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In The Light Of Tenure Extension: A Mixed Bag Opposition In Nigeria By Prince Charles Dickson Jos, Plateau Nigeria
Can you beat the Nigerian…no not at his own game in his own backyard, in last the seven we have redefined democracy, the Greeks and Americans must be envying us at the moment. In our game, one person can be the player, the umpire and master of the rules, that same person wakes up and could even cancel the game half way. Did I hear you ask what about the fans? The fans be damned, the fans are so impoverished that they can only watch the game as much as the players deem fit. The PDP and their cohorts best describes this picture I have painted. When the drum beats change they simply improvise their dance steps, they do not take dancing classes. The ordinary Nigerian is the one that bears the brunt.
Only recently in an article I said the third term has given birth to happy times for some people and that it had brought happy days because the essence of those preaching third term is that it will serve continuity of the good works of Obasanjo, those against the third term are what I term the born again democrats and a mixed bag opposition.
One of the major achievements of the present Obasanjo arrangement is the successful breaking up of the opposition. Today the civil class and society is at its weakest. Someone asked me recently where is Adams…my answer, ‘he is holding consultations on how best to navigate his boat to the government house in Benin, weighing his card so that he can find an abode there, after all his efforts at reducing fuel price yielded little’. Thank Allah for the likes of Wole the Nobel man, the fourth realm of the estate and some Nigerians who have refused to be intimidated by the present politics of repression being played.
However as the drama of tomorrow keeps unfolding I am through this essay raising a credible fear and it is in the light of this third term, what manner of opposition do we have, born again democrats and a mixed bag of everything and anything. If care is not taking we might just beheading back to the days when anyone who wanted to travel out of the country simply claimed membership of NADECO and that he was a politically persecuted person. Today every manner of persons is getting airtime and newspaper space because he is anti-third term, every dictator and disgraced person is talking. But can we really see the face behind the masquerade?
I spoke with a credible National Assembly source and he informed me that the anti-third term legislator had resolved to collect government bribes, after all the monies belong to Nigerians and not Obasanjo, but that they will still vote No. there argument is also that if they refused the monies would not go back to the treasury. However the problem is that some are of the opinion that they collect the money and display same on the floor of the National Assembly, others are chanting no, we will pocket it. How does one also explain that even those against the third term are offering bribes to the legislators…call it lobbying by presidential hopefuls?
I am one of those that have vowed that my ink would not run dry and no amount of intimidation would push me down but lately I have also posited that let Baba have his way, thus we can be given an opportunity through a credible candidate to floor the Owu chief in an ‘unriggable’ election. Let us have an Abiola typed candidature and see who has the monkey heart to annul another free and fair election.
Not everything that flies is a bird especially the butterfly despite its beauty. The truth is that despite the intellectually shallow bunch led by the toy called Ahmadu Ali at the PDP, they have no sense of sanity to pursue their sense of foolishness but they have gainfully exploited the mixed bag opposition.
With a National Assembly that has a price, Nigerians are weary. The truth is that the South West kit and kin of the President do not support a third term, 99% of his fellow Christians that is if he is, do not support him. There is opposition in Christian Association of Nigeria; North to South but then this opposition has only seen the birth of mixed bag opposition with a lot of noise rather than a clear voice
Governor Orji Kalu has since Imo river been committed to running for the Presidency but each time it mattered he failed as an opposition, besides if his stewardship in Abia State is anything to write home about then we can as well have Obasanjo for life. The man from Abriba has not been able to successfully wriggle himself out of the countless damaging allegations against him and with his mother myth; he is a mixed bag with his romance with Atiku and IBB.
Sani Yerima Bakura is the gospel according to Sharia law and I can say without fear is playing a very complex script of benefit and cannot lead us as a nation at least now. My Lagos and Borno former military administrator Buba Marwa has in recent times shown that one can be intelligently foolish as he has chosen the path of dishonour. For a man who only months ago had a sizeable amount of goodwill to squander it on the altar of political foolishness is only a vivid picture of the mixed bag opposition that we have at the moment.
I will not access IBB because he and his cronies put us where we are today, his declaration is only a function of saving face, he brought Obasanjo to Nigerians and Nigerians are asking that come and remove your curse and this does not translate to mean replace him with yourself, capital NO. on Atiku I have found it had to understand his role in the unfolding circumstance, I can only say that the polity needs his money and possibly inside knowledge to stage the drama “unseating Obj” come 2007. Because a vast majority of Nigerians see Atiku as a bigger crook and he only functions in this arithmetic as a safer crook and not a solution to the ‘crookery’.
Who will bail the cat, we have had promises of failed messiahs, but this nation possesses very capable hands away from all the present pretenders. I purposely did not mention Buhari because I have my positive bias though with reservations. As everyone wears the garb of a saviour we need to be careful so as to avoid another Obasanjo error, a PDP mistake, because the bitter truth is that in 1999 we had a coming together of true and false democrats with no plan for success, no plan for the masses but just to pursue the military, today apart from lets chase this crazy Ballard, we need to have a picture of where we are going. What we want, who we are to hold responsible…these men of latter day declarations for the post of Presidency, which one has come out with a master plan, NONE! For now it is simply a mixed bag and we do not have all the time 2007 is just some 400 days away for Obasanjo to leave Aso Rock. Allah show us a leader that will finish his project for Nigerians with no need for extra time. Amin!
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