The
former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mrs
Farida Waziri had sometimes ago urged that anyone vying for any political
positions in Nigeria must subject himself or herself to psychiatric test to
ascertain their mental balance before taking up public responsibilities. She predicated
this workable recommendation on the belief that what prevails in the political
clime in Nigeria has transcended the ills of mere corruption to mental
imbalance among many Nigerian politicians. She wondered about the excesses of politicians
in their blatant misbehavior in the diversion of the public wealth into their
private pockets/accounts by stealing beyond human comprehension. She lamented
how a typical Nigerian politician occupying a public position would loot the
commonwealth to build or buy mansions in choice places in each continent of the
world…houses, which eventually neither he nor his generation would ever use
till they die. Ironically, when he even travels to these same places where he
bought these mansions, he won’t sleep in there; he would rather lodge in hotels
with blazing costs from same public coffers where he stole from.
I
buy perfectly to the opinion of Mrs. Farida Waziri because sometimes I personally
become perturbed over the maniacal behavior of these politicians who steal from
their fatherland and waste the looted resources in building other continents,
only to come back again, using parts of the loot to campaign and solicit for
votes during elections, from impoverished, frustrated and famished electorates.
This is a vicious cycle deliberately and careful drawn to perpetuate
retrogression in their very fatherland, Nigeria. This is prodigality, byzantine
madness in its clearest terms. These megalomaniacs emerge from an electoral constituency
they had once promised to develop with their constituency project votes when
elected into their various political positions. Truly, I am yet to clearly see
or even understand what that constituency project votes stand to actualize, as
touted in their political chambers of complexity.
My Local Government is currently only the Local
Government maintaining its oldest name in Nigeria since creation (guess the
local government). All other Local Governments have been split into different
local governments with various names for developmental purposes, but the
Methuselah-status of mine has not only been maintained but also reputed to be one
of the most backward Local Governments as well. Undoubtedly, this Local
Government has received several federal allocations for the purpose of
development, at the least, through the elected political representatives it has
produced. Yet it is obviously one of the most backward and wretched LGAs in the
annals of Nigerian history. Where are inputs of the politicians this Local Government
has produced all these years? What have they done with the budget for constituency
from the federal allocations? These politicians gallivant without a prick in
their conscience, just exactly as a madman would wander about enjoying the public
gaze of his nakedness by the inquisitive crowd, without a blink of shame from
him.
The
constituencies where these politicians belong are as underdeveloped as they
have ever been since the enthronement of the hard-earned democracy in Nigeria. The attitude of these fraudsters in political
garb is an inherent ailment, a gene of corruption cutting through and across socio-biological
and chronological history. Politicking and corruption is now a cult and cultism
maintained and sustained from one democratic dispensation to the other. Can you
imagine that some roads in the Local governments and States are impassable in
the midst of these sticking-rich politicians? In some States of the country, erosions
have munched some chunks of land causing threats to human lives and properties.
In another instance, the issue of power-generation has become pathological. For
instance, the electricity poles that may have fallen down in the past two years
would simply be abandoned to the poor villagers to reconstruct and maintain at
their own expense. The elected representatives who ought to assist them, swagger
around in their palatial buildings located strategically in the villages whenever
they came visiting home. They are generally not concerned about the power-generation
issue because they have a standby generator for themselves and their families
to lighten up their homes to the entire exclusion of the impoverished villagers
who ‘voted’ them into power; so no solace anywhere for the villagers.
These
politicians visit their villages with a retinue of political thugs they brand
as personal security. They relate last with his constituency publicly at the
campaign podium where they were dancing with their rotund stomach, fattened
waistline and watery eyes conspicuously filled with the rheum of lies and
deception. Immediately, they are elected into public offices, they create a
gulf between themselves and their constituencies - a political design of
deliberate ostracism of the electorates. Even when they come to town, their
personal security escorts prevent the villagers from accessing because they are
not just regarded as nuisance but also claim to pose as security threats to
them. They do not ever consider holding town-hall meetings to address the
pressing needs of the constituencies where they are elected. This is absurdity
in the highest order!
The
public life of a typical Nigerian politician is quite disgusting. He is
unfaithful as he is deceptive. This is why whoever plays a ‘fast one’ is always
branded as a politician. He diverts the constituency votes he had debated at
the floor of the House with all nerves standing all over his head and neck,
pretending to give vent to his sincerity, to buy some estates in plum areas in
the capital cities after collection, and the balance credited into the account
of a whore who never knew how he came to power. He creates fictitious companies
so as to stash away billions of stolen money as evidenced in the recent arrests
and prosecutions of alleged looters by the country’s anti-graft Body, the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). If not for the madness of
these politicians, why can’t these fictitious companies be practically situated in their own communities, at the worst, to
generate employment and consequent development of such places? This is the mindset
and lifestyle of a typical or an average Nigerian politician, who needs to actually
visit a psychiatric home.
To
further emphasize the position of Mrs. Farida Waziri, the House of
Representatives, the lower Chamber of the nation’s parliament is presently considering
a bill for the granting of amnesty to looters of public treasury. Part of the
conditions for the amnesty is that the self-confessed looter presents willingly
himself to the Amnesty Office and confesses the amount stolen, without any verification
from the government, or questioning about the source and even the amount of his
loot. He declares 70% of the loot and presents same, which will be accepted by
the office and the money invested to boost the economy of the country, and then
he is left to go and enjoy the remaining undeclared loot. In the first
instance, how will the Amnesty office truly determine 70% of the loot of these ‘repentant’
thieves? Is it not then right to test the mental stability of the proponents of
this bill itself? Is the bill not contrary to political ethics and morality,
not to talk more of its inconsistency with the stand of the federal Government
on the war against corruption? Is Mrs. Waziri, therefore, not justified if she
suggested that these politicians need go for mental assessment?
The
Holy scriptures declare that “a good name is better than silver and gold”. The name
of the wicked, greedy politicians will rot ultimately. Some years ago in a
particular place, there was a man who indulged in this kind of social-political
insanity to the extent that the empty water tanks in his house were fully and
practically stocked with raw cash running into millions of Nigerian Naira. Nemesis,
however, caught on him in the process of time and all his ill-gotten wealth
vanished the same way he got it. Before the man died he became a pauper. The
villagers then hired him for palm-wine tapping contract. He became subservient
to the same villagers he hitherto had short-changed and abandoned in the days
of his glory. This is a true story. Ill-gotten wealth will be relished, but definitely
in ignoble living, confusion and in terminal diseases. This is why before some of
these wicked politicians die, they will be sandwiched in the androgyny of the
two eternities for a long time while silently groaning in this side of the
divide. All ‘mad’ politicians will suffer similar fate. There is a way nature
pays cheats, deceivers, mad men in the garb of politicians and in the name of
politics.
In
the foregoing circumstances, I subscribe to the opinion of Mrs. Waziri, that most,
if not all aspirants into political offices in Nigeria should be subjected to psychiatric
evaluation before being allowed to contest for public offices. The Independent
National Electoral Commission has to review its Act to include this salient
provision. If any suspect of mental imbalance is discovered, and perhaps the popular
Psychiatric Hospital located in Yaba, Lagos, cannot handle his case because of
the degree and duration of his mental insanity,
I propose a potent Psychiatric Peoples Home in Uselu, Benin-city in Edo State
where chronic madness are treated with accustomed ease.
Some
Nigerian political aspirants and the politicians need this cure!
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