By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
There is no doubt that members of Nigeria’s National Assembly have grown too big for their boots and it is time the Nigerian people are massively fed with the liberating enlightenment that they possess the powers to cut them to size. Yes, the lawmakers need to be served an urgent reminder that they are in that Legislative House because the people have so far chosen to tolerate their deficient representation and can wake up one morning, decide that they have had enough of their abject lack of patriotism, suffocating arrogance and insensitivity and ask them to pack their loads and return home.
Their recent decision to brazenly sabotage the yearning of Nigerians for a more transparent and credible electoral process by voting against electronic transmission of results only served to open the eyes of many Nigerians to the extent these lawmakers have convinced themselves that they have become untouchable emperors who can ride roughshod on the citizenry and abort their most cherished aspirations without the minutest fear of any consequence.
Free and fair elections
have been denied Nigerians for years. From the polling points to the collation
centres, lots of distortions take place. Nigerians have been yearning for their
electoral process be fully computerised, climaxing in the electronic
transmission of the results of the votes counted in front of party
representatives and independent observers, and then transmitted to the server
of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Nigerians can’t wait
to see the end of multiple and underage voting and diverse electoral
malpractices. In fact, the expectation is that any Nigerian with access to the
internet anywhere in the world can long onto the INEC website and monitor the
progress of the elections.
At the very few places
where internet reception might be weak, the electoral officers can still post
the results and move together to a place where the internet is stronger and
their post will just fly onto the INEC server!
But by their very
insensitive and odious rejection of this transparent and reliable process, the lawmakers
have now shed every pretense that they are at the Legislative Chambers to
advance the cause of the Nigerian people. In fact, they have decided to rudely
flaunt it on everyone’s face that they are there to simply pursue their selfish
interests and there’s just nothing anybody can do about it. And so, with the
fear of any threat to their high-paying offices totally erased, they have
recklessly deployed their legislative powers to further corrupt the country’s
electoral system in order to callously ensure that no matter the choice of the
electorate at the polling centres, the incestuous camp of “winners” will always
bristle with crude and criminal characters whose only hope of emerging
victorious in every election is their willingness and ability to indulge in
electoral fraud and violence.
What this calls the
attention of well-meaning Nigerians to now is that the people have allowed
political office holders to unduly exaggerate and rudely misuse their powers.
There is therefore an urgent need to mount at every corner of this country
where patriotic citizens are found an overwhelming enlightenment about how the
masses can easily kick them out of office instead of continuing to endure the
long and painful wait for the next elections, whose free and fair conduct
cannot even be guaranteed, given their egregious preference for a crude,
outdated and easily manipulatable process.
The media and Civil
Society Organisations (NSO) should, therefore,
urgently collaborate to cause every Nigerian to know very clearly that by
just volunteering his or her signature, the seemingly powerful senator or
representative could just lose his or her job. When this awareness is made to
sink deep both in the masses and the political office holders themselves, they
would begin to pause and weigh their options before casting their votes for any
obnoxious piece of legislation presented on the floor of the House. And as long as this succeeds in humbling
political office holders and causing them to realize that they are not some
medieval overlords commissioned to oppress Nigerians and perpetually mortgage
their lofty aspirations for their country, any fear about any abuse of this
constitutional provision to recall lawmakers is premature or even needless.
Now, think about this: almost
every Nigerian out there today is waiting with bated breath for 2023 and hoping
that the current regime which has supervised over so much depreciation, lack,
pain, sorrow, suffering and division would quietly exit because in Nigeria, it
is almost abominable for anyone to even imagine the impeachment of a president.
It is like the heavens will fall at the mere thought of it. This mindset must
change if the country must make progress. The people can demand this from their
lawmakers, and if they refuse, the process of their recall will be kick-started.
The same thing should be replicated in the states. Lawmakers should seek only
welfare of the citizenry and there should be consequences if they fail to do so.
This will also now make
them readily accessible to their constituents as is the case in more stable
democracies. People should be able to go to their representatives and present them
with a catalogue of demands they expect them to table at the House on their
behalf. And they would readily do this because they know that they are there by
the permission of the people. No lawmaker, therefore, will go to the Legislative
Chamber to advertise abject lack of patriotism and irresponsibility, knowing
full well that that is enough to earn him or her instant recall.
It is sad and scandalous
that the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) which has administered nothing
but sorrows and hardships on Nigerians is scared stiff of a transparent
electoral process that might automatically demobilize its rigging machines.
That is why it used its majority at the National Assembly to kill the
possibility of transmitting results electronically. In the recently passed Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2021, the
APC lawmakers succeeded in disempowering the INEC and conferred on the National
Assembly (where the APC has overwhelming majority) the power to collude with
the National Communication Commission, NCC, (an agency of the APC-controlled Federal
Government) to determine whether election results should be transmitted electronically.
Yet all these people regularly and easily transfer money to their relatives in
very remote villages and equally speak to them on the phone. It is only when it concerns elections that
they suddenly realise that there is no network in very many communities in
Nigeria? How far are these fellows willing to go to leave Nigeria stuck in the
distant, primitive past just because of their phobia for a transparent electoral process?
Well,
there is no use sitting at one place and whining over a matter that can easily
be solved. The people have so far allowed their constitutionally guaranteed
power to recall unpatriotic lawmakers to remain latent. They should now rise
and underline their resolve to use it for the good and progress of the country.
Lawmakers should be made to know in very plain language that the people have
had enough of their waywardness and retrogressive actions and will no longer
tolerate any of them that advocates the perpetuation of crude and outdated
systems which lack the capacity to keep the fraudulent activities of political
crooks in check.
*Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye, a Nigerian writer and journalist, is the author of “Nigeria: Why Looting May Not Stop” (scruples2006@yahoo.com)
***First published in Vanguard, The Nation, Daily Sun, Daily Independent and PUNCH
The situation and sight of Nigeria is a sorry and gorry one. Only God can salvage the country and restore her lost glory.
ReplyDeleteMay God sanitize this country.
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