16 Oct 2004 |
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| Eugene Azuka Uzum LLB Hons. BL.Uzum Consult, Leeds (United Kingdom)Nigdel55@yahoo.com Sailvky8@yahoo.co.uk “Dictatorship, anarchy and fundamental breach of the social contract triumph where men well weaned to make positive political changes fold their arms and watch.”A theory in our world of science has it that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction (Sir Isaac Newton). It therefore means that whatever a person or group of persons does, there must be a reaction positive or negative reflecting the initial act. The only uncertainty trailing this theory is time. The road to 2007 is becoming more cloudy by the day, uneasy calm rocks the political structures on ground, with kingmakers detailing political strategies and the usual onlookers “the downtrodden Nigerian masses” still folding their arms in the face of another shakeup or turn around in their destiny. In all, every Nigerian has a right constitutionally to contest for the most exalted position unless INEC decides otherwise. Among the presidential hopefuls, of great concern is the unguarded ambition of Nigerian ex-military head of state Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida who’s past atrocities has left a scar on the face of every Nigerian. Babangida left a tattoo symbolizing financial satisfaction on a small minority in Nigeria by enriching and empowering them to plunder our country’s treasury with wanton disregard for the poor majority. These few political follow about and sycophants were economically motivated by institutionalization of corruption of the highest order, gross abuse of due process at the detriment of the majority, paving way for consolidation of the worst economical, political and mental torture ever unleashed by a President on his own fellow countrymen. Today, those that were party to IBB’s government of monumental insignificance and his tactical withdrawal of stepping aside are into another unholy alliance to put Nigerians under the chain in 2007. Nigeria as a nation at 44 is a full-grown entity and cannot forget so easily, the inhuman treatment, abuse, degradation and betrayal meted on her by Babangida and his cohorts. An African proverb goes that if a man cooks for an entire village, the whole food will be consumed, but if an entire village cooks for a man, he cannot finish the food; Nigerians should stand up to cook for IBB and his friends in 2007, let’s see how they can consume everything. Nigeria is a very unhappy country, with people suffering and smiling but they cannot forget so soon the finger and brain behind majority of the coups that took place in our country. These coups, most especially the phantom coups has cost Nigerians their face in the international community. It lead to blood letting and elimination of political opponents like Alhaji Shehu Musa Yar’adua, Mamman Vatsa etcetera and most of all sowed a seed of great ethnic discord, which today is Nigeria’s biggest problem. Corruption was to a reasonable extent minimal before Babangida declared war against honesty in Nigeria. Corruption became a way of life; plundering, looting and ‘grab-grab’ mentality took center stage and today, our country at 44 is still on a wheelchair suffering from (spinal corruption injury). This wheelchair was handed down finally to Nigeria by the first gulf war swindle alone. Nigerians and mostly the south-south people of Edo State cannot easily come to terms with the brutal assassination of Mr. Dele Giwa, of News Watch magazine, on the 19th of October 1986. On that day, a wise head on a young shoulder was blown to death with a letter bomb with reasons best known to his last caller and the caller’s boss. The voice of the people is the voice of God, but to the evil genius, that can be shoved aside. Nigerians opposed the structural adjustment program, which was imposed on the system, structures were actually adjusted but all to the benefit of a minority crew who are the untouchables. What about the IMF loan? Today our fatherland is a debt servicing nation and at the mercy of Paris Club, World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Our birthright as free citizens of Nigeria was sold by one man. Strikes were organized, the Nigerian students protested, traditional rulers collected their ‘Ghana must go’ and your guess is as good as mine. Fear of the unknown is one of man’s greatest enemies but it appears dominant especially to those that have skeleton in their cupboard, politically related assassination took center stage even in the military. Seminars and workshops were organized and military airplanes crashed; the dead in empty coffins were buried without a coroner’s report or reports from a military related court of inquest. States were created in Nigeria, but what were the basis of the creation, was equity at play? We shall discuss that in part II of this article. Babangida instituted robust democratic machines by setting up the Center for Democratic Studies in Abuja. Political parties were formed and funded by selected stakeholders of his cabal; party houses were built in all the then local government council headquarters with Professor Humphrey Nwosu as the Umpire. A selected moneybag was elected in what was acclaimed Africa’s freest and fairest election and after spending abut a jaw-breaking 50 billion Naira, Babangida woke up from the left side of his bed and annulled the election. The usual illegitimate tradition of ‘money change hand’ and ‘Ghana must go’ craze happened and the rest is history. History has recorded that our friend in Minna did step aside, setting up an interim transition for his running mate General Sanni Abacha to make history as the man in the center stage of the darkest times in Nigeria’s political history. To the westerners, it was blood letting and ethnic cleansing, the outspoken western Nigeria was reduced to a leprosy-infested finger with a pen. They had the pen but couldn’t write, had mouth but couldn’t speak. The west was slapped several times and their tears seized. The already marginalized eastern Nigeria had no option but to resign to fate. All they had to show was gully erosion, dilapidated infrastructures, desperation, frustration and death resulting from mass exodus to the east for fear of an impending civil war as a result of the annulment. Something happened that changed the entire southern Nigeria. Desperate Nigerian youths were invited for a 2 million march in Abuja. That was the last straw that did break the camel’s back. The indoor youths of the Niger-Delta saw the beauty of Abuja. The question was where was this fund coming from? Oil of course!!! From that date, the Niger Delta youths started agitating for what belongs to them. That was the beginning of modern day youth restiveness in the Niger-Delta. For our northern brothers, it was a show of shame, betrayal and gross misrepresentation of the legacies of an ideal northern leader. The number of beggars in Kano or elsewhere in the north increased more than ever under these regimes, and there was nothing to show for it except billions of Pounds sterling and Dollars stashed in foreign accounts under the name of a northerner or his lackey. Agitation and counter agitation rocked the country, but the press was reduced to pictorial advert publishers and praise singers. The likes of Ken Saro Wiwa and others underrated Abacha’s ruthlessness and paid with their lives. The international community reacted with an outcry suspending Nigeria from the Commonwealth of Nations and Nigeria’s international policy and relation found succor in countries like Chad, Cuba etc. What a fall! Today, Nigerian professionals are scattered all over the world in places like London, America, Saudi Arabia, India and so on. These professionals include Medical doctors, Lawyers, Nurses, Technicians and Politicians. This is the result of the massive brain drain inflicted on Nigeria by the Minna connection. What about Nigerian Law School? The movement of the law school was a welcome development, but the hasty movement and stampeding of lecturers and students into uncompleted lecture halls and offices just to please the powers that be was most unfortunate and today, even with a polarized law school with satellite and political campuses scattered within the country, there is still a backlog of students. In submission, whatever has happened to Nigeria since IBB stepped aside is a scheme towards his ambition for 2007, therefore if Abacha is guilty, which is a notorious fact, Babangida is an accessory after the fact. Today, people are vowing to go on hunger strike or commit suicide, if Babangida does not come to power in 2007; I want to put on record that money politics and sycophancy has not lead Nigeria anywhere. The paramount question is what did IBB forget in Aso Rock? Whatever he has forgotten, he need not be a President to pick it up. Other Presidential aspirants are being termed as amateurs, capitalists or financially not compliant. Let it be known to these sycophants that political maturity is a variable concept dependant on intellectual horizon, and if capitalism is all about privatization, increasing private sector participation in production of goods and services thereby creating employment, alleviating poverty and sharp increase in the quality of goods and services, then, that’s what Nigeria needs. “If all politicians are evil, Nigerians crave for a government of the lesser evil in 2007, since there can be no perfection in man”. Eugene Uzum LLB Hons B.L Uzum Consult Leeds Nigdel55@yahoo.co.uk
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