Democracy Must Not Fail

By

Wada Nas

wada@gamji.com

 

Recent events in the country, all of them ugly, if allowed to continue, may turn out to be the waterloo of our nation and the democratic order we have all resolved to nurture to enduring maturity. Within a short space of time, starting late December 2001, we witnessed the assassination of a serving minister, the first in our history since the civil war. While we were mourning his painful and cruel death, the bomb disaster exploded, sending over 1000 to their grave. Again, this was the first of its kind in our history.

With our tears still flowing, the OPC terrorists, in the usual manner of their orientation, once more found pleasure in massacring Northerners at Idi Araba, one in the series of their continued intolerance of non-natives in Yoruba land.

Still very unsettling, within the same period, policemen, once more for the first time-embarked on a strike action to press home demands for welfare services. This was a terrible blow to the moral obligation of our society. As if this wasn’t bad enough, a national daily reported the sacking of a village in Bayelsa State, allegedly by soldiers, in which about 600 houses were reported destroyed.

When we look at these ugly occurrences, taking place in just about one month, we have every reason to worry that our country in indeed not what it should be. To worsen matters, in the wake of the massacre of Northerners in Lagos, the OPC terrorists are warning them to go back home, while the governor is insinuating that the episode was sponsored by so-called enemies of democracy, and we all know what he means. One paper carried a report blaming the explosion in Lagos on detained Bamaiyi and El-Mustapha as several others are insinuating that it was the handiwork of those who lost out in the power struggle in 1999 as if indeed there was such a struggle.

Here in lies part of our problem; blaming others, other than ourselves, for misdeeds. Nothing happens to us except done by others and not by us.

Take the OPC massacre of Northerners in Idi Araba. This is about the fourth time this occurred against Northerners. Trice OPC clashed with Igbo elements at Alaba and the Apapa Warf. Twice they clashed with the Ijaw. In each of the clashes between the terrorists and Northerners the excuse has been that “enemies of democracy” sponsored it. Not so in respect of the other clashes and you begin to wonder why these “enemies of democracy” never sponsored the several clashes in OPC vs Ijaw and OPC vs Ndigbos. Why is it that only the one between OPC and Northerners have consistently been sponsored by these enemies. Nobody has an explanation.

The truth about these ethnic clashes is that for years, some of us have been preaching ethnic nationalism, and worse, ethnic supremacy, some to the level of Nazism. We have been demanding ethnic National Conference, ethnic constitution, ethnic Federating Units, ethnic Quota system and ethnic everything else, thus inducing in us a sense of feeling that Nigeria is one huge mass of an ethnic land, where nothing exists or matters except in the realm of ethnic consciousness. Moving from tribalism we jumped on the slip of racism, such that now we have Yoruba race, Igbo race, Ijaw race, Higgi race, Itsekiri race, Chamba race and all such false attributes of racism and Nazism. Today we are a country of racists and nazists, imposed on us by the preachers of ethnic supremacy, who now attribute these classes to alleged “enemies of democracy” who sponsor them. Given the realism of their preachments of racism, these alleged “enemies of democracy” and equally alleged sponsors of the clashes cannot but be the very persons who have been in the vanguard, preaching and adoring ethnic supremacy, but who turn around to blame others for what they have been preaching over the years. Courtesy of their mindless preachments, each of the 250 tribes believes that it is a race and the most superior of the rest, and brutality is used to assert this position. It is the same ethnic theory that gave rise to the so-called settler as indigene-ship as if there is a tribe that never migrated to a particular area.

Those preaching such useless values are the greatest enemies of Nigeria since their faulty and racist preachments have led to national insecurity, instability and the mass murder of a people on account of their natural being. They have turned our country into a racist kingdom with Nazism as the philosophy. This same people do not see anything wrong in asking other Nigerians to “go back home” when they see a lot in a few expressing the view that they have suffered more under democracy than military rule. It is natural for us to take very serious exception to the CNN report that Nigerians want military rule than civilian administration. But we have to worry that it is a foreigner who made this observation and carried on a “democratic international television station”. It is a serious indictment on our serving and practicing politicians and must be seen as such.

Their struggle for a second term has made the nation fear what may occur in 2003. Should anything happen to democracy in the process, those to blame are not the shadows we have been chasing but the very person who have been doing the chasing, people who are not prepared to go by the democratic rules. When a governor doesn’t see eye to eye with his deputy who is he to blame should things run riot. The Lagos Governor who is in the habit of talking about “enemies of democracy” does not tell us if they include those governors who have denied their deputies their constitutional functions. I don’t think those intolerant of the practice of democracy are in positions to preach to us who the “enemies of democracy” are, for none are these enemies than themselves. Nor could we appreciate the vaunting of the sponsors of ethnic militia, some of whom have been injected with the Nazi philosophy governed by racists inclinations.

Nothing could be worse for our democracy than asking citizens not to live in any part of the federation. If all Nigerians are to behave alike, then there would be no country called Nigeria. Painfully, this is what the racist supremacy logic has been preaching to the gullible. Where highly placed persons and intellectuals indulge in such violent prone project, what manner of democracy could they preach to us. Indeed, what type of democracy are we talking about when it is based on ethnic tendencies.

These are the people to watch as we nurture the democracy project. For they are the very ones bent on scuttling it by the nature of their philosophical grooming.

Meanwhile, the reported refusal of the president to release funds to the House of Representatives, if true, is another serious cause for worry. I do not know if the president has such power to hold on to the legitimate allocation of the various organs of the polity. The greater worry here, however, is that the action is bringing back the old memories of the “war” between the two organs, which again is not in the interest of democracy. These are things we have to avoid as we nurture this democracy. It is inappropriate to add to the loaded problems already facing the nation and its democratic order. No matter the disagreement between the Executive and the House, extra constitutional measures must not be employed to settle scores. Nigerians are right to assume that the refusal to release its share of funds to the House, which isn’t the case with the Senate, is anchored on the role of the latter in the Electoral Bill saga. But this cannot be a valid justification in taking an action that is clearly in violation of the constitution.

Our duty is not to indulge in such, but to ensure that nothing should be done to let democracy down. We must never allow democracy to fail because this would not be in our national interest. By deliberately violating the constitution we are working towards the speedy collapse of democracy. This system is not about having elected people at the helm of affairs alone, but more importantly by respect for its rules, obligations and norms. If for whatever reason, the House of Representatives is incapacitated from performing its constitutional duties, especially towards the denial of its due share of funds, what this simply means is that we are burying democracy alive. How much of democracy remains if one branch of the legislature is denied the right to function towards the show of unnecessary muscles.

It is important for well meaning Nigerians to draw the attention of Mr. President to the danger inherent in his reported refusal to release the January and February allocations to the House of Representatives. Let Mr. President be seen even for once, as a leader who is tolerant of the irritations of democracy.