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Too many things are wrong
TONY OKERAFOR
I
do not like the way the fate of Nigerians is being tossed around like poker -
chips on the bargaining table. It is now more than five years since the
enthronement of the Fourth Republic, and what sort of politicians and political
rulers do we have to show for it? This is a dispensation far worse than the era
of the Second Republic, which you and I know should not be the case. This writer
is not a prophet of doom. But, if reality and precedence is anything to go by,
then, one might as well be safe to draw the following conclusions. Ahead, the
future is bleak for the simple reason that the country’s political class is
being dominated by creatures who are at best, semidemocrats.
Maybe, after reading this piece, some of
us can begin to ask ourselves how much better we, as a people and as a society,
have got, since the "politicians" in plain clothes replaced the "politicians" in
Khaki in 1999. Is it about corruption? There is no evidence to show that less
money is going around than was the case during the military era, or is there?
There is just one difference between the situation in the two eras, and it is
this, few people, a smaller clique of big wigs gets to share so much, during the
military dispensation, unlike now, where you have more law-makers, more
executive people - along with their cronies, dependants, associates and friends
- who must "eat" and "drink" and "burn" and "fight" for a share of the national
cake.
Infact, too many things are going wrong,
because everything surrounding practically any issue, whether desirable or not,
is being determined by how much one person or one faction within the political
establishment can throw about. If you consider what you read in the dailies
everyday as hearsay, you might as well find yourself in the presence of any
assembly man or other political office-holders.
It is all about money politics, they will
tell you. No bill gets passed by the Senate, the House of Representatives or any
state house of assembly allegedly without money changing hands, even when it is
clear to every Tom Dick and Harry that public opinion is behind such a proposal.
Do not ask me why that is so, because if
you do, you might as well be asking to know why more politicians, this time
around, happen to be asking for, and even taking, the heads and the blood of
their rivals than was ever evident in the Second Republic, with all the bad
names and the evil records that many of us still associate with that by-gone
era. It is easy for us to say the military sowed the seed for the widespread
intability and bloodshed that Nigerians have witnessed in the last five years.
No less than a hundred - thousand Nigerians, in all, have fallen victim to the
senseless murders, assassinations and enthnic cum religious violence of the last
couple of years. What one finds most disturbing is that there is little evidence
that the future is going to be any brighter. At least, our political class do
not seem to be working to achieve the contrary.
Apart from Zimbabwe in Southern Africa, I
do not know of any other nation in post-cold-war Africa, where preparation for
elections are just like putting everyone on a war footing. Not even during the
discredited years of "second" era politics did things get out of hand,
politically.
Pherhaps, the men in khaki have made
themselves so hated and discredited that many of them can hardly think of coming
back into politics. Maybe, also, there are one or two among them who are just
sitting back guaging the terrain taking their time. But of course, it’s not
enough to make your cronies and friends within the circle of army commanders and
generals. You need much more than that to stop the more restive one among them
from thinking of returning to fore, because when they do decide to, there’s
almost nothing in place to stop them. What you need - the best weapon available
to any civilian regime in Africa - is stability and good governance, and we’re
not having it, for now.
Too many things have gone wrong with this
"experiment" of ours, and these politicians are not just causing us
embarrassment before the rest of the civilized world. They are getting the
masses exasperated and fed up. Economically, the nation is almost nowhere.
Politically, everyone appears to be lost. Take the question of the proposed
single term presidency for instance. Nigerians - almost everyone, think it is a
desirable thing to have. But as you know, our country, is not one where public
opinion is taken seriously by those in power. What we have are a people
constitutionally elected. But , what have these semi-democrats and political
despots done to the constitution.
The mudslinging among the politicians
prior to last year’s controversial election victory by the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) was to be expected. But, the steady increase in politically
-motivated killings is bad enough. The problem even transcends that. Our
politicians seem to be breaking every working record elsewhere in the world by
fighting against the same legal document by which they can, and do, lay any
claims to political legitimacy. It seems to me that nearly everyone who is
holding a political office today was and could still be principally against the
single term presidency.
Before the last elections, there was
hardly any state governor who come out to oppose the proposal in very clear
terms. But, we know they all opposed it, and were working through their
respective rubber-stamp state legislatures to kill it. Nowadays, they can afford
to withdraw their opposition to the proposal because their second tenures are no
longer at risk. But, how about their successors who will be taking office in
2007? Won’t they also constitute themselves into a new veto force against a
single term presidency or governorship? In truth, we do not all have to support
it. After all, those of us who do, think is one way of making the rotatary
presidency work for us. If you have a single term of five or six years for an
incumbent president, it becomes possible for the post to go round the whole six
geopolitical zones of the country within a period of thirty years, and within
reasonable time, too. And again, maybe the spate of political in-fighting we are
experiencing today will decline and perhaps, fewer political murders will take
place, and probably, too, state governors will be compelled to work harder and
achieve more within the single tenures available to them, rather than
pre-occupying themselves with converting state funds to their re-election
campaign needs.
On the other hand, it is true, and we all
know it that to agree to the single-term presidency and governorship is
tantamount to agreeing to the termination of the political careers of some of
today’s office holders, and that explains one reason why some of our governors
especially the few newly - elected ones maybe opposed to the suggestion. So,
what do they do? They seek a "temporary" reprieve at least one that is sure to
shore up their present positions by attempting to use their assemblymen to serve
as a veto. One of the most ludicrous examples of political horse - trading was
to ensue, back in 2003.
The assemblymen in the various states,
most of who must support the single term proposal for it to escape the
constitutional hurdles had decided to ask the National Assembly to accept the
creation of more local councils within the states in return for supporting the
plan. Many, many things are really and truly wrong with us and our system:
especially when, after more than five years since the restoration of democratic
rule, the likes of Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and George Bush, plus other world
leaders from China, Italy and Japan, have come here to sing our praises, but,
can’t or won’t they be convinced to help us with debt relief, let alone debt
forgiveness. Our economic woes, they seem to be saying, are not just self
inflicted, but , also, we haven’t even started doing something to correct our
statues as one of the four most corrupt nations on the face of this earth.
Something must be wrong when, following
half a decade of "poverty eradication" and "poverty alleviation", we’re still
down, down the ladder of the latest UN development index; and our people,
despite so much oil money at the disposal of the government, still rank among
the world’s 37 poorest souls; or are we making any real headway, when the prices
of foodstuffs and other basic amenities are hitting the roof, while our
government is much more obsessed with using its subservient legislative branch
to kill or to, as they call it, "decentralize the N.L.C"...the only remaining
pressure group or organisation in this country that is a truly independent
advocate of the common man? What future is there for our corporateness, when
ethno-religious violence, such as the one that led to the imposition of the
state of emergency in Plateau State, is still as widespread, if not more so,
than the latter years of military rule in our country? We must also worry,
because the Niger - Delta region, whose oil resources earns for us something in
excess of 15 million U.S. Dollars a day remains, at best, an area under siege,
with thousands and thousands of disillusioned or manipulated young men, either
fighting among themselves as Ijaws, Itsekiris and Urhobos or conducting querrila
- style operations against an equally vindictive alliance of Nigeria’s security
forces and exploitative foreign oil companies on their land.
Besides, when, according to the president
Obasanjo himself, no less than 125 high calibre rifles can be recovered by the
army in one sweep, during a recent search and disarmament operation in a small
section of the Niger-Delta, everybody must worry and be fearful, because it’s an
arms cache large enough "to wage war on a big city. How about our police force,
whose job it is to protect the lives and the property of us all? Their problem,
says Mr. President, transcends that of low pay or out dated communications
equipment. They are not only inept and morally bankrupt but, also, they are
getting increasingly involved in creating the worsening atmosphere of ear and
insecurity that is now ruling our lives, by, as president Obasanjo put it,
"providing weapons to criminals".
So, the million - Dollar question is: are
we better off today than we were six years ago? Are we winning the fight to
rebuild our reputation as a nation of honest and credible people, when the
four-one-miner scam, long associated with Nigerians home and abroad, has now
acquired such a sophisticated dimension so much so that that American and
Singaporee citizens, to mention a few, are falling victim to the syndicate and
losing an estimated 200 million U.S dollars a year to the criminals? As someone
has said, many things are indeed wrong; otherwise, the government of
Switzerland, in whose country the late General Abacha and his family had lodged
a part of the Dolalr - billions stolen from our treasury, wouldn’t have the
effontery to give a public instruction to its representative in Nigeria to
monitor monitor how wisely or otherwise our own government is going to spend the
600 million Dollar that was recently unfrozen and returned by Swiss banks. This
is humiliation of the highest order, and more so, coming from a country whose
bloated economy and banking sector have shamelessly prided themselves in being
the number one safe haven for not just looted money from across the world, but,
also, tons and tons of gold and blood diamond, either stolen or confiscated from
hundreds of thousand of hullocust victims from the mid - 1930’s to the
mid-1940’s.
What a shame!
By Adolph Hitler’s accused Third Reich.
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