Date Published: 05/11/09

Rejoinder: Nigeria: Democracy in a coma

I couldn’t help but laugh while reading Fr Ogundele’s article. I really pity him for I could see the anguish in his mind as he was pouring out his rage. But unfortunately, in as much as one would like to share his pains, his conclusions were all flawed.

Let us take it one after the other:
1.       He doesn’t see the present dispensation lasting any longer and he certainly prefers the military to PDP. We don’t need another coup to shorten the course of the democratic experiment. Where would that lead us, back another 20 years! Who led the country to where we are today, is it not the military?

2.      He said they cannot hold elections like we had in 2003 and 2007, granted, but they can annul the freest and the fairest elections. They can change goal post more than 9 times to suit their own whims and caprices

3.      PDP can plunder at will and with impunity: that definitely sounds like military regime of IBB and Abacha

4.      Bloody revolution: By whom? For whom? Will he be in front? Who will then take over thereafter? Same people who are looting the local governments now or the commissioners that award work to cronies? Can someone tell the Rev Father that the fabric of our society is the one that needs to be mend so that our bodies stop catching cold, and he should not wast efforts in throwing out some people as harbinger of the cold virus?

5.      Let us divide the country: Oh yes! Fantastic!! To how many pieces do we make the division? Will the Ogonis counts as Ijaws in same River of Niger Delta Country? And we have to encourage the Ibibios to stay in the‘to-be-recreated Biafra’ They will have all the opportunities they need within that entity. And by the way, Igbiras in Kogi woud have to have a country as they can’t afford to be minorities with the Arewa or Oodua Countries.

6.      The emergence of Fashola: Surprisingly I have noted that it is only when PDP wins that rigging is alleged, when other parties win, it is democracy at work. Can someone tell Rev father that Ac massively rigged in Lagos in order to have Fashola as governor? Not that AC would probably not have won in a free and fair manner, but democracy ‘needed to be helped” in Lagos. The Ekiti event that brought up this hullaballoo was a cased of one party out-rigging the other, but PDP being master at this game knew the
better rigging strategies, hence emerged victorious. Both parties failed the democratic test, and we should focus our screams at the fraud that we called election process and not opt for the norm where people side the underdog.

7.      The political class holding the people of Nigeria to hostage: How? Where? You got it wrong Father. The people of Nigeria are the ones making themselves of servitude to the political class. The day we rise up to demand enough of this nonsense, we will have a change. As long as we are contented with leaving the playing ground to the very minute bullies, they will continue to have a field day. The problem is us sir, not the class that you mentioned. When you chase Nigerians to the wall, they make a hole
through rather than act like the proverbial goat that turns back to his pursuer.

8.      The people must now decide: Servitude and Liberation: Now you are talking sir; but not by blood bath as you suggested but by standing up in peaceful manners to demand that the right things be done. Stay at home, march on the street, I hr a day to sit on the road until certain demands are met etc but most importantly participating in the electoral process from the formulating of the policy to the counting of the votes. We don’t destroy the country and the economy in the process, yet we make our voices heard. The people we accuse of electoral frauds are not ghosts, they are humans, flesh and blood, who fear the things we also fear.  Nigerians as ourselves.

9.      Clearly Nigeria is not working. It is a failed project: Nigeria is not a failed project. We just have failed minds. Minds that have failed to take their destiny in  their own hands, minds that are waiting for heavens to open and change the country for them, minds that only focuses on what to get and not what to give. The project is still on the drawing board, we need minds that will put it into reality and not busy moaning.

10.     I am indeed sorry for Nigeria: I am indeed respectably sorry for you sir, and for the rest of us waiting for a messiah without examining if there is one in us.