Nigeria state is dying under the yoke of self-serving partisan leadership interests. Nigeria does not have good citizens in leadership.We know that all is not well with the systems we operate. Those in charge of the systems know that things are not done well.
Yet those in charge of the systems have no courage to admit the facts of rottenness in our systems.Even when some have the courage of conviction to admit, they lack the willpower to address the issues.
Take the off-season elections in Imo, Kogi, Bayelsa, and Edo States. Democracy was battered and assaulted with audacity of state captured rigging in extraordinary breaches of electoral processes.
Soon after, these charades of elections, celebrations broke out. Those who orchestrated the robberies of the sovereignty of the people went to town in jubilations.
Let me ask, do we really call elections victories in Nigeria victories in the real sense of it. Let us reflect as a people and be honest with ourselves. In the midst of good talents amongst us and given intellectually inept leadership and recruitment processes, are we really happy to have people of low-level capacities foisted on us, and we call such victories of democracy. Democracy or despotocracy.
I get worried when people who should have put Nigeria in the lead are the ones celebrating these shams and rotteness of democratic subversions of sovereignty of the people. Some low-level individuals with educational qualifications rooted in rotten partisanship are still not seeing the dangers ahead.
They are just happy that the will of Nigerians are being subverted in the name of partisanship. But how long do we continue to celebrate failure of governance in the name of partisanship. Many questioned my stand and thought that I was crying because my candidates did not win in the elections.
I said to one of them that: “My brother, your questions are tainted with your partisan dispositions. I spoke about electoral victories in Nigeria. I am not from Edo State. I do not have a party membership in that state or in Nigeria. The questions I asked are questions that should be agitated by all of us, including you.Whether he has the required qualifications is begging the issues I raised. Are we better off in our electoral processes. Are we not pretending too much. Is Nigeria better off. What kind of elections we have had that have produced hardships and intolerable insecurities in Nigeria. Partisanships are political attributes. But as a patriot, I am more concerned about national growth and development than to wear the garments of partisanship in sabotage of the greatest good of all Nigerians.I have always said this that as lawyers, we must be seen to act as social engineers. We can not pretend that all is well in the face of overwhelmed electoral frauds in our electoral processes simply because we are benefiting from the rotten and sham elections. ”
Do we really have elections in Nigeria, or what we have are selections. Can we really call elections victories in Nigeria victories in the real sense of it. Let us reflect as a people and be honest with ourselves. Are we really better off with the kind of leaderships the systems have been foisting on us since we assumed democratic status in Nigeria.
In the midst of good talents amongst us and given intellectually inept leadership and recruitment processes, are we really happy to have people of low-level capacities foisted on us, and we call such victories in our electoral processes.
No nation can survive the incubating catastrophe in rotten systems we have accepted as norms in Nigeria. In countries where leaders exist, no leader worth his or her salts will praise a process that produced a winner in electoral context outside due process and the rule of law. But in Nigeria, those you expected to frown at evils are busy celebrating it with thanksgiving to God. God is not mocked, and I charge all who are named the names of God to depart from iniquities.
*Jibrin Isa okutepa SAN*
