Date Published: 02/06/10

Is Nigeria Governed By Goons? By Odimegwu Onwumere

In May 2007 when Mr. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua succeeded the seat of the president Federal Republic of Nigeria in the April of that year’s election, a lot of people threw party in the air and walk on the waters and rolled out drums on the streets that a University Graduate has become the president of Nigeria. This was owing to the quest at that time that since Nigeria got her independence, no ‘sound’ graduate has ever mounted that exalted seat. People were of the view and hoped that Yar’Adua would change the ‘face’ of Nigeria to be glowing in all her facets of governance from the glooming state of mediocrity many Nigerians thought the Olusegun Obasanjo administration left it at. But since then the Graduate President Yar’Adua mounted the saddle, things have not changed for good, either.

There have been political chaoses in the administration of the Graduate President Yar’Adua than we ever experienced in the administration of the ‘none’ Graduate Obasanjo. At least, Nigerians were sure of a seating president during the ‘none’ Graduate Obasanjo’s reign than a Graduate President in absentia we have today in Yar’Adua. And the PDP is not even helping matter, all!

Nigerians were talking about kidnappers and looking at the blues as where the kidnappers are, but the true kidnappers are not farfetched. The true kidnapper is the PDP. The PDP has many times kidnapped the President of Nigeria to who-knows-where without letting Nigerians know where their Graduate President Yar’Adua was, upon that they continued shouting untop of their voice for the PDP to tell them where Yar’Adua was. The PDP has many times kidnapped the state-of-the-health of the President Yar’Adua till recently it was revealed that he was sick of an ailment that only encyclopedia contains. And who is even sure of that!

Not even the rule of law and obedience to the due process has been really seen exhibited by those in the political echelon of Graduate President Yar’Adua’s administration, and even the Graduate Yar’Adua is not excluded. It is true that most of us fought for democracy, but the happenings in Nigeria today is revealing that rarely are we all democrats. How can Yar’Adua boast a democrat whereas he is finding it difficult to write a (common) letter to the confusionists-in-chief in the National Houses directing that the seating-duck Goodluck Jonathan should act as the Acting President in his absent?

The buffoons in the persons like the Attorney General of the Federation, Michael (Oandoakaa) had always exhibited the rarest exhibition of goons in the defense of (his job) the Graduate President to the detriment of over One Hundrend and Fifty Million Nigerians. Even, the Graduate Legislators allowed the insensible Turai Yaradua to be acting nonsense around all the corners of power forgetting that the self-acclaimed office of the First Lady is no office in the Nigeria’s history as far as the 1999 Constitution upholds, which she is even plying to truncate. Turai is power drunken and needs exorcism from the spirit of power intoxication!

It is sheer sabotage to the country called Nigeria and Nigerians to see those who claim to be Graduates acting so foolishly because of their self-aggrandizement in a democracy. This has been the contention by yours truly that not even the much touted democracy world over can save any country, but good governance. This is because democracy, like the Nigeria’s example habours nepotism, oligarchy, anarchy, Marxism etc in this democracy.

There has not been transparency, at all, in a democracy that saw to the untimely deaths of many Nigerians today. No one is even talking about those who were incarcerated in several occasions for the attainment of this democracy. Not even a day of honour could be mapped out in obeisance for their efforts. This could be why hardly many so called Nigerians wouldn’t want to die for Nigeria but would want to die for their ethnicity. And dichotomy has been the bane of this country which is ramshackling following the hand of Yar’Adua and PDP on the wall of Aso Rock, a den of corruption.

What this Graduate President Yar’Adua’s administration has exhibited so far should teach Nigerians a lesson of always looking for the content and not the container. Many of our heroes in the past rarely had one or two academic certificates, but they exhibited rare governance many of those who wear GRADUATE as a garb in this country today can exhibit.

Nigeria can only be good when we are able to boast of many educated men than many certificate men. Many of us can not even defend our certificates. And let Yar’Adua not be one, because one can see the ineptitude in him as a graduate by what he has exhibited recently. Nigerians, it is becoming a shame.

Odimegwu Onwumere is the Founder of Poet Against Child Abuse (PACA), and a Media Consultant based in Rivers State. Mobile: +2348032552855. Email: apoet_25@yahoo.com