By Abiodun Komolafe
Bonnie Honig, political theorist and
author of 'Emergency Politics: Paradox,
Law, Democracy' wrote: "Democracies
must resist emergency's pull to focus on life's necessities (food, security,
and bare essentials)" as they "tend
to privatize and isolate citizens rather than bring us together on behalf of hopeful
futures." Emphasizing the
connections between contemporary food politics and the infrastructure of
consumption, among others, Honig argued that though "good
citizens with aspirational ideals"
are needed to make good politics, infusion of citizens with idealism is
also a product of good politics.
*Buhari |
All things considered, our major priority beyond the
billions of naira approved for various
portions of the budget is how the contents of this working document will in the
end be utilized in a way as to mitigate
the sufferings of a vast majority of Nigerians who had, with the
commencement of this administration,
expected programme redirection and policy implementation that would vigorously
improve their standard of living. As things stand, Nigerians are no longer
interested in moonlight tales on
the impunity that took the better part
of our immediate past or the flourish of trumpets that heralded Muhammadu
Buhari into office as president. After all, Nigerians were not unconscious of what the future under the now-expired
Goodluck Jonathan administration possibly portended before they decided to
speak with their thumbs a year ago.
Archbishop Adewale Martins beautifully summed up the mood
of the moment when he noted: “There is
too much despondency, poverty and suffering in the land, and if care is not
taken to remedy the situation, the people will one day stand up and revolt
because their expectations from the government have not been met." Needless to repeat that Nigeria currently
suffers from dwindling resources in the face of unshrinking responsibilities, a huge corruption scandal and an opportunistically overstretched texture of Nigeria's politics. Gold diggers and fortune seekers are at work and a
resource-rich nation like Nigeria
is now an island of violence in a sea of
poverty and squalor. Civil servants are
frustratingly panting under the pangs of
unpaid salaries and power has become so
epileptic that, at a point in our recent
history, generation reportedly accessed
Ground Zero. No thanks to a national crisis orchestrated by Jonathan's inability to picture into the future!
In a country that has become gradually concerned with
power to the exclusion of human welfare, long queues at petrol stations are unwilling to abate even as Nigeria has
fallen to 67th position in FIFA’s
ranking in football, a game in which she used to dominate the space and dictate
the tune. In the midst of these, some
witches, wizards and professional
worriers whose surprising view of history is wrapped in a dubious fig leaf of
reality have been waxing so lyrically in
their call for naira devaluation without
rethinking more forcefully that ours is a consumer economy. That's how bad the
situation has become and only God can save us!
So, call it 'Quick
fix democracy' and you may not be far from it! From the look of things,
Nigerians want Buhari to act Moses on the rock at Horeb, not minding what
became the fate of the creature for
taking the credit, instead of ascribing glory to the Creator. Even without
understanding the circumstances that have dragged us to this pass, it is
their belief that former President Jonathan has been shown the way out and all
his imperfections are long gone with him. 'It could have been worse'! Yes! But,
in their festive estimation, a victorious All
Progressives Congress (APC) ought to
have known that it was not beyond the capacity of a defeated People's Democratic Party (PDP)
government to emplace thorns and
thistles on the path of the incoming
administration and that a government worth its mission would have taken preemptive measures to nullify the counsels of
the wicked.
Anyway, Buhari's globally acknowledged resolve to achieve
a moral and an ideological victory over the debris of the dreams of the
now-imploded PDP remains unshaken. For a fact, this straightforwardly great and
startlingly special sheriff has started
well and it is only a matter of time
before his combination of confidence,
political savvy and strategic analytic reasoning starts yielding fruits. But,
despite the president's efforts at putting Nigeria back on the world map,
there are still some nagging questions that have refused to go away and it is
quite interesting that efforts to search
for suitable answers have ended up in more questions. For instance, who is sabotaging the president in his efforts to
unleash his rod of change on Nigeria ’s
socio-economic sentiments with a view to bringing forth their increase and who will stop powers that stopped
Jonathan from stopping Buhari in his
quest to actualize a Greater Nigeria dream? Who's the Haman hindering Nigeria 's
Mordecai from accessing his King Ahasuerus and who is acting Balak in Buhari's
desire to serve as balms for woes to the hungry and the depressed? If the most crucial and the most important
time for a leader to show his true worth is in the face of adversity, who's the
Judas on Buhari's path to redirecting the country along the line of equality,
liberty and solidarity?
Expanding the argument, why has the town refused to
compensate its dwellers and why are those who wear the gown messing up their
present even as they make no preparation for the future? Why has our democracy been grumbling in
conflictual cleavages of dishonesty, incompetence and contrived promises and
why has Nigeria
become a stratified capitalist society comprising the "small flies"
whose "socio-economic conditions reveal little or no inter-generational
mobility relative to their parents" and the "great flies" who
"abuse their positions for private gains"?
Wait a minute, have we ever attempted to interrogate the
circumstances that threw up Ayo Fayose
and Nyesom Wike as candidates of their party and how they
eventually 'won the race' as governors
in their respective states? What of the
duo's vexatious roles in Alli Modu
Sheriff's emergence as the substantive chairman of Nigeria 's major opposition party
and the trio's common denominator as political heavyweights? As a matter of
fact, where lie the place, space and roles of a violent extremist Public Liability Company erroneously
referred to as Boko Haram in all of this?
On the whole, Nigeria remains a worthy
light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel project,
in spite of the crisis of value, compounded by crisis of structures,
that currently threatens her existence. All the same, as Nigerians are expecting the president to experiment the
miracle of the Marriage at Cana, another
critical area that has of late become Nigeria 's defining identity is the activity of Fulani herdsmen. And,
while it may be convenient for us to problematize our assumptions, I doubt if
there is any significant difference between Boko Haram terrorists who waste
precious lives in Damboa and Fulani herdsmen who kill poor farmers in Akure. It
is therefore my sincere wish that the president would without further delay
rise to the strategic imperative of unimpeachably
confronting this affront on our collective humanity before it gravitates
into a dangerous platform for
hypocritical application of ethnic idioms as a means of extending political
mileage and re-strategizing access to
power.
In the final analysis, it's time Nigerians came to terms
with the fact that terrorism is in and of itself a victim of more than one
script!
May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
grant us peace in Nigeria !
*KOMOLAFE
writes in from Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State ,
Nigeria
(ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk)
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