All Over But the Surrender?

By

k_ayagi@yahoo.com

 

 

'It’s about power, power to make riches. There is no ideological thing, simply who gets the bigger loot`.

 

 

The politicians are the primary reason for whatever ills that have befallen this country. The politicians, in their fixated and crude search of state power and lucre, have pushed the country to the brink of downright lawlessness. Corruption and misrule – the two are related, one feeds upon the other. Such key institutions of the state as the Independent Electoral Commission, the Anti-Corruption Commission etc have become dysfunctional and politicised because the politicians never want to allow them to function independently. The economy is in dismal state because of plundering by the politicians and their cronies. The list of misdeeds for which they are blamed goes on and on. There should be no doubt whatsoever in my mind that there is no alternative to a political process, which is the lifeblood of a modern state. There is little qualm that the crude struggle for state power by the politicians has vitiated the political process in Nigeria.

 

The government has been slave to the market economy and has flagrantly toed the line of the multilateral lending agencies like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund when it came to economic policy. They have allowed certain countries free rein to interfere with, if not intervene in, internal affairs of the country while talking tall about sovereignty, national security, so on and so forth. They have consistently surpassed themselves when it came to corruption, nepotism and plundering of the public exchequer.

 

I agree when the government says that the country in general and the political and electoral process in particular must be purged of crime and corruption. People want to be guided by those they respect and who have a clear sense of direction and must be ethical. A sense of direction is achieved by conveying a strong vision of the future. The basis of good leadership is honorable character and selfless service to your country. However, i cannot disagree more when the government refuses to go after the corrupt and criminal elements within its fold (some self-confessed). To be effective, any anti-crime and anti-corruption operation has to be comprehensive, no matter how painful it generally is in the short term. Corruption breeds corruption and crime begets crime. If not dealt with expansively, the seed will be there to sprout afresh at an opportune time. That is why the fight against crime and corruption has to be sustained and institutionalised. And institutionalisation will not be possible through such a government. It has to be in-built within the political process itself. Therefore, the sooner the government hands over power to a duly elected government after fair and credible elections, the better for the nation’s survival.

 

Meanwhile, the political parties have their own yards to clean. Neither of the two major parties practices intra-party democracy, nor do they have any institutionalised mechanism to remove criminal and corrupt elements from their folds. It is time for self-realisation and self-cleansing. The quality of politics depends on the quality of the political parties. All the political parties have failed over the years to get their act together and set a standard. While they have talked of democratic order, they have been internally autocratic, which has found expression in the way the PDP led government have run the country. The disruption in the democratic order that we have had did come about largely due to their failure to uphold and enrich the political process. We must learn from the past, right the present and prepare ourselves for the future. If we do not, history may repeat itself.

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