Date Published: 01/31/10

THE ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY By TomBari G. McFini

TomBari McFini

From the moment a child is born with a major disability, the parents are bound to face uphill challenges until a proper diagnosis is being done and that child fully recovers, otherwise the parents will live  in distress and worries for the rest of the life of the child. There will be frustrations, mixed feelings and ephemeral happiness (if any) and the future of the child will remain sketchy and bumpy. In retrospect, Nigeria was undeniably created with major fundamental issues which disappointedly every administration in the country has ignored or pretended that everything is fine with the country.  

Soon after independence from its colonial Brit master in 1960, the future of Nigeria had remained uncertain and subject of contentious debates ever since. The questionability of the country’s configuration and uncertainty of the future has given impetus as well as justified the feeling of doubts and insecurity among Nigerians, for the most part minority ethnic nationalities who relentlessly struggle for recognition, justice and equality and supported by the persistent advocacy for national sovereign conference by civil society activists. For many decades, almost all successive administrations in the country had flatly ignored the call for reasoning and national discourse that would offer Nigerian citizens a first-time opportunity for a true national dialogue that would strengthen the federal character of the country.   

Instead of finding plausible solutions to the practically inexcusable and profoundly rooted sociological, cultural, economic and political problems impeding and ruining the country, political leaders had on the contrary tactically designed an immodest and nonconforming democratic scheming which empowered them and had turned the leadership of the country into the hands of selected corrupt political henchmen and their accomplices and perfervid loyalists who think of nothing but unending tyrannical power, control and domination. Erratically, leadership has been drifting and wagging like a ship with an inebriated captain in charge or dangling and swinging like an out of control pendulum between military dictatorship regimes and kakistocracy. This bizarre and unusual style of governance derisively alienates the people and provides absolute immunity and power to exploitive political office holders, encourages exploitation for personal gusto, self-enrichment, political gratifications, corruption and autocracy and consequently created repetitive kakotopia. Regrettably, Nigeria has been denied popular, acceptable leadership and democratic government best prescribed for a federal state, which Nigerian people deserve.  

This unwarranted political stratagem impertinently violates the people’s most valuable rights and undermines the civil responsibilities of the people, as a result politicians do not care about valid mandates through legitimate and fair democratic process to assume leadership, which of course has often than not led to nothing but perfidious and mischievous dramas in high places.   In this context the legislature has been made politically redundant and reduced to inconsequential echelon of the incoherent system, as many legislators are turned political salesmen propagating political agendas and manifestoes of their political god-fathers and benefactors. Accordingly, the frenzied political structure in Nigeria had successfully created comfort and systematically transformed the federal and regional governments into shielded cartels and safe havens for political opportunists, public bandits, mega political fraudsters and tyrants like Chief James Ibori, General Olusegun Obasanjo (Retired), General Ibrahim B. Babangida (Retired), late General Sani Abacha (retired), President Umaru Yar’Adua, Chief Peter Odili, Chief Rotimi Amaechi, Dr. Andy Uba and myriad more.

In the last couple months, since President Yar’Adua left the country on November 23, last year for medical check-up in Saudi Arabia, his absence has created precarious vacuum and generated justifiable fears and panics in the country and beyond, for this reason Nigeria has been awfully gridlocked in a political captivity orchestrated by political benefactors and political office holders who use chaos to advance their self-seeking political resolve to control the country at the expense of the citizens and national unity.  

It has been prevalently conjectured that the President is brain dead: meaning that he is possibly in lethal coma. Other sources claim that he is extremely too fragile and feeble to be flown home, hence his continued stay at a top secret location in Saudi Arabia, hoping that he would recuperate and able to come home. In either circumstance the undisputable fact remains that Nigerian number one citizen President Umaru Yar’Adua is missing and the political structure has ignited the growing tension, anxiety and frustration in the country. We were told that he is (was) sick and has been hospitalized somewhere in Saudi Arabia. The multi-billion dollar questions therefore are how imaginable could the President of the world’s most populous Black Country on earth and acclaimed leading nation in Africa disappears without a trace? Where is the President of Nigeria? How is the president doing? How fit and able is he? Nigerians demand simple and honest answers to these questions from the government and from whom it may concern. Nigerians are worried and ask these valid questions because they are concerned and care for the lives of their leaders not because they wish the president dead as preposterously suggested by the Attorney General and Minister for Justice of the federation Michael Aondoakaa.  

More importantly, the people are so concerned about the president’s fitness and ability to make independent and conscious decisions as prescribed and required by the constitution of the country in dicey and uncertain situations such as Nigeria experiencing now. Although, the cicatrix of the dishonest and unacceptable means Yar’Adua came to power is still unforgettable, Nigerians have learned to tolerate him until otherwise decided. Nigerians expect government officials and public office holders to stay committed to the true values of the oath of office they sworn to and stop being unnecessarily defensive or dismissive of the serious situation in the country.     

The fact that the Vice President of the country Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, who is the next in the chain of command, members of the federal executive council and other well placed government officials lack the moral courage and authority to honestly digest and address the situation in a plausible manner or are incapable to contain the political nuisance is indicative of more than just a transient political problem but ineptitude and leadership failure. This is flatly unacceptable for a country that is faced with multifaceted challenges and is struggling to diagnose its problems.   

The Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Sokoto State Branch Mr. Jacob Ochidi had unequivocally disparaged politicians for the delicate tension and anxiety in the country over the ailing President’s health and his whereabouts. “The issue of Mr. President is being politicized; it is the politicians of this country that are causing the problem otherwise the situation we have at hand have been taken care of by the constitution”. He noted, “Vice President Goodluck Jonathan should have been Acting President all the while as provided for by Section 145 of the Constitution that whenever the president is not in a position to perform the full functions of his office, he transmits that information to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives to enable the Vice President act as president”. He added. The federal executive council, Minister Michael Aondoakaa and the legislature should expeditiously invoke section 145 of the country’s constitution, interpret as prescribed and apply the laws as required to save Nigeria from imminent crisis not as they wish or pressured by the political benefactors, the pseudo structure or status quo.  

In a more assertive decision than any other in last Friday ruling, Judge Dan Abutu had ruled that the Cabinet must expedite actions to pass a resolution to determine the fate of the presidency. The Judge also reaffirmed that the constitution acknowledges smooth transition to the vice president in circumstances like this.

The embattled sick stricken President Yar’Adua is battling for his life and my pray goes to him for quick recovery. It is the power drunk and those seeking absolute power, who would strangulate Nigeria and do anything to maintain political control of the country at all cost that stirred and created the current avoidable tension in the country. This is an assault on democracy and sensibility of Nigerians. It is high time covetous politicians in the country are reminded that Nigeria belongs to all of us, not selected or imposed political monsters. Nigerians must continue to resist and reject their egotistic inclination.  

TomBari McFini writes from Hartford, Connecticut. For more contemporary articles and commentaries, please visit my webpage @ www.tombarimcfini.wordpress. com