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Beyond 2007: Nigeria, Junta Politics Or Democracy By Prince Charles Dickson Jos, Plateau Nigeria
The Nigerian history as it relates to leadership is an
intriguing paradox of junta hegemony. Military despots shrouded in the
deceptive toga of ‘civilizing themselves” and the civilian crooks called
politicians preaching a false sermon of “redemptive vision” or
developmental efforts. While the truth remains that they have habitually
exploited the nation’s AIDS acquired Instability and Degenerative
Syndrome, all manner of crooks catapult themselves to power causing more
hemorrhage to the economy and preventing people from asserting their own
creative economic engagements and political participation. As a result
dictatorial regimes be it military or democratic has become the rule
rather than the exception in Nigerian politics and power equation.
The intriguing question of democracy beyond 2007 has even
assumed a more disturbing dimension with the ‘anointed successor’
tactics and the godfather disease of the present led confusion of
Obasanjo. The subtle manipulation of the democratic process through the
on-going reforms smacks of a negotiated withdrawal. Because of the 2003
fiasco called elections, the present crop of leadership and its
electoral body have scarcely resolved the question of the extent and
scope of mass participation in forging, accepting and struggling for the
realization of a free and fair election.
In a predominantly semi-illiterate society such as ours,
the people are, unarguably, so short of the relevant political
consciousness for articulating meaningful alternatives to the present
existing system of organized disorder that it sounds reasonable for a
never-do-wrong President and the likes of Fani-Kayode and Corporate
Nigeria to do the thinking and articulation.
One of the ethical pillars of a democratic society is
that the wise must neither be allowed to think for the ignorant nor
should the wealthy act on behalf of the poor. Not even the plea of
compelling an inherently chaotic populace to accept the benefit of
freedom by “forcing them to be free” is accepted by democratic societies
as a necessary path to alternative dispensations, this however
theoretical is practiced in opposite in Nigeria, our leaders do not know
that. On the contrary they forget that democracy is established through
dialogue between the different segments of the social forces involved in
the struggle for survival within the system.
Our leaders simply kill the social forces and disorganize
the system, thereby disallowing for critical intervention on the part of
the transacting units to excavate reality from the bowels of the system
and to transform it through conscientization.
What I have been in the above jargons tried to suggest is
that the issue of Nigerian leadership goes beyond the 2007 drumbeats, it
is a more complex process than the screening of candidates for the
office of President by the South-South or the agitation for power by the
North and the planned perpetual hold to it by Obj. it certainly is more
than the necrophilic civilian junta that we have now.
It is easier to set up and upgrade alternative
institutions of governance and even forge new structures of
re-socialization and re-orientation than it is to get an entire
population into meaningful dialogue about what they want the future to
be. Millions of Naira spent on the National Confabulation was a failure
(debatable). The people’s own confab via PRONACO has not been able to
airlift the people’s desires.
The task beyond 2007 is taxing because the people of this
nation for once have not been made subject-participants rather they are
always known objects to be acted upon, meaning we are yet to enact a
delicate balance between the ruler-ruled interests, the assimilation of
democratic rights and ethics and the internalization of civil morals and
duties by both parties.
Unfortunately the Obasanjo led despotism is stale and f
aceless, once more like he did in the past; he is playing on the
psychology of ‘reluctance’. The pretence that the people want me to lead
them if not I really want to leave. This instrument is his own brand of
hegemony, so he keeps mute, and if come 2007 its obvious he has to leave
he will negotiate a withdrawal.
Already this angle is being worked out, one can see the
underbelly signs of that negotiated withdrawal as the Presidency works
hard and searches for the group of pers ons or robot that would uphold
its policies; and that would be more inclined to protect the corporate
interest of “all of them”. Thus the ideological continuity and security
of the present democratic junta of failure is decisive in its desire to
abdicate voluntarily or to withdraw under pressure. This is already seen
through the manipulative negotiations with social groupings, which share
similar robotic and identical socio-economic interests or ambition.
If the government could rig itself into power, use all
instruments of violence in establishing itself, it could use other
manipulative devices short of force to protect its interests, through
the recruitment of those sympathetic or at least not antagonistic to its
cause. Like I have always said a clean government come 2007 is almost
impossible, but if it does cone by Obasanjo would be on his way to a
second term in Jail for his many crimes against the people of this
nation…it would be a return journey for him to either Maidugiri, Jos or
Yola Prisons, but with his negotiated withdrawal it would remain
business as usual. The post 2007 government would start its own version
of craze and surely the rape would continue.
The fact is that those that refuse to learn from history
will always be marginalized by it. When leaders manipulate the
development of their nation like is the case in Nigeria today rather
than embark upon the painful and long drawn struggle for equalization,
the end product would be disaster both for the victims of such
manipulations and its architects. The organic dynamics of social justice
possess their own mechanism for inflicting retribution on offenders.
Almighty Allah may have taken leave of Nigeria but He is not asleep.
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