18 Aug 2009 |
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The questions, they didn’t ask Hillary Clinton A story was told long ago, about an African empire where the king insists all the citizens must worship the same deity. He promulgated laws to deal with those who disobeyed him. He was cold blooded and mauled his people at every slighted deviance of his wishes. To him the deity is what his people need, because the deity worked for him. But most of the people felt differently. They have their own peculiar needs and felt the king’s deity does not understand their needs. Theirs is a different world from the king; they believe the king’s deity only understands the plight of the nobles. America’s democracy was home grown; though it had spread to the rest of the world but it still only well understood in America. The rest of world, particularly Africa has continued to misapply this great act of governance to the benefit of only it ruling class. Democracy is great, the world has seen how it worked for the American people and other developed nations; but Africans are not getting it right. Our servitudes to the rich and powerful in our midst, even when their wealth is ill gotten cannot make us think aright. Is unfortunate that democracy with the way it pattern cannot work well in any Africa country. Our elections are shams; our leaders are like feudal lords who enjoy seeing the people suffer; and our people are ever gullible and easy to manipulate using ethnicity and religion. Like schools kids, our elites sat down to be lectured by the American Secretary of State, Mrs. Hillary Clinton. It was a hilarious circus of ignominy which we erroneously called a Town hall meeting. She told us how we have failed ourselves, and our elites cheer her on. She was point blank and straight with us, and gave those gathered the opportunity to ask questions. In a gathering of some of Nigeria’s best known human right activists, the questions asked to say the least was insulting and disappointing to our psyche as intelligent people. Why on earth should we be asking her to help deal with the way and manner we conduct elections? Another asked her to help prevent the embarrassment Nigerians suffer from security agents when they visit America and other developed countries. Mr. Femi Falana asked her to help curtail the actions of international monetary agents in their inhuman monetary policies in Africa. These questions only belittle us as a people. All the questions asked only showed our human right activists are far away from the people, or are fast turning to our heartless elites themselves. Our underdevelopment is traceable to bad and corrupt leadership and nothing else. Over the years, we have been plagued by mediocre leaders who have nothing but self aggrandizement at the back of their minds when they forced themselves on us. We don’t need any special intelligence to know that America and the other advanced nations in the world know how to assist us in making our democracy work if they truly care, as they want us to believe. The questions we should have asked Hillary Clinton when she came to our land were very simple. Why did America government recognize our imposed leaders after they admitted their elections were flaws? Why did they accept our envoys in their country when the government that send them there have legitimacy problem? Why do they happily welcome and grant quick visa to family members of corrupt Nigerian leaders to their country and make it difficult for an ordinary Nigerian to seek visa to their country even when the reasons are legitimate? Why can’t they confiscate the properties of our leaders in their country when they know they were bought with the money stolen from our nation’s coffers? Why can’t they stop our leaders and their family members from enjoying medical treatments in their country, since they know that’s the reason why they are careless about decaying situations of our medical facilities? Why are children of our leaders allowed to school in America and other advanced countries? America should know that their fees are paid from looted funds. And beside that’s why their parents neglected our own educational institutions, since their children are not affected. If America truly wants to help Nigeria, honest answers to these questions by them and other advanced countries will go a long way in saving our democracy and our country from drifting to anarchy. I am waiting for their answers, are you? Olurotimi Adeola
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