Some years ago, I saw a documentary on television that captured the brazen attempt to remove the then Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chavez, from office barely three years into his presidency.<\/p>\n
Chavez\u2019s offence was that, as soon as he became President, he implemented a true national constitution that enabled participatory democracy from the grassroots level on up.\u00a0 Then he went and built thousands of free medical clinics for the poor.\u00a0 He also increased government\u2019s funding of education and, in just three years, he has increased the level of literacy in his country by an estimated one million adults.\u00a0 Chavez didn\u2019t stop there; he went further and enacted food and housing subsidies.\u00a0 He also unfurled a program of land reform.\u00a0 The man then began to reduce the levels of poverty using State oil revenues.<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t need me to tell you that big business in Venezuela didn\u2019t like what they were seeing.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t like what Chavez was doing at all.\u00a0 However, Chavez\u2019s biggest sin against them was that he began a comprehensive reform of the State-owned oil corporation.\u00a0 You see, back then, Venezuela was the world\u2019s fifth largest exporter of oil, but 80% of the population didn\u2019t benefit from the oil wealth.\u00a0 So Chavez moved against the corporation\u2019s entrenched management that, in reality, was running the place like a private business.\u00a0 He also moved against the indolent and highly corrupt union.\u00a0 Chavez re-focused his nation\u2019s oil policy to benefit its citizens first before worrying about the international export market.\u00a0 In no time at all, petrol was being sold in Venezuela for the equivalent of 3 Naira per litre.<\/p>\n
All of that went down like a lead balloon with big business.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately for Chavez, the TV stations in his country, except one, were owned and ran by the same owners of big business.\u00a0 These were the elite, the Cabal who had been running things in Venezuela for decades.\u00a0 The emancipation of the masses wasn\u2019t profitable to them.\u00a0 In no time at all, they began to use their media to resist and to attack Chavez.<\/p>\n
Then in April 2002, the pro-business cabal sponsored an oil workers protest.\u00a0 They also bribed a small group of very high-ranking anti-Chavez military officers to come across to their side of the divide.\u00a0 Some members of the upper class came out too, banging their pots and pans with expensive looking spoons.\u00a0 One evening, in the midst of this protest, a few military officers – a la Abaca, Diya and co versus Shonekan \u2013 waltzed into the Presidential Palace and, at gun point, asked Chavez to resign.\u00a0 Chavez refused.\u00a0 He was informed that if he didn\u2019t resign, there would be a bloodbath with all the protesters outside, and that the Presidential Palace would also be bombed within minutes.\u00a0 Chavez still refused to resign as President but he agreed to be detained.\u00a0 He was led away by the officers and was subsequently detained on a military base.<\/p>\n
A few minutes after Chavez was taken away, a wealthy business baron who was then the President of the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce, Pedro Carmona, declared himself President of an interim national government. Carmona promptly abolished the 1999 constitution and appointed a small governing council to help him run the country.\u00a0 He also announced the reinstatement of the longtime head of the State-owned oil corporation whom Chavez had removed.<\/p>\n
The next day, Carmona, his new cabinet – drawn exclusively from the privileged class, and the senior military officers who backed him relocated themselves to the Presidential Palace where they wined and congratulated each other, backslapping.\u00a0 Afterwards, their new Attorney General and spokesman, a most pompous, verbose chap, pronounced the dismissal of the Legislature, the Judiciary, all elected Governors and the Electoral Commission to a chorus of wild applause.\u00a0 More back slapping followed.<\/p>\n
However, the masses – young and old – trooped out in a massive demonstration and in support of Chavez\u2019s government.\u00a0 Of course they were confronted on the streets by the police.\u00a0 After three years, repression was back in Venezuela.\u00a0 The police were back shooting at their own people.<\/p>\n
But the masses resisted and continued their protest.\u00a0 They continued to agitate for the return of Chavez.\u00a0 Then, the Presidential Guards hatched a plan and quietly surrounded the Palace.\u00a0 While the masses demonstrated outside, the Guards quickly retook the Palace.\u00a0 In the ensuing confusion, the usurper President escaped.\u00a0 He slipped away with some of his backing Generals, some of whom had hurriedly discarded their uniforms.\u00a0 Others were not so lucky.\u00a0 Most of the new interim cabinet and their supporters were herded downstairs into the basement and were put under arrest.\u00a0 They, including their loquacious, newly minted Attorney General, were made to sit on the bare floor.\u00a0 Their haughtiness firmly drained out of them.<\/p>\n
In just 47 hours \u2013 two days \u2013 things have turned around.\u00a0 Chavez was returned from detention and a grateful nation heaved a sigh of relief.<\/p>\n
Most unfortunately, in Nigeria, the exact opposite of the redemptive situation above is what obtains, and is what we have had on our hands for a very long time.\u00a0 The corrupt Cabal who only cares about themselves; the corrupt Cabal who unrelentingly trample on our rights; the corrupt Cabal who treats the people with absolute disdain; the corrupt Cabal who holds us in utter disregard calls the shots here.<\/p>\n
Would the real masses go out and rally in support of the current Nigerian government?\u00a0 Do they have a reason to do so?\u00a0 Daniel Kanu\u2019s-style rented crowds don\u2019t count.\u00a0 Since Murtala Muhammed, do the masses have the impression that subsequent governments \u2013 including the present one – represent their interests?\u00a0 Unlike Chavez\u2019s, our own governments have been and continues to be wholly self-serving.\u00a0 Our own leaders condone, live and breathe sleaze.\u00a0 Our own governments have us in a chokehold and are gradually draining the life out of us and out of the country.\u00a0 We have a corrupt oligarch that is happy to divide us along ethnic and religious lines as long as we stay divided.\u00a0 We have a corrupt Cabal who actually believes that the masses are nothing more than a mere nuisance in its way.<\/p>\n
Go figure\u2026<\/p>\n
demdem@hotmail.co.uk
\nTwitter: demdemdem1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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