NIGERIAN POLITICS: IT WAS NEVER LOVE FROM THE START
Published 28th July, 2018
The media has been saturated these past few days with the news of the multiple defections and cross-carpeting of members of the Senate. Majority appear shocked, excited, like it was never premeditated or that it is the first of its kind, but it seems most of us temporarily forgot or let the consciousness that THIS IS NIGERIA as aptly put by Folarin Falana AKA Falz slip. Well, again, this is Nigeria.
Any keen observer of politics in this clime would not dispute the fact that this indeed is not the first of its kind, and in actual fact, it is some kind of boomerang, karma , the ever existent principle of seedtime and harvest in operation, but it is also too late to sing it to the high heavens that the APC should have shut its borders to the “enemy”. Ordinarily, one would not need to lose sleep over what these attention seeking politicians do with their political lives, save that every move they make affects us the people, a powerful populace who impliedly or expressly put them in power. A people who somehow are asleep and unaware that once in every four years, our power as citizens reaches its peak like the fictional Werewolf is at its strongest by the rising of the full moon. But I would not talk so much about these recent defections or even the elections as I would rather talk about the rudder that stirs the Nigerian ship in the direction it is headed, or has always been going.
The Nigerian Constitution as in every clime, is the grundnorm. It is the dictionary of what is legal or what is illegal, what is permissible and what is not. But more than that, it is a secret map to achieving the Nigeria of our dreams, and if anything is wrong with that map, we certainly will be headed in the wrong direction.
We also do not need the services of a soothsayer or fortune teller to tell us what our problems are in this Country, as some citizens know these problems more than they would rather know the very lines of our national anthem. However, these problems are a product of careful consideration, construction and engineering. A house takes shape, not just as a result of the masons’ brick laying and cementing , but it dates far back to the ingenuity or otherwise of the architect. Hence, our problems are not just our politicians who are acting out the plot, but the conscious plot itself which is carefully hidden in our Constitution.
As it pertains to our Constitution, a lot of debate has been going on about restructuring, Nigerians clamouring for this are doing so on the basis of our construct I. E Federalism, and a need for all inclusiveness. As it has been much touted, our extant Constitution is rather a fabrication of the Military than it is the intention and consensus of our living and breathing populace: We the people of Nigeria. Having agreed to that, let us say there is a restructuring, and we the people freely consent to what this new Constitution shall be, would the problem of self serving governance be nipped in the bud and finally done away with? I do not imagine so. This is because of the non justiciability section of our Constitution that has made us susceptible to doom from the start. Here is the point, if our Constitution states that good roads, health, security and issues pertinent for a nation and its citizens to thrive are non justiciable and enforceable then you see, we have a problem. There is therefore no longer need to wonder why our politicians commission boreholes, schools, roads and other elementary, basic amenities as “their laudable” projects which we should be grateful for as though it were a gratuitous deed and not what they are precisely in governance for. Meanwhile, other nations are advancing in other fields but our political class still considers these basic things as ingenious ideas that should thrill us when they announce it at their rallies. No, it should not be a wonder because, in fact our Constitution in its construction makes it OPTIONAL for our leaders to do these things. It is not mandatory, it is not an express duty, it is a matter of their discretion. Thus, the scramble for political office and its growing metamorphosis into a game of chess which leaves out the interest of the Nigerian people should not be for one second perplexing, as it was intentionally and consciously engineered. Because if governance in Nigeria was about providing security and welfare to the citizens of our nation, then our grundnorm from which all our other laws, governance and political actions draw their validity would not contemplate such a debilitating provision such as Section 6 (6) (c) of the Nigerian Constitution which regards the socio-economic responsibility of government to its Citizens as contemplated in Chapter II of the Nigerian Constitution as unenforceable and non justiciable, I. E any breach or non performance of the government’s social-economic responsibility cannot be queried before a court of law.
As it is, our law makers who have the power to change our laws are on a self serving frolic of their own and we the people cannot rewrite our own laws without the necessary machinery put in place. It is however important for the people to realise that to change the status quo, we have to change the engineers and perpetrators of the status quo, or else the status quo will become immutable. Thus, it is no wonder that a few sound minds are arguing to change the game altogether on political parties who have failed us. Politics in Nigeria does not have to be a carousel, it does not have to be about choosing between peas of a repeated pod. Where is the audacity of the voter, of the citizen to use the opportunity he gets once in every four years? What is the rationale for consistently choosing between the devil and the blue sea, and why are we alarmed when the devil or the deep blue sea do by nature what they are prone to do? Does Nigeria practise a two party system of governance, and why must we rather pick from the recycled lot as though this sort of raffle draw were the only chance to liberation?
I implore Nigerians to brace themselves and refuse to sing the song of woe. This is Nigerian politics, not a marriage of till death do us part. It was never love from the start and it is what it is, the power of the electorate to carefully choose and to live by its choice , to put itself, the future of its nation first, rather than its fears or the selfish desires and goals of some constitutionally empowered political lot.
Temitope Y. Ola-Sunmonu
A Lawyer and a Writer
temitopehephzibah@gmail.com
Set in the 80’s, a young woman who has always kept her cool amidst flattering and plotting men finds herself falling for one she swore she’d have nothing to do with and so does a runaway professor who gets a wife “shipped”from Africa without his request. Could this be voodoo or possibly jazz by a conniving but rather ingenious aunt? Or is there really such a thing called love at first sight?
thelemonademovement.wordpress.com 