Date Published: 06/10/09
10 YEARS OF DEMON-CRAZY ROADS?
By ARINZE ALINNOR A.
Many had said that during the period we had military dictators in power that the voice of the people never counted. Now that we have experienced a decade of uninterrupted ‘democracy’ the votes of the people have never counted. Is it still a nascent democracy? A child of about ten years is no longer a toddler. But looking back, the last ten years had been full of intrigues and infantile activities by full grown adults who are only growing old and had not grown up. Anyone in the polity that wants to pop champagne and celebrate activities in the last ten years just want to celebrate mediocrity and should have the head examined by a psychiatrist.
Democracy is about credible elections and the power of the electorate. I would prefer calling June 12 th 1993 our democracy day because of the power of the electorate in the election that took place. May 29 th 1999 was just a day the men in Khaki pulled their uniforms and took on agbada, and handed over to their own who had pulled his Khaki before them. Fela Anikulapo Kuti had described democracy as crazy demonstration or demonstration of ‘craze’. Many learned minds have also described democracy in many ways than one. But I wish to add my own satiric definition of democracy. My own says “Democracy is a system of government when the polity is full of crazy demons and demons are crazy in people’.
I therefore submit that we have had ten years of manifestation of crazy demons in Nigeria. Fela Anikulapo Kuti said whenever he wanted to sing about misappropriation, lack of water, lack of power supply, mismanagement of resources, stealing by government, he realized they had become old news. I want to sing about demon-crazy roads and I do not know whether it has also become old news. But I will sing all the same. Since the last ten years, demons had suddenly gone crazy and they are on rampage on our roads. The demons were permitted by the vagabonds in power as Fela would describe them who want to handover everything that government ought to do and do nothing but still remain a government.
I was reading what Dr. Reuben Abati commented on the state of the Lagos-Ibadan road on the ‘democracy’ day but felt he did not quite ask to know the state of other ‘Federal’ roads begging for attention on the same day. I had my own share of the experience on our demon-crazy roads the same day. My own experience was not on the same road but on the Ore axis of the Lagos-Ore-Benin road. While I was trying to call a friend to complain about the state of the road and the terrible traffic we were stuck in, the same person called me. He said he was on his way to Enugu on the express and their tyre went off owing to a big gulley on the road. He said they dodged many of such but were unfortunate to enter one that was like a ditch. I was short of words. Many were complaining about our government and their being too far from the people and their plight. Many concluded that roads had remained like that because of insensitivity of the government officials who do not even ply the roads but enter flight. Though we took a few shots at different spots, my friend deleted most of the shots when he got annoyed at some point. We were at one spot for three and half hours. I was wondering whether it was not the same road our former Minister of Works visited. I would refer to her as the ‘weeping minister’.
Why did she cry then? Would it have been crocodile tears? Did she saw the crazy demons on rampage? May be she was weeping for serving in a government that shows insensitivity to the genuine needs of the people. The deplorable state of that particular road, the man hours lost, the lives lost, the many vehicles destroyed, should have elicited same form of concern from the government. One man said while we were stuck there in traffic that they are trying to formalize the concessioning of some Federal roads and that was what was delaying the repair or reconstruction of the road since the visit of the weeping minister. I told him to say that to the birds not humans. I asked the man, what else had they been doing since all their efforts are geared towards taking their hands off everything that they ought to do as a government? I hear many say the government had not been good in managing her investments and that informs their trying to involve the private sector in everything. Good talk! Who do we blame for inaction, mismanagement, and inability to take full responsibility on the part of government?
I was glad that most of the people up there attended the international conference on the ten years of democracy in Nigeria and they heard Collin Powell speak. He told them that democracy is driven by performance. What is the performance of the democracy over here in the last ten years? Pseudo fight against corruption, lack of transparency, lack of respect for the rule of law, massive rigging in elections, do or die politics, misappropriation of public funds, probes without results, genuine insensitivity to the plight of the people, black board and chalk seminars, policies for the elite, lack of political will to projects, impoverishing of the people in the name of poverty alleviation are all dividends of democracy. There is nothing to celebrate except demon-crazy roads. Strikes and scarcity of petroleum products in an oil producing nation are part of performance and dividends of democracy. God bless them for wasting ten years on personal and party agenda.
ARINZE ALINNOR A.
P. O. BOX 17985, IKEJA - LAGOS.
08033001782, 07029447342
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