We don’t deserve this mess; we can create a better future

Staying above or outside the murky waters of politics is no longer an option. We cannot just be professional grumblers watching and complaining when a small minority impeach a speaker or even a sitting governor. We can no longer sit and watch them teargas our National Assembly, locking out the Speaker and most of our […]

Staying above or outside the murky waters of politics is no longer an option. We cannot just be professional grumblers watching and complaining when a small minority impeach a speaker or even a sitting governor. We can no longer sit and watch them teargas our National Assembly, locking out the Speaker and most of our representatives, because they want to force their own agenda down our unwilling throats. We cannot pretend to be shocked that one elected governor can tell his supporters to “crush” political opponents as they would cockroaches, or when another slaps a judge who was thinking of listening to a case challenging his election. And please don’t even waste any pity on the judiciary which increasingly appears to have sold its integrity and conscience for mere pittance.
The Police have no regards for the courts or the Constitution either. The SSS implements political directives and simply state that they had some “intelligence reports” that something untoward is being planned. Even the Navy was reportedly involved with the SSS in vandalising the Data Centre of the leading opposition party, in land-locked Ikeja, safely away from oil thieves who are stealing hundreds of thousand barrels of crude oil daily, and from pipeline vandals who are disrupting legitimate production in the Niger Delta. And please spare me the pretence that the military should be kept outside partisan politics. Where are these people now lecturing us on respecting the neutrality of the military when over 200 soldiers, tanks and APCs were provided to someone, who should in any case be in jail, just because he has now decide to join the ruling party and campaign for it in Borno, when the same forces could not protect even our school children and young women from Boko Haram killings or abductions? Would such heavy security have been provided to this man if he were to go and campaign for UPGA or the Labour Party?
Even then my fear is that we have seen nothing yet. If we listen carefully even the language of the rulers have changed. Our President has nothing but praise for his supporters like Asari Dokubo, Government Tompolo and Edwin Clark, when they threaten to break up the country in the event that he is not re-elected, yet is quick to accuse other people of treason if they even suggest that the electorate must defend their votes.  We seem to have given up both our political rights and our rationality. We have watched helplessly as public funds are routinely looted shamelessly, accepting any and all excuses especially if these are couched in religious or ethnic garbs. The crowning insult is that some of the looted funds are channelled to tribal or “non-governmental” groups, as well as some greedy individuals, to convince the general public that this administration is the best thing that happened to Nigeria since the invention of Jollof rice.
How did things get this bad, and why should we continue to tolerate this mess? There seem to be three basic approaches or explanations. The first is pure denial; things are not that bad. Spearheaded and funded by government are several groups that refuse all arguments. They insist that Jonathan’s “Transformation Agenda” is working and will soon lead us to El Dorado (City of Gold, Land of Happiness). Anybody who says otherwise is an enemy. The economy is booming, with more billionaires and private jets than at any time in our history. Power supply, Almajiri Education, fertilizer supply via GSM, and constant fuel supply are all listed as major achievements. The man himself added the fight against corruption and insecurity to the list, and dares anyone to contradict him. Obviously blind to the flight of over a million internally displaced persons, and thousands in Cameroon and Niger, not to mention those killed, maimed or abducted, he brags that no one has fled into exile under his watch. To the praise-singers and the deluded, we are living in the best of all possible worlds.
The second approach is to blame others for messing up right from Amalgamation, and blame them also for currently blocking his good intentions. Another four years and the country will see wonders, they insist. Corruption; what corruption? No bi ordinary stealing? Boko Haram? Oh, that is just some “Notahnas” who have sworn to make things difficult because “no bi dem dey in charge”. In any case, “na our turn” to chop small. Some even have the temerity to invoke God. Na God puttam diya, citing convenient passages from the Bible and the Qur’an, deliberately forgetting that God neither supports rigging nor injustice. He created the people and gives them the right to agree on how to choose their leaders and how they should be governed.
However, it is the third excuse that is more dangerous; the belief that we cannot do anything about the mess we are in. It is in this category that most of our people find themselves. This government has succeeded in convincing people to think purely on religious and ethnic lines. It has the “power of incumbency” anyway and cannot be defeated. It is better therefore to join the gravy train else one ends up the looser. It is this negativity, this fatalistic resignation that the opposition parties must wage a war against. The future is not something already decide which we shall willy-nilly have to accept come 2015. The future is what we can create. If the last couple of years is all what this ruling party can do, it is time it is shown the way out. We cannot have more of the same. Time we all go and get our New Voter’s Card, if we have not done so already. We must stop this decent into the abyss. They tear-gassed BBOG, they did the same to the National Assembly, they vandalised an office of the opposition party. What really is off limits?
If this arrogance of power, this massive and pervasive corruption, this show of impunity, if all these are going on now when they need our vote just imagine what would happen after the elections, when they have another four years of unlimited power. Even for the PDP stalwarts this mess should be unacceptable.