By BOBSON GBINIJE
“If we fail now, then we will have forgotten in abundance
What we have learned in hardship: that democracy
Rests on faith, that freedom asks more than it
Gives, and the judgment of God is harshest
On those who are most favoured”
– LYNDON B. JOHNSON (1908-1973) inaugural speech, Jan. 1965
Nigeria’s body-politick is currently befuddled by a cacophonous preponderance of Boko Haram’s insurgency, Niger Delta militancy, politician’s skullduggery, psychotically corrupt leadership, hate speeches, military interlopers, economic bastardisation, INEC’s tergiversation, grandiloquent poverty and Buhari & Jonathans ventriloquism. Can any Nation remain as one united sovereign and indivisible body with these kinds of protean contretemps? NO!
Nigeria as a nation right from pre-independence through independence in 1960 to post-independence era has always been a nation that is at war with itself. The political engineering processes in our march to nationhood with a catalogue of military coups and politician’s slipshoddiness that has taken us to the epicenter of the political precipice has not taught our leaders a lesson.
The way and manner in which our politicians are currently conducting themselves in the light of the 2015 general elections, using the vortexes and counter-vortexes of violence, thuggery, bombings during political rallies, vitriolic vituperations, blackmail, media warfare, NTA’s propaganda hype, Dame Patience Jonathan’s political rascality, Governor Rotimi Amache’s belligerent rhetoric, Governor Fayose’s dunderheaded extremism, PDP’s and APC’s intolerance, manipulation of the Military Institution, Machiavellian electoral acrobatics by Christian and Muslim leaders, tribal bigotry and former Governor Tinubu’s wanton chauvinism etc., will definitely precipitate political apocalypse and socio-economic topsy-turvydom.
Nigeria is already at the precipitous edge of a civil war, secession and disintegration like Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Sudan etc. What strategies must we fine-tune and orchestrate to salvage Nigeria from self-destruct? We must ensure that the polls/elections are no more postponed/shifted from March 28th and April 11th to any other dangerously manipulated phantom date. The elections must be seen by all (Local and International Communities and Observers) to be all-embracingly free, fair and credible. INEC and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) should not be manipulated to shift the election date again and to extend the leadership tenure of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (INTERIM GOVERNMENT).
The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) in sections 135 subsection (2), 64 (2), 180 (2) and 105 (2) empowers with Orwellian duplicity INEC’s Chairman to postpone vide the Electoral Act and the President to form an Interim Government when elections cannot be conducted in some parts of the country (as it is, the North-Eastern part of Nigeria). The Electoral Act and this part of the Constitution must not be manipulated to extend the tenure of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. The CAVEAT is that the interpretation and citation of parts of the constitution must be given a political and ‘national interest interpretation’ to forestall political, socio-economic anarchical entropy.
The sanctity of democracy is eulogized by the sage and political analyst Thomas Mann (1875-1955) when he posited in his book ‘The Coming Victory of Democracy’ that “We must define democracy as that form of government and of society which is inspired above every other, with the feeling and consciousness of the dignity of man” and this is corroborated by the statesman Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) in his address to Congress, in 1917 he said, “The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundation of political liberty.”
Nigerians must realize that democracy is not an event, but a governing formula based on the principles of GRADUALISM. The metamorphosis of democracy and political engineering is an on-going work in Nigeria and it must be allowed to grow from the egg through the chrysalis to adulthood. The embryonic stages must have accoutrements and concomitants of teething problems. It is our ability to effectively manage the schisms inherent in the growth process that will strategically reposition and salvage our nation from the impasse of political, socio-economic erebus.
We have fought a civil war in Nigeria (1967-1970), it will betray a chromosomal aberration and our intravenous incapability for tolerance, nation building and peace if we allow the 2015 elections to cascade Nigeria down the gaderene labyrinths. History unravels the truism that Czechoslovakia, A former republic of east central Europe (1918-1993): in 1918, the Austro-Hungarian Empire separated into Austria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia: Czechoslovakia divided in January 1, 1993, into two separate republics, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. Will Nigeria follow suit?
Finally, we call on all Nigerian politicians, stakeholders (especially Buhari and Ebele Jonathan) to seek peace and follow it with unruffled composure. Nigeria is a mighty and autochonous nation, greater and mightier than Buhari, Jonathan and their ‘Man-Fridays’. We admonish them and their followers to allow elections hold peacefully and let the winner of the 2015 elections be magnanimous in victory and let the loser not be defiant in defeat. Let the victory lap not be murderously ludibrastic. Let the loser concede victory and congratulate the winner immediately. Let politicians beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks. We must remember the sordid dismemberment of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Sudan and Czechoslovakia etc. Is Nigeria on the road to Czechoslovakia?
CHIEF BOBSON GBINIJE
MANDATE AGAINST POVERTY (MAP)
WARRI. 08023250378
