They may have been strange deadly bed-fellows, but together they raped our consciousness, killed our dreams, decimated our land and created an environment of fear that is threatening to kill off the good in all of us. These things were not done, are not done and will never be done in the interest of the people. But they were done for their respective ambitions. Their ambitions are proverbial. It daunted even themselves, and to destroy each other, they are prepared to destroy the nation. All the reasons why Obasanjo does not qualify for an extension of tenure are the same reasons why Atiku can not seek for the slot himself. No need comparing our democracy to that of America or any other, where incumbents are succeeded by their deputies. We are not America, we are not even a democracy, and we are nothing at all. A nation without political traditions, a nation pulled constantly towards disorder, a people without voice, endlessly whipped by the nauseating challenges of managing our passions and defining our goals, setting then in order of priority. A sad testament of how low a people so potentially endowed could fall. We have no leadership. This was what they clearly told us in cryptic languages. The law of the land was eagerly written for us and not for them. Where their ambitions conflict, they fight; where their interest collide, they cooperate. But there was nothing in it for the rest of the country. None of them was democratic enough, then or now, to realize that illegality of options, opinion, and act is never a democratic norm. They swerved the public mind towards stupor, claimed an overwhelming control of our resources and bandaged the gore failure of their watch with the bandage of brigandism. The voices of opposition were stifled, bought over, massaged out and if they proved too stubborn they were snuffed away. All these under the watch of men that claim to be wholly in communion with God. Is they were in communion with the people, they would have heard the silent whimpers of pain and the desperation of the masses.
Their legacies are fraught with ignominy; they deserve no continuation, either as PDP or AC. Their respective aplomb guaranteed that they had more influence over their advisers than their advisers had on them. The country stifled; we fought each other; we attempted civil opposition, but they killed it. The beggars in our streets increased, beggars in the corridors of power also increased; fewer jobs were created; sample terror was unleashed; no visible real sector factory was created; shady and shoddy deals were reached with ghost foreign firms; zombies got paid; the people got laid. Our visible structures of unity were shaken. The nation got polarized. Glossed grimaces of shame became the portion of life in a stringent nation. The people looked for a voice from within to remind the government that they were heading towards the cliff, none volunteered; all were involved. They shied away from responsibility, but orgyed in the sewages of their failure. To now rise to the call of democracy, because either your third term ambition is challenged or your first term as president is threatened is a monstrous act of deception worse than treason. Instead of the guarantees of civility we were treated with an obnoxious amala & tuwo style of control. Benign conversations and advice of where we were, or are heading to, is treated with some Soviet style propaganda machine, which bolsters their ego but chain our chances of truly becoming a nation. Who cried foul then? Who gave us the democratic protection? Who stood for the rights of the people? Who surrendered his ambition for the life of us? Whilst the people cried, who dried the tears? Away with this craze for power rather than service!
When Obasanjo and his men went after N’aabar, Anyim, Okadigbo, the Labor Union and many others, what did they do to check them and root for the rule of law? Today with their swat whip over his head and his ambition terribly threatened, we hear a discordant note for democracy. While the National Assembly was bullied, shoved and harassed, where were the democrats within PDP? When they were bribed and most of them driven away, who was there to question the legality of it? They absconded from their responsibility; induced the culture of corruption, set up illegal purveyors of discrepancies, all in the name of the law. In Anambra State, a state of mayhem, a brazen breach of the law and an impeachable demonic attack on the welfare of the people was unleashed. But neither the President nor his Vice saw anything wrong then with the nature of the democratic abuse. Oyo State was later visited with the same shame; none saw it as a crime worth rattling the Party with. I hold nothing against the ambition of man, but when it conflicts with my freedom, with my world view and when it appears as a choleric attempt to foist on me and anybody at all the shattering shameless imposition of failure and autocracy, then I detest it. If Obasanjo has more to offer the country, he should strive to allow Nigeria choose its leaders than give Nigeria a leader ill equipped than him to deal with the democratic challenges of a complex Nigerian nation. If Atiku feels democratic, he ought to realize that the poison of half heartedness is rather kept out of the corridors of power, and are poor credentials to bring into the leadership crucible of Nigeria.
The nation’s political Aegean stables must be cleaned and exorcised of the likes of Obasanjo, Atiku, Babangida, Buhari that have overbearing ambitions as their only claim to the leadership of the country. We cannot tolerate the next wave of betrayal; we cannot live through another year of lies and deception; the country is damn too polarized to bear any more of this nebulous debauchery and blurry values. If others can, I sure hold the liberty of saying no more of this blitzkrieg of damages, death and destruction of my values as witnessed in this joint watch of Obasanjo and Atiku!. Our major challenge as citizens of this country is to refuse this certain mesmerizing of our senses. The language of deconstructive constitutional amendments as touted at the National assembly is delusional; the national interest would suffer tremendously, the fortunes which we thought we had would, incontrovertibly suffer decay. If the fight over our liberties and freedom must be pitched, it must be now. The people who ought to have spoken up, have one after the other been compromised. The goal of the people is to stand up for their rights. The unity of Nigeria for which they make their case would suffer more with their continual control of the political space. We must resist its continuation by the sheer force of the human spirit that has always triumphed over the power drunk tyrants all through the ages.
Perhaps, nothing stands upon a stronger basis of truth than the principles which decide between human freedom and human subjugation. These eternal values are now, in a weird extent, in the jerky and vague current of Nigerian politics, strongly overwhelmed by the tyrannical storms of political shamelessness. But the cloud which obscures the Sun, we know for sure does not annihilate it. Therefore, we may yet in this country see true principles emerge and unclouded. In this all too buffeted nation of ours, we may yet set our eyes on the true path of nationhood. Every act, whether of individual or government in Nigeria, whether committed in the past eras of military abuse or in this one of pseudo-democratic malpractice, which compromises the eternal principles of human freedom, or constantly postpones the collective interest of the people for the interests of the few, is sure set for failure and universal opprobrium. This is as sure as the fact that one way or the other the great crimes and injustices of which none has ever been held responsible or accountable would surely be accounted for in the near future. If the dubiousness of political highhandedness has found some and is still finding reprobation in Ukraine, Georgia, Thailand, Latin America, South East Asia etc, then our country surely would find their soul and feet to resist this inquisition and rape of our sensibilities. Obasanjo/Atiku has become an ellipsis for failure and sure would be condemned by the awful verdict of history. In the months ahead, a slow progressive wind of change would commence, bearing the collective progress of the nation and its peoples in their wings. As the judgment passed upon the cruel vagabonds of our past history stands, so shall it be meted out upon the apostates and traitors and all those who lead or join the bands and brigades of conspirators against the collective rights of the Nigerian people. Both are history. They have played their part. No more is expected from them. Like Vergilius of old I say:
“Agnosco veteris vestigial flammae”
(I recognize the vestige of their fading flame)
2006
Lagos .
iagbeze@msn.com
iagbeze@gmail.com
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