POLITICAL MAYHEM

Here we are again. Our politics is locked in a repeat performance with repercussions mounting. Each time, the awful implications of our leaders’ indiscretions and foul play run us further down the slippery slope to perdition and allow for more and more of us to run the risk of being labeled incendiaries. But as an African proverb puts it, as long as one’s hair is still infested with lice, one’s fingers cannot be rid of bloodstains.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde, stated last year that forthright citizens are not in short supply in our country. The problem is that our system is designed to shut them out of the scheme of things. He lamented that those who had stolen from our treasury were “too powerful and too connected” to be brought to book.  Corruption has been formally adopted as a national way of life.  Our national “body language” has endorsed graft, and there isn’t a place where this is more embodied than the fold of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party.

What started with the curious Presidential Pardon granted an ex-governor Diepreye Alamieyesiegha, who was convicted for corruption and wanted elsewhere, has developed into a full-blown moral crisis fuelled by the desperation of 2015. Last December, the Supreme Court reversed the conviction of Bode George (a PDP heavyweight) and four others who had served jail terms for fraud. The man already has a national merit award, and now cannot be called an ex-convict, thereby allowing him to run again for political office! Another individual wanted over drug-related charges was imposed on the South-West PDP as their leader.  And now, as yet another sign of our “consensus” way of doing things, it has become clear that though we supposedly run a democratic system of government our leaders find “contest” odious, a factor that is breaking up the party as party members feel disenfranchised. This notwithstanding, the leadership have again gone ahead to appoint their “anointed” party chairman.

In May 2013, I wrote in Consensus Candidate “…where a small group behind closed doors can decide what is best for us without listening and hearing the cries and groans of the people.” I warned that we “should not lose track of the bigger picture, which is democracy, service to the people for the people by the people. The executive of the PDP will do well to remember that they are only executives by virtue of the fact that there is a PDP. They should not take out the “people” in the Peoples Democratic Party.” Evidently, these principles are lost to our leadership.

Adamu Mu’azu’s emergence as the new unelected PDP chairman is further evidence of this, apart from the fact that there is no confirmation yet that the EFCC, who is out of funds to do its job properly, has dropped its N19.8billion investigation of the new PDP chairman, which had him on the run for several years.  Their message is very clear as in November last year, he was appointed the Chairman of PENCOM before now being elevated to this new position.

 We have a state of emergency in Borno and Yobe. We need to look at the causes of this insurgency before we can adequately deal with it. What are we doing wrong that is causing fellow citizens to take up arms?

We watch in horror as we see what allegedly played out in Borno to bring about Boko Haram, beginning to be played out in Rivers State. The police in Rivers are allowing for acts of terror against the state and its indigenes -- people they have sworn to protect. Does this begin to explain why Boko Haram focused its attack on the police, stating that the police was an enemy of the state and those affiliated with the police were therefore their enemy?

There is a huge responsibility that a state has to carry, otherwise hoodlums will emulate the state and that can only result in anarchy, chaos and terrorism. We should be mindful that if we find ourselves in such a state, then it is all our doing. We need to stop wasting precious energy in endless litigations, cross carpeting and selective judgments and start looking to strengthen our weak institutions.  

Since 1999, we have witnessed large scale political decamping to the PDP. Now APC has turned the tide. Had the illegality of switching political allegiance without relinquishing the mandate been addressed when it favored the PDP, we would not be here now. Institutions exist to regulate and control this. For this to function properly there must be a separation of these powers and full autonomy, starting with the Law, the Judiciary, otherwise these politicians who share the same trademarks, whether it is the PDP, APC, LP or APGA, will destroy us all.