Date Published: 07/15/09
NIGERIAN LAZY SENATORS, UNCARING MINISTERS
BY EMMANUEL ONWUBIKO
Politicians like the Education minister Sam Egwu who went about partying while the entire public Universities were shut down because of strike action is a perfect example of a bad and uncaring politician. Similarly most of our so-called senators are lazy, unproductive and have become beast of burden. Samuel Enoch Stumpf reminds us in his classical work [locus classicus] that whereas earlier philosophers concentrated upon describing what things consist of, Heraclitus shifted attention to a new problem, the problem of change. His chief idea was that ‘’ all things are in flux,’’ and he expressed this concept of constant change by saying ‘’you cannot step twice into the same river’’. The river changes because fresh waters are ever flowing into you’’. This concept of flux, thought Heraclitus, must apply not only to rivers but to all things, including the soul of man. In Nigeria’s political environment the only thing permanent among different politicians of all epochs is change. Nigerian politicians essentially do not change for the better rather the reverse is the case because progressively the sets of politicians that we find in Nigeria are transforming themselves into functional monsters. How else can one express the fact that the conduct of elections in this Country right from the First Republic to the contemporary times has progressively deteriorated so much so that manipulation and rigging have taken centre stage? Politicians in Nigeria are constantly manifesting advanced forms of tyranny which correctly portrays the fact that in the Nigerian political environment ‘’MIGHT IS RIGHT’’ as stated by the Philosopher Thrasymachus and explained in greater details by the Italian maverick Philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli in his book THE PRINCE. Niccolo Machiavelli who lived between 1469 to 1527 wrote and advised Political office holders who were known basically as princes during his epoch that though it is laudable for them to keep good faith and live with integrity, and not with astuteness, but he quickly admonished Political office holders that since experience has shown that those political office holders who have had little or no regard for good faith have achieved so much and have been able by astuteness to confuse men’s brains, and have ultimately overcome those who have made loyalty their foundation. Machiavelli puts it succinctly thus; ‘’You must know, then, that there two methods of fighting, the one by law, the other by force; the first method is that of men, the second of beasts; but as the first method is often insufficient, one must have recourse to the second. It is therefore necessary for a Prince to know well how to use both the beast and the man... a prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves...therefore a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by so doing it would be against his interest, and when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer exist....’’
The current set of Nigerian politicians especially the Senators, Governors, some of the Ministers are perfect pupils of the bad philosophy introduced by Niccolo Machiavelli and indeed some of our so-called senators have surpassed the scope of the teaching of Niccolo Machiavelli and have become beast of burden to corporate Nigeria. How else can you explain that some of the political office holders elected on one political platform in the opposition have crossed over to the ruling party at the center with the active connivance of the hierarchy of the Peoples Democratic Party including the President who has made it his full time duty to always receive these high profile political prostitutes into his party? I was shocked to the marrows when one of these so-called senators elected on another political platform by his constituents but he crossed over to the Peoples Democratic Party two years into his four year tenure and when he was approached by Journalists he offered the less than dignifying reason that there is no morality in politics. This is the height of political prostitution and Machiavellianism. I must quickly remind my good readers that in this column I have had the reason to praise the Senate President David Alechenu Bonaventure Mark, a retired military General, for working to stabilize the hierarchy of the upper chamber of the National Assembly unlike when we witnessed the emergence of over five Senate Presidents from 1999 to 2007 caused largely by the dictatorial interferences of the former dictator, President Olusegun Obasanjo. We had reasoned in that particular piece that for the fact that David Mark had restored stability in the Senate since 2007 it is possible that good and quality laws would be churned out. I stand by my proposition that stability in leadership can give rise to good laws. But two facts have emerged to belie my optimism. First, the Senate President was shown on prime time news channels of most national television begging the national hierarchy of the Peoples Democratic Party to give all Senators automatic ticket in the 2011 election. This to a lot of democracy inclined Nigerians amounts to an abuse of the constitutional fundamental human rights to civil political freedoms or rather freedom to choose who governs Nigerians in whatever capacity. The United States president Barrack Obama during his recent visit to Ghana had rightly told Africans to encourage the erection of strong democratic institutions and not to encourage the emergence of strong individual political office holders or tyrants. The second dangerous fact is that some Senators after collecting a whooping N500 million naira each in the last two years did not initiate a single bill. Sunday Trust of July 12 2009 carried a damning story of how our so-called senators have collected huge tax payers’ money in the last two years to make good laws but ended up doing little or nothing. This is sad. To even understand that virtually all the past state Governors who wangled their ways into the senate during the terribly rigged 2007 elections have not sponsored or initiated any legislative bill is an unpardonable political sin and it is therefore a total proof that most of these so-called senators do not deserve any other tenure in the coming elections. Nigerians must wake up from political slumber, docility and show this bunch of lazy senators the way out of the upper legislative chamber.
+Onwubiko heads the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria.
