EDO STATE ELECTIONS AND THE GIFT OF DEATH FOR THE PEOPLE. - by SHABA Mafu.

 

Picture:courtesy of Vectoral graphics

No matter how hotly contested an election is, it will certainly come and go. The most ideal and important thing in all such situations is that the players at any levels outlive the electoral processes so as to enjoy the expected dividends of democracy. Many elections have been conducted in Nigeria. Some people who wanted to die for their country in the most dishonourable manner have gone with the elections while those who were wise and desired to live have stayed alive. Nigeria, as a country, and the component states will always outlive any elections. This should be the pivot on which all issues revolve, particularly to those who are courting violence in the forthcoming Edo elections.

Barely three weeks from now, Edo people will be filing out to choose who will lead them in the next four years as the Governor of the State. Precisely on the 19^th of September, Edo people will surely decide between the top contestants of the race. These are Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu of the All Peoples Congress (APC) and the incumbent Governor Godwin Obaseki of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). On the 31^st August, 2020, The PUNCH newspaper (online platform) authoritatively reported an arms build-up in Edo state as the gubernatorial election gathers momentum. The Newspaper under the caption, “POLLS: Parties clash as IG fingers politicians in arms build-up”, reported that “the IG stated that the Election Security Threat Assessment Report submitted by the Commissioners of Police from both states in a meeting held on August 25 also revealed the use of inciting statements during political campaigns and a high likelihood of violence and possible cross-attack by political opponents.

First, I would like to submit that whoever agrees to collect a gun from any politician for the purpose of perpetrating mischief is the greatest fool ever living on the soil of this great country, Nigeria. The question is how many of the politicians’ children carry guns for the elections for their fathers? How many commoners do you see being chauffeured away in Armoured Personnel Carriers or a standing helicopter in the face of violence, being ignited by same fleeing politicians? Come to think of it, who Is actually your political opponent? Your kinsman? Your next-door neighbor who have lived peacefully with you at least for the past four years, who belonged to another political party of his choice. This person was your neighbor until campaign started, and a ‘stranger’ came and talked ill about someone who ordinarily had not personally offended you. With his oratory power like Lucifer deceived you to the extent of such hatred that you agreed to collect a gun to terminate the life of your neighbor or at least a human being. Sadly, after the killings, these deceiving politicians never fulfilled their electoral promises. Once elected into that office, the same politician becomes invincible. Whilst they campaigned, the door of access was thrown open to them by the so-called commoners in every community or town they chose to enter. He is accompanied to campaign grounds with drums and dances with special songs composed in his name, but once elected and becomes an ‘Excellency’, you need to write series of letters begging him, praising him in order to fulfill his electoral promises he freely gave during campaigns. Kings and high personalities have to pay courtesy calls to pamper this political colossus striding the political heath of the state, an individual who someone was murdered for his sake. You become more a commoner to this exalted principality. When he is asked to give account of his stewardship, he turns around to brand you an enemy, and deploys all his executive might to finish you up. This was the same person someone was gunned down for. None of the candidates is worth the blood of ordinary goats, not to talk more of a whole human being created in the image of the Almighty God, a member of the human race. Which politician is worth even the stale blood of an animal? Who?

History has proved that most politicians do not love his people (his constituency). They only flash their teeth like a British harlot, during their campaigns. They satisfy your IMMEDIATE needs like food, drinks and go ahead to hatch personal agenda hidden in the basket of flavoured lies. Having shown you a fading and fake love, you will be recruited to their assassin squad. No human life can be quantified in monetary terms. The prospective hoodlums to be recruited must know this clearly. If the lives of these hoodlums have been made worthless by the same politicians they want to kill for, the lives of other people remain very sacrosanct and very useful to the owners.

The security operatives must be up and doing to nip any criminal intent on the buds. The Police have already taken a proactive step by virtue of the information flowing to their domain on the possible violence and “cross-attacks of political opponents”. They should ensure that they are not compromised by financial inducements. Any compromise could be very suicidal.

Regarding the use of violent speeches during campaigns, politicians should be mindful of what they say. Apart from the fact they are capable of inciting damning violence, they are character-assassinations and hate speeches which this present government has seriously frowned at. No matter the violence by the politicians, we still have a common irretrievable denominator, an indisputable oneness; we are still from the same State, Edo State. If not for the left-handed politics of Nigerians, brilliant and productive individuals from other political parties could be invited to form a government to give the best for a people. Unfortunately, the systems of rewards have always beclouded the political system.

In my conclusion, it is very possible to conduct the elections in Edo State with all civility and decorum without any threats to public peace, not to talk more of threats to the lives and properties of the people of Edo State. All the stakeholders, the politicians and their followers, the Police, the electoral umpire, the traditional rulers, the media, etc should join their hands together to ensure a peaceful election in Edo State. The National Orientation Agency should also wake up to her responsibilities during this volatile period.  Edo people must deliberately reject the gift of death by self-serving politicians. They are humans like you, and in no way better save just the privileges they are exposed to, which privileges you may be favoured with, sooner or later.

BETWEEN THE GULLIBILITY OF THE NIGERIAN ELECTORATES AND THE SUBTERFUGE OF THE NIGERIAN POLITICIANS - by SHABA Mafu.

 “The rain that beat Africa began four to five hundred years ago, from ‘the discovery’ of Africa by Europe, through the trans-Atlantic Slave trade to the Berlin Conference of 1885. That controversial gathering of the World’s leading European powers precipitated what we now call the Scramble for Africa, which created new boundaries that did violence to Africa’s ancient societies and resulted in tension-prone modern states. It took place without Africa’s consultation, to say the least. Great Britain was handed the area of West Africa that would later become Nigeria, like a piece of chocolate cake at a birthday party”.  (Achebe C: 2012, There Was A Country.).

The above assertion about the enduring pains caused by the European enslavement of Africa through their many programmes of underdevelopment has stood the test of time, as Africa, Nigeria in particular, has not recovered from the devastating effect of the European’s manifest atrocities. The violence and lack of proper thinking bequeathed on the Nigerian society have also stood out as one of the heritages of the properly orchestrated evil of the serial oppressors. This ‘legacy’ has birthed untold hardships on the citizens’ psyche in nearly all the endeavours of life till date. Prior to the needless incursion of the European explorers and exploiters, Africans lived in communalism, in peace and harmony fostered by nature and ageless tradition. But since the ‘discovery’, yes the “discovery” of what had even transcended the existence of Europe, by the Europeans themselves, most of the atrocious legacies bequeathed by the usurpers may have been eroded with time save that of gullibility by the impoverished governed and by the subterfuge of those who govern. This is now the replica and the elongated indigenous faction of the European system that trended in the era of serial iniquities of the European overlords, targeted against the “Black, uncivilized and uncultured Africans living in a dark continent”, in their own definition. Nigeria was carved out as a principal victim of this continental absurdity.

The typical Nigerian politician is as crafty as those who brought modern politics to bear on the African soil. Their subterfuge has advanced to the level that they now tutor those with the patent right of this deadly machination. A Nigerian politician cannot be termed as a true politician if he does not apply a sophisticated level of deception on those he is craftily looking for their support in the bid to gain power to steal from the public coffers. Those who, like the devil had craftily employed this whim have been applauded for years for their ‘political dexterity’ because they could successfully swindle the impoverished minds of the electorates. A typical Nigerian politician is as slippery as the eel. There was a popular man in Ibadan, South-West Nigeria, who was very good in this artistry. He was highly manipulative and talked with the two sides of his mouth almost simultaneously. Despite the demise of this man, his name and fame remain unequalled to this date when it comes to manipulative expertise in the political space. Despite the fact that he was semi-literate in Western education, his manipulations brought him enormous wealth. His name has become a proverb in the political parlance in the country. Whoever can successfully swindle others to get a particular political advantage (obviously to the detriment of the voting public) was usually called that name. More unfortunately so, crafty souls in Nigeria’s political world are also revered and called Maradona. It is a common knowledge that the legendary Argentine Diego Maradona, one of the world’s finest footballers, scored a football into a goal post during the 1986 FIFA World Cup competition in the most cunning way, that it took the deployment and application of highly sophisticated scientific gadget to unveil his “divine” craftiness. When he was eventually caught, he defended his action and ultimately branded his ill-gotten popularity by craftiness, as the “Hand of God”, that is, it was the Hand of God that scored the goal. This is comparatively the level of decadence the politicians have grown into in Nigeria. They mystify, glorify and deify their evil deeds.

On the other hand, the Nigerian electorates have been so pauperized that the only option left for them to survive is to be dragged by the nose by the politicians to do the latter’s bidding. The pauperism of the voting populace has become a deliberate policy of those who rule so as to whittle down any possible revolution or to prevent a dire quest for accountability of their stewardship. Close to election periods, candidates of political positions, particularly those who seek a second term in office deliberately (but tacitly) commit abominations to those they intended to imprison further if elected for the second term. One of the atrocities usually committed against the populace is that, besides placing an embargo on employment upon assuming their positions after winning the elections on their first term, they would wittingly stop paying the salaries of those who were ‘lucky’ to be in their employ. When another round of elections is drawing near, and particularly during their campaigns, they climb the podium and tell their employees who are part of the voting populace that they (the contestants) have directed the Ministry of Finance to release three months salary arrears which is part of the twelve months salaries owed the workers, to be paid with immediate effect.  The immediacy applied in the circumstance would appear if they had the best interest of the electorates at heart. But it is actually grand deceit from their twisted minds and consciences. Regrettably, the spontaneous claps that will rent the air and the ovation that would greet these deceivers by the electorates will beat the imagination of a normal discerning heart … but this has become the avoidable fate of an emasculated populace, dejected employees, and ravaged victims of political rapists. This has also further revealed how hollow and empty the citizenry have been left to be. The politician will continue by making empty promises of what he would do when he is again elected. He then goes on to emphasize his seriousness on this by raining thunderous abuses on his opponents to score cheap political points. After the noises, he directs those with the official parcels brought to the campaign ground to dole out some packaged grains of rice, and possibly some few Naira notes to his castrated victims in order to seal up their present and continuous doom.

The electorates go back home chanting and deifying the rogues who have stolen their future in advance. The insults hurled on the opponents would be turned to a melodious song composed by an Artiste, a member of the voting population and would be sung throughout the campaign period.. This is where we have found ourselves in Nigeria and in our politics.

Until the electorates consciously demand serious and periodic accountability from these politicians who hold public offices, who carry about the emblem of public trust, Nigeria will continue to be in disarray, and in the dismal bliss of underdevelopment. Until the electorates refused to be fooled by the studied subterfuges of these crafty elements, reject their policies of deliberate pauperism, and their Greek gifts to soil their consciences, public funds will be siphoned by this few who deceive the masses. Until sentiments and emotionalism are reduced on the side of the electorates and thorough comparisms of candidates done irrespective of political affiliations, they will continue to fall into the hands of these sworn swindlers.

The bulk of this kind of political revolution lies squarely in the shoulders of the electorates. They must use their voting rights and powers to determine their future and those of their children. The electorates must be wiser this time around and refuse the temptation of being bribed. They are to determine the political climate and the tempo, and block the possibility of sharing the commonwealth among only the politicians, like the British who shared Africa like “the chocolate cake on a birthday party”. The electorates must bear in mind that a bribed man is a weakened man. Bribery blunts a hitherto sharp conscience. Let us rise up and enjoy the commonwealth together. The wealth does not belong to only the politicians whose main methodology of doing things is through their subterfuges. Take responsibility!