Still on Speaker Tambuwal

Soon after the defection of the speaker of the House of Representatives from the PDP to APC, the first warning that seemed mature was the call on Mr. Speaker to do the needful. No sooner than the PDP leadership issued that usual corrupted statement of it than the order to the Inspector General of Police […]

Soon after the defection of the speaker of the House of Representatives from the PDP to APC, the first warning that seemed mature was the call on Mr. Speaker to do the needful. No sooner than the PDP leadership issued that usual corrupted statement of it than the order to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), the Department of State Services and other para-military personnel at the service of the Office of the Speaker be withdrawn. The most agonising part of the circus show was the attempt by the IGP to play the infantile lawyer that he is when he chose to be the prosecutor and the judge in a case that he is interested in. No wonder Honorable Sam Tsokwa called him ‘My Lord Abba.’ The IGP in his police character chose to pick a section of the constitution and interpreted it in the manner that he understood, thus making nonsense out of the huge investment the police authorities made in him to go to school and read law in the first place.
Who told the IGP that he prosecutes a case and gives ruling on it? Who told him that mere defection means vacation of seat? Who told the IGP that even if the seat of the speaker were to be vacant he is the rightful person to pronounce such? Overzealousness you may say. I think the young man was just childishly driven by the quest to be confirmed and to satisfy his masters who were so desperate and shameless in the current national political arithmetic to the extent that they have lost whatever political integrity that they had, if they had at all.
When the Speaker announced his defection, which many political observers had since anticipated, what was expected of those who felt disgruntled about the development was not for the state and its agents of coercion to express its crudity in the manner that they did. The implications of their action are multiple. One, they have shown to all and sundry how desperate and un-couched they are. Meaning, they brought impunity to an elementary level where everyone now know what it is and what it is like. The action also confirmed the magnitude of desperation that the government and ruling party are made of and what Nigerians should be prepared to face especially after the 2015 elections. Most importantly, the behavior of government has further brightened the political profile of Mr. Tambuwal and endeared him more to Nigerians.
When I tell people that 2015 will be a great year for Nigeria, I mean every sense of the word. Here is a government that has been in place for the last six years and has run out of ideas. It acquired power at a time when the national income increased many-folds and yet, the decay in every facet of national infrastructure has worsened.
Here is a government whose level of economic integrity is the lowest in history, where stealing and corruption have lost their meanings. Money is irrationally stolen by those in control of state power and yet they continue to claim that there is no corruption but that we are mistaking common stealing for corruption. This is a government that makes so much money and yet finds it difficult to disburse to other tiers every month.
Here is a government that has divided Nigerians along minor fault lines more than any other in history. Incompetence is embellished in many different forms. One is a Christian or a Muslim, a majority or a minority, a northerner or a southerner. At every given opportunity, they are looking for an avenue to legitimise their heinous crimes against humanity and in order to cover up for their incapacity and failures; they resort to cheap sentiments and blackmail.
Little wonder, it was during the week that Prof. Wole Soyinka had to issue a disclaimer to what some pro-administration rogues chose to print in social media that the North is bombing itself because they don’t want Jonathan. Who actually is bombing the North? This is a question that Nigerians would soon begin to ask.
The House of Representatives since 1999, has been a different institution in our democracy. Some of us are proud of their attainments despite the odds. The government of Goodluck Jonathan tried them in June 2011 and failed and as it was then, so shall it be this time around and any other time that tyrants in the garment of democracy decide to hold the nation by the balls.
If it were not the most reckless, why would they do what they have done to the House of Representatives? Why would they look at the nation in the face and spit at it? Only PDP can do this but my consolation is that by the time the elections are conducted and they are given the beaten of their lives, they would learn in the nearest future to respect the citizens of this country. As for now, they are reckless and blinded by the ecstasies of power.
With the national outrage, the court injunction, the government must immediately restore the security compliments of the speaker. If what is happening is anything to go by and if the government in Abuja is sensible, the fact that all opposition governors and some key personalities, including the speaker, had stayed away from Council of State meeting, the signal to those in power and masters of impunity should be very loud and clear and that all is not well.
Nigeria is greater than any individual and no one should take the nation for a ride just for his or her personal ambition and interest.