse of law and a tactless tag-team of government striving to surpass the other in deceit and double-speak. We look on with heart wrenching despair as the simple virtues of honesty, transparency and accountability are locked up as democracy’s prisoners. We cannot protest when starvation becomes food for the masses, though we were promised democracy would put food on our tables. We got a democracy burdened by the theft of our votes and our voices.
We were promised balms to sooth our open wounds, but are no more than pawns to placate foreign powers. Ask my cousins in Bakassi. We were promised homes with proper roofs, yet our children are born under naked stars. We have seen none of those promises - not a whiff, not a whisker. The rule of law they gave us is held up by brutish beasts bearing batons, and by men and women in black robes and white wigs. They are more burdens of democracy we have still to bear.
Before Turai becomes President, remember all these promises – of light inside our homes and clothes on our backs, though we have learnt to see in the dark and wrap with our rags. We look up at the process that promised so many palates, but know by premonition that the plate of democracy will not be served anytime soon. The democracy we see is weighed by golden chains of family ties - that binds and gags all semblance of sanity.
They promised everything but we see nothing, so the masses throng to the throne for a view of the recluse that promised so much and produced so little. The vault of state groans with the gravity of excess crude, but stomachs of the poor groan with the misery of mass poverty. A testimony to the eternal truth; that far for anything built on lies, fears and tears to deliver the dawn of promise. Milk and honey a mirage, as merry - making fools make for the mow.
Before Madam President takes the throne, remember they told us that democracy was an elixir for the ills drowning our hearts, our homes and our country. We were told that democracy would give hope to those who grope, and guide us to growth. So we planned and plowed to pave the way for Old Aremu, mindless of warning whispers. Like the cat with nine, he became President and before our very eyes, broke our backs and strangled democracy to death with fists of steel. And steal.
Democracy’ promise to the Delta is the heavens that explode and poor earth shaking as bullets, bombs and battalions go blasting; bodies, bones, blackened and burning; women and waifs wailing and weeping; death and destruction hither and thither. But these brothers in arms were created by the promises of politicians, and now other politicians order other brothers in uniform to go for the kill. To them, I say one thing – look under the military retirees bridge at Zone 4. That, also, is another kind of burden.
Before you become President, remember, Madam, that though the burden of democracy may have forced truth to flee in the face of falsehood, and good men eulogize evil to bash around the bonfires of the banal, the burden that you are attempting to bear will break that back. That is one thing with the burden of democracy. It breaks the backs of those who take it for ride it too far.
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