That holy book, the Bible, is a book of all times. Past times, present times and times to come. A living book. A book of all ages. It represents all seasons and periods. It’s a great book.
Great pity! We have utterly made mess of that biblical assurance. We defiled and desecrated it. The reason what worked for others couldn’t work for us.
It was instructive and emphatic in Nahum 1 verse 9: “What do ye imagine against the Lord? He will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time.” But not with us in Nigeria.
We rose against that declaration. Instead of claiming it. We discarded it with disdain. Afflictions have come upon us many times over. We are partners in tribulations. We have become afflictions onto ourselves. We moved up, we inflict, we won’t bless.
Take a quality time off. Run through our afflicted past. Our glorious moment was unarguably pre-independence Nigeria. Check our chequered history. The best of times was before October 1, 1960. Specifically, 1952 to 1960.
We had it so good and sweet. No sweat. With purposeful leaders and leadership. Under the watchful eyes of committed followers and followership. Both the leaders and followers were on the same page. They had one template. Sincerity and honesty. They held on vehemently to their gun of trust.
That was our golden era. The period the tripodal Awo, Zik and Sardauna happened to us. All at the same time. We are yet to see their remote sembalance. That has remained a tall dream. A Herculean task of some sort.
They laid solid foundations as premiers in their regions. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, East; Sir Ahmadu Bello, North and Chief Obafemi Awolowo, West. They made us proud. They truly built this country. Governance was clearly defined. And deliberately separated from politics.
They had genuine passion. They governed and didn’t rule. They were never perfect like all mortals. But they profoundly made their marks. You could absolutely go to sleep with them in charge. With all your eyes securely shut down.
They were short in words, long in actions. They walked their talks. And didn’t talk their walk. They never talked down on us. We could look straight into their eyes and say our mind. They were our servant-leaders.
There were no ambiguities in their actions and in actions. Their body language was not mischievous. They were and still our models. We won’t forget them in a hurry.
Suddenly, things took downward turn. We threw all that away carelessly. And an uncommon recklessness crept into our space in arrogant display.
Our very First Republic began our journey to the unknown. We have not returned till date. We shunned all cautions and warnings. We opted to sink deeper by the second.
Our plight increased as our fortunes nosedived disastrously. That was almost immediately after independence. It was a calamity dropped on our cherished values. Then, distrust and suspicion set in.
We watched helplessly; as if we were totally hopeless. Those who should, opted not to halt the driff. Why? They were the maximum beneficiaries of the absurdity.
That was how abnormality turned our new normal. We threw our guarded norms to the whirlwind. Some even to the gutters. And others to the marines. The foundation was solidly laid for our today’s afflictions.
Glaringly, we are under serious spell. Today, walk through the regions Sardauna, Awo and Zik built yesterday. You will weep bitterly. You will cry your eyes and heart out.
Our varied crops of leaders and politicians did us in. They dismembered and balkanised the regions our forefathers laboured to build. They did it in varying times and seasons. Civilians and military juntas alike. No exceptions.
We have different tales to render. Very bitter ones: Woes, frustration, tribulations et al. All packaged and rolled into one. As if we never had a yesterday. We did have. Sadly, it was a better yesterday.
See where we have landed ourselves. The avarice in us led us here. We have always lived a feigned life. Ours is a sordid clime of falsehood and falsity. We’re the apt sampler of an eerie world of fantacies, delusions and illusions.
These are no strangers to us. We are quite at home with them. We built our norms and values around them. That’s why we thrive awkwardly the way we thrive. Have we not lost it completely? We ask into the thin air.
Hah! We celebrate emptiness and nothingness! And we did it riotously. The do-gooders, boot-lickers, sycophants, praise-singers. They came in their numbers. And stormed our peace. They unleased terror on us. We were stunned and taunted.
It was their day, time and season. They called it 100 days in office. Whatever sense that made to them. We knew they dared not miss it. That opportunity to celebrate sheer fallacies.
True. We would have been taken aback. If they failed to behave the dastard manner they behaved. Honest, we would have called them to serious questions. They merely acted true to type. They met all expectations and parameters.
Whoever coined “100 days in office” never had Nigeria in mind. Not even her queer inhabitants. He wouldn’t have imagined there would emerge a loose contraption tagged Nigeria.
That character was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He became United States of America’s 32nd president on March 4, 1933. On July 25, 1933, he birthed the first 100 days in office with a clear focus:
“We all wanted the opportunity of a little quiet thought to examine and assimilate in mental picture the crowding events of the 100 days which had been devoted to the starting of the wheels of the New Deal.”
No rhetoric. Roosevelt only gave a radio address. No entertainment. Neither was there beating of empty drums that make the loudest noise. He had genuine intentions.He was resolute. He pursued his convictions, without pretension.
That is the true meaning of 100 days in office. All others are counterfeit, fake. Not here in Nigeria. We marked ours babbling. Why? We did nothing. So, we celebrated deceit.
Nigeria was in fluid. It was ffloating when Roosevelt made his patriotic pronouncement. That was way back in 1933. We were near formlessness. The contraption was firmly in the ampit of the British colonial lords. They held us in the jungular. They explored, exploited and raped us to the maximum.
We all know. Our 100 days in office are scams. The exact opposite of Roosevelt’s. Ours are polls apart from his. Even the blind can see through without hinderance. Ours lack reality. It’s without purpose.
Perhaps, the reason Dr. Kayode Fayemi came out forcefully Tuesday, September 5, 2023. As if pissed-off by the 100 days in office sham. He offered unsolicited intervention. To checkmate the rising riotous governance.
He was in his strong element. He was audacious and intentional. His was an attempt to right the perceived wrongs. And our politics and polity are fraught of these. To our distraught and embarrassment.
Fayemi is immediate past two-time governor of Ekiti State. He once held sway as Minister of Solid Minerals. Former president Muhammadu Buhari gave him that opportunity.
That Tuesday, he was fortified. So, he damned the consequences; known and unknown. He didn’t care a hoot. He shot his poisonous arrow. It hit the target on point.
And the message was not lost. He grabbed a rare opportunity. He spoke on “How to Make Nigeria Work.” He was convinced it has not worked these past years
He should know. The national dialogue was to honour Prof. Udenta Udenta at 60. He was founding National Secretary, Alliance for Democracy (AD). To make Nigeria work again, Fayemi professed: “We need alternative politics rather than political alternatives.”
How? He responded: “You cannot have 37 per cent of the votes and take 100 per cent of the spoils. It is not going to help build consensus.”
Since we tried our fragile hands on the expensive presidential system, it has never worked for us. And we have been doing this since October 1,1979. We had a rude break on December 31,1983. When Buhari’s military junta truncated that experience.
We came back for it on May 29, 1999. It was a second chance to make the needed amends. To return to base. And hold on firmly to the tenets and basics that once held us together as a federation.
General Abdulsalami Abubakar, then Head of State, offered that space. We refused. We didn’t want to learn any useful lesson. We were afraid of our past. We held on to the presidential system we do not clearly understand. We pretend as if that’s the only life we have known.
The parliamentary system that worked wonders for Zik, Awo and Sarduna was jettisoned. The greed in us has been growing in leaps and bounds.
Fayemi now wants presidential system supplanted: “It is time we begin to take in the direction of proportional representation.”
He broke it down in his own way: “The party declared to have won 21 per cent of the votes also has 21 per cent of the government. That way, we would see ourselves as critical stakeholders. Adversarial politics breeds division.”
This is where he was actually going. At this point, Fayemi couldn’t resist former president Goodluck Jonathan. He was intimidated by his presence. He caved in. He wouldn’t hold on to guile and foxiness.
He had no viable choice than to crash: “Even what president Jonathan was doing which10 or so years after, all political parties agreed with. They even put it in their manifestoes. (Fuel) subsidy must be removed.”
He exposed their sordid deed against Jonathan. He vomited: “We in ACN (Action Congress of Nigeria) at that time in 2012, we know (sic) the truth sir.”
Then, why did you choose to “occupy” Nigeria? Why did you protest fuel susbsidy removal? Why did you do what you did? He managed to voice a safe-face response: “But it is all politics.”
And they swore with their lives then. That they were doing all that for our collective sake. Pathological liers! They feigned integrity. No thanks to our uncommom gullibility.
Let’s oblige him. Fayemi admits he has seen the light. He seeks a genuine change in our ways of doing things. He wants a halt to our riotous governance. It has not paid us. And it won’t.
He insists, this is how to make Nigeria work: “Let the manifestoes of PDP, APC and LP be put on the table. Let’s have a synthesis of what is in the overall interest.”
Then, what next? “Select those who will pilot the programme alongside the president from all the critical constituencies. If we get there, we would have succeeded.” That is if we ever get there.
A naïve response to Fayemi’s postulation is simple. Return to parliamentary system now. And you will experience positive turn-around in a jiffy. It is not new. It’s not strange. Awo, Zik and Sardanna did it before. We can still do it, even better.
The template is there for our taking. Dig into it and make it workable one more time. And we will better for it as a people. This will cut the present cost of governance by far more than half.
That is if we are with one accord. We’re aware, greedy politicians among us would want to spring surprises. They are wild and weird.
They may want to thwart that lofty effort. That fear is not misplaced!
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