On May 29th 1999, Nigerians celebrated the return of the country to civil rule in what was then termed a democratic system of governance. Recent events in the country and particularly our states indicate that we celebrated rather too soon. This is because it will be very difficult to describe what we have today as democratic practice. A key feature of a democratic system is its people focused concept. The government which is said to be by the people is all about the people. But if truth must be told, in this country the people have since been pushed aside in electioneering, and in governance. The critical error in returning to what we thought was a democratic system of governance was in starting with a man who by nature had no democratic credentials and was trained in the art of authoritarianism. As an ex soldier, Olusegun Obasanjo made no pretences about being a democrat. We tend to remember now with nostalgia the politics of the days of the Shehu Shagari team. Flawed as the system then was, the political structures existed and played their roles as best they could. It was a known fact that Shagari as the President then was committed to serve according to the manifesto of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). Those were the days when parties had manifestoes. Adisa Akinloye held sway as the chairman of the party with the full authority and dignity of that office. While Shagari governed, Akinloye took charge of the party which was in power. The senate then as led by Dr. Joseph Wayas operated without the interference of the President, so also did the House of Representatives which had Mr. Edwin Umezoke as its leader. It therefore became necessary for the President to have liaison officers who related with the National Assembly so as to facilitate the smooth running of the government. Interestingly Mr. Edwin Umezoke was of the minority Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP). The structure had an all inclusive outlook. All of that is now history. When Olusegun Obasanjo came, in typical military style and deploying military strategies, he hijacked the party that brought him to power, emasculated the National Assembly and turned it to an extension of the Presidency. Law makers had no other job than to obey and follow the dictates of the President. Governance became a one man show at the Federal level. This situation rendered the National Assembly ineffective and irrelevant. As this scenario played out at the center Governors at state levels reproduced this tendency in the states. This was to mark the end of democracy in the current dispensation. The president assumed the position of party leader and head of government at the Federal level while the Governors became party leaders and heads of Governments in their states. It therefore became impossible for the President and the Governors to listen to the party that brought them to power. And with an emasculated National and State Assemblies, autocracy was foisted in all the states and at the Federal Level. The situation has continued to degenerate to the extent that today at the state level some governors have not only personalized governance; they have actually made it a family affair. A case in point is Abia state where a triumvirate of Father, Mother and Son hold sway with a sprinkling of cousins, nephews and nieces here and there. The product of this absurd and unknown structure of governance is the high level of decay in the state. So much has been written about the dreadful and terrible state of affairs in the state, that it will not be necessary to restate them here. Suffice to state succinctly that governance has failed in Abia, institutions have been destroyed, cultures have been desecrated and the people silenced by sheer despotism. Even the military did not govern with the kind of ruthlessness and high handedness that is being displayed in the state. But with the party having been captured by the Governor and the Legislators turned to his errand boys, the people are left to watch in shock and disbelieve as the carnage and rape in the state is being conducted by a single family. The most dangerous aspect of this development is the attempt by this gang to continue to hold the state hostage even after what should have been the end of the worst form of ineptitude anywhere in Africa. With the state of affairs in Abia, it is obvious that the exiting government will not allow the conduct of any free and fair elections in the state. The political maneuvering in the state are worse than Machiavellian, there are indeed crude, warped and extremely insulting to the collective intelligence of Abians. The strategies; if they could be so called are primitive, criminal, demeaning and sometime out rightly stupid. The last time this sort of senselessness, and outrageous illegality was seen anyway in Africa was in the days of the late Idi Amin Dada and our own dark goggled late Sanni Abacha. Every form of political ingenuity and mischief thrown at Nigerians in the Abacha days have been pulled out of the bag, made more vicious and devious and deployed in Abia. As if not to miss out any aspect of the Abacha political model, the dark goggles have reappeared in Abia Government house. It has become the symbol of wickedness, lawlessness, gangsterism, misdemeanors and electoral theft. It represents the frustration of the peoples desire to change and an attempt to continue the heist in Abia that has been on for more than seven years. The model of the triumvirate is one that would throw up the father as a Senator, despite being unable to utilize the executive powers of the Governor; the wife or mother is rumored to be eyeing the Federal House of Representatives while the son will lead an Abia State House of Assembly that would have no ranking member; so designed because of the coming of the first son. The number of cousins, in- laws, nephews and nieces that will occupy other elective positions is not clear yet. Of course it is expected that having install all members of the state assembly, the stooges will be used to impeach the new Governor also installed by the gang. The son is expected to step in as Governor from his speakership position for an initial six months after which another monkey show will be put up in the banana state of Abia to convert him to a substantive Governor and the beat goes on. How clever by half, but the first part of the scheme seem to have been executed, with the frustration of what would have been the PDP Abia state delegates congress. The tragedy of all of this is the fact that a Principal Officer of the PDP, Mr. Olisa Metuh seems to have taken on the hatchet job of seeing to the successful delivery of this insanely ambitious scheme. Recall that it was this charlatan that visited Abia as a leader of a PDP team that was to assess the level of service delivery in the state. It is on record that this comical fellow while standing on a heap of dustbin in Umuahia compared Abia to Dubai. This insult was not lost on more discerning Abians as it was clearly targeted at mocking Abia and Abians for reasons known only to Olisa and his principals. It was the same ludicrous fellow that wangled his way to land in Umuahia as the leader of the PDP electoral committee mandated to conduct the partys delegate elections, an exercise that has gone down in history as the worst form of electoral robbery in the history of democratic elections anywhere in the world. It is hoped and believed that the National Working Committee NWC) of the PDP will not only revisit this exercise but also investigate Mr.Metuh in order to determine how and where he conjured a result from, where there is overwhelming evidence that there was absolutely no PDP delegates elections in Abia state. It is the likes of Olisa that bring odium to the party and ultimately cost the party electoral fortunes. Further, even as the first son has cleverly withdrawn from the contest by refusing to appear before the state screening panel on account of the questionable nature of his educational qualifications nor is he able to account for his unholy activities as an undergraduate, this inebriated Anambra man who has no electoral value in his home state is still insisting on foisting this misfit on the people of Abia, by questioning the authority and powers of the NWC of PDP constitutionally set up panel. The PDP leadership must realize that the prospects of losing Abia is increasing by the day, because of the shenanigans of people like Olisa Metuh, and the Abia triumvirates insistence on excluding others from the elections in Abia state. The opposition that the PDP will face at the elections will more or less be coming from PDP. It has become necessary to determine what drives Olisa Metuhs consuming interest in Abia state. What is it that he must deliver to those he so shamelessly project that he is so prepared to circumvent every party rule and convention. It has also become extremely necessary that Mr. Olisa is excluded from every electoral activity at whatever level in Abia in order not to cause the party further damage. It is on record that Mr. Metuhs Anambra state is under the control of a rival political party; APGA and he has not done anything to win that state over to PDP. The NWC of PDP is advised to deal with this Olisa menace promptly before he causes the party huge electoral losses in Abia with his unguarded, rampant and unconcealed bias favor for his masters. Electoral victory in Abia cannot be taken for granted as the people are extremely disappointed with the performance of the partys men who governed the state the past more than seven years. The party must ensure a level playing field for all contestants in PDP so that the best candidates will be elected to represent the party at the elections proper. The people of the state are waiting and watching the strange tendencies in the Abia PDP with a view to ditching the party once unpopular candidates are presented to the electorate. Let it be also known that the level of voter awareness is now higher than it was in past elections. The people of the state are desperate for a change of personnel at every sensitive position in the state. Imposition of unpopular candidates would cost the party the state at very critical elections including the presidency and the governorship elections. Olisa Metuh and his cohorts must be reined in before they sink other party men with their vaulting ambition. The time for those dark goggles to come off is now.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 11:54:15 +0000
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