Showing posts with label Bonnie Honig. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bonnie Honig. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Buhari: Who Is Sabotaging The Sheriff?

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 
Nigeria's 2016 budget impasse, which has not only left the political actors in mirthful mistrust of one another but has also reduced the electorate to mere spectators, watching in utter bewilderment, refers!

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!