| What Manner Of Democracy Is This? |
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| Monday, 20 March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Every dictator is an enemy of freedom, an opponent of law Demosthenes (Orator 384-322) When I see the headlines I cry for my country You see, at the close of his first dubious term in office back in 1999, OBJokes most famous dividend of democracy was our new found freedom. Today, I can aptly describe this dividend a dud check! Opposition is routinely harassed in my dear country - actions that remind us of the dark days of military despots. The SSS idiots are at it again- harassing anyone from Kaita, to Awoniyi or even Ogbeh; anyone that has the nerve to speak up against their master. The use of security forces started with the rigging of the elections using the police then under jail bird Tafa Balogun (MFR a title Baba gave him for rigging). The rigging was implemented in Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Anambra, Rivers and Bayelsa states to mention a few and today, we are paying for it in limbs and lives lost daily to the drunken ambition of this old man. Undeniably, the gradual use of security forces to go after leading lights of the opposition is finally a Rubicon that Obasanjo has shown he does not have problem crossing. But his dictatorial traits have been showing albeit subtly in the past. Starting with wanton disobedience of court orders- continuing with the I wish to use this opportunity to finally congratulate the Nigerian Bar Association for living up to their history. After a very long period of barking they finally bared their teeth by boycotting the courts last week- but that is not enough. The next stage should be an all round collaboration between the professional bodies, labor, civil society and opposition to dislodge the criminals in Aso Rock. What is happening in The knuckle heads gallivanting in The problem in the Niger Delta is solely a creation of the lack of imagination of the current administration. Seven years later, our nation is at a brink of civil war. Cost of living has increased beyond the means of the common man and the value of the naira has depreciated by over 75%. Yes, I will get redundant statistics from Aso Rock apologetics, but I know the poor old grand ma in the village cannot differentiate between national debt and GDP but sure knows she will go hungry when she cannot afford a thousand naira bottle of kerosene! Ask this administration what it is doing about our nations inability to supply energy to feed her industrial growth and Obasanjo will tell you we should deregulate to encourage more imports! Is that what we are? A nation of importers? But you need to know why - the importers i.e. Dangote, Zenon and Coscharis oil group magnates were the biggest contributors to his campaign. Obasanjo have sold our nation to his men, and he calls it reform; reform my feet. The other day, Danjuma made 2 billion dollar deal to sell a stake in an oil field to the Chinese what he got for peanuts while he was defense minister- and OBJ doesnt call that corruption. If after seven years he has no solution to our epileptic energy and power sector as well as the problem of ethnic and religious crisis, then he is a damn failure; Period. Corruption is alive and well in In my humble opinion, the quicker we dislodge these impostors the better for us. Obasanjo and his men of yesterday are bereft of ideas on how to run a nation. At seventy, he deserves a good rest and has no intellectual sagacity to run a nation with such gargantuan problems like Last Line: Almost certainly we are moving into an age of totalitarian dictatorships. An age in which freedom of thought will be at first a deadly sin and later on a meaningless abstraction. The autonomous individual is going to be stamped out of existence. George Orwell It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own. Herbert Hoover No dictator, no invader, can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand J. Michael Straczynski
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Posted by Robot| 21.03.2006 07:49