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Away From Motor Park Democracy, Leadership Ahead Of 2007 By Prince Charles Dickson Jos, Plateau Nigeria
These are indeed sad times, but then,
these are times when the nation needs heroes...a time when be it a woman
or man, the nation needs leaders that cannot be bought, men, whose words
are their bonds, not leaders that play comedy with the national issues.
Men and women who put character above wealth, not those that cannot be
trusted with the PTDF monies or those that would dash women friends 607
cars with our collective sweat. In times like these as the next election
comes if it does come, we need men and women that posses opinion and a
will, leaders that are larger than their vocations.
These new set or crop of leadership will
not hesitate to take chances, yet not loose their individuality in the
motley crowd of corrupt politicians. They will be honest in small things
as well as big things, they will make no compromise with wrong. No Tom
and Jerry arrangement in refunding stolen money be it from Joshua or
Solomon, Plateau or Bayelsa.
These men will not do it because everybody
does it, they do not believe that shrewdness, cunning political
manovers are the best qualities of governance. Above all these
compliments, these set of men are going to be our heroes, Tom and Jerry,
Obj and Atiku, have failed us, PDP, ANPP, ACD, AC and all the present
arrangement do not have any formula that can take us to the promised
land. The present crop is all I call a Motor Park democracy, a democracy
of touts, a democracy that creates more problems than it solves any, a
democracy of the more we see, the less we discern.
In a Motor Park democracy, the IG of
Police blames the Director of SSS, the President accuses his Vice,
Political parties have three, four factions all laying claim to the
followers' mandate.
The practice in Nigeria today, is a system
that recognizes one tout amongst other touts, and when there is a fight,
it turns into a fracas, a free for all fight and the very institutions
that holds us together as a nation are abused. And this in itself is not
odd because the arena is the Motor Park, where drivers contribute money
and the Union Officials play hide and seek with the money till it
disappears.
Take a drive to PDP's motor park, and you
will appreciate how it works, from pursuing Ekeueme, then chasing
Awoniyi, then giving Audu Ogbeh poisoned pounded yam with Ota Farm soup
served in Aso Rock. In that motor park, we saw the travails of Pius Ayim,
the man that was told he would be President, Ladoja, Alams, Ngige, Tafa
Balogun, and boy Atiku, all have stories from that motor park...The god
of Dariye has still been protecting him from the area boys of Baba Iyabo.
Solomon Lar one time and first Union Chairman in the Motor park has
since been running an attache park.
To the onlooker and non-participant it is
obviously exciting to watch men fight dirty like Mama Segun and Sister
Atiku in a 'face me I face you' one room house in a typical Anguwan
Burukutu slum. The truth is that Nigerians are tired, tired of it all,
the ballot box is the peoples gun, can we use it, is the question that
is begging for an answer.
Today's leadership is made up of men that
readily will collaborate in a highly complex subterfuge which is
predictably heading towards confusion. In the motor park of Nigeria we
are besieged with men whose antics are allergic to true democratic
practice because of a neurotic pursuit for power.
Like we all desire, the fact is that we do
not need this democracy of the Motor park, we need development, because
what we are battling in this nation is the crisis of development, our
infrastructures are in a state of decay, for the ones that have not been
bought by Transcorruption.
Despite our enormous wealth and
potentials, we are impoverished, ethnically fractured irredeemably, thus
the North-South agitation for power.
The democracy of our nation is played in a
manner likened to the politics of underdevelopment. This is so because
the saga between Obj and Atiku, and all the soldier boys cannot bring
any form of development. Our leaders are washing their massively dirty
linen not just in public but for the public to feed on. In one word the
inability of both men and their party to bring them to order is
translated to failure... failure of the motor park politics that our
leaders are playing.
In this big motor park where we are all
confined to by the politics of our leaders and their definition of
democracy, we have seen in full doze violent aggression as against
persuasion and consensus building, diversity, true competition, freedom
and equality. In this democracy, we have not had religious or ethnic
clashes because of religious parochialism or ethnic parapoism, access
rights, discriminatory treatment but as a result of greed embedded in
corruption.
In this circumstances, we possess an elite
driven democracy, not a people driven one, so the politics is not
necessarily democratic even when theoretically the system of governance
supposedly is. Leadership should think about people being the agents,
means and the end of development, not the case where Union officials
disappear with our money, feast on it in a most despicable manner at the
expense of us all.
We need to experience development not
reform, as it is we do not have anything in the real sense that is worth
the onions of reform.
We presently do not have a democracy of
incorporation, we need a consociational arrangement that allows for
cultural expression, self realization, yet a strong national identity.
Not a garage arrangement with everything scattered here, there and in a
real sense no where.
Recently we witnessed the birth of two
'major' parties, the ACD and then more recently the AC, with its logo,
the broom stick, I smile because its still all the same conductors and
bus drivers, I hear one of the chief drivers Tony Anineh would be
jumping bus. The same dramatis persona that were the characters in the
PDP motor park have taken to other motor parks, the question is what
hope, if we all did not, I saw as much as any of us during Solomon Lar's
PDP. Ordinarily Audu Ogbeh looks the good man, but he supervised that
land, moon and water slide rigging of PDP in 2003, that rigging is what
we are all suffering in the hands of chief touts heading their
respective State Motor parks, and you can see from the treatment they
give to us as passengers, that they care less.
In our democracy, we are still to get to
the point of people power, rather the area boys like the Jamaicans say
still run things, they run the show, they do the exploitations, using
the underpaid police, the ill motivated soldier, the capitalist
politician who borrows monies for his campaign or sells his property and
sees governance as an investment and the populace suffer the neglect...
For the uptenth time let me say that the
ordinary Nigerian like in the Motor Park do not care much about these
thieves, they only want a safe trip, they want to pay the right price
and get service delivery that is commensurate with it. Food, shelter
and clothing is all we desire, not all the side attraction of our
leaders which actually is nothing in concrete terms.
If nothing changes and indeed soon, one
day problem go tie wrapper, that day the passengers, touts, drivers and
commercial sales people will engage in a bolekaja...(come down lets
fight) scenario. In the nation of blind people, a one eyed man is king,
but woe to the nation of full sighted men that are led by blind people,
either the blind is really good in governance or there is a wuruwuru and
magomago to the answer which the populace that have sight need to revolt
against.
We cannot continually be pooh booed by
some select few...Almighty Allah save us from ourselves, we are at out
wits end.
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