STILL ON ENUGU CHICKEN IMPEACHMENT AND KANGAROO DEMOCRACY By Law Mefor Predictably, the Enugu State Deputy Governor, Sunday Onyebuchi, has been impeached. What do you expect in view of the fact that the impeachment was orchestrated and made to order? Kangaroo impeachments derive essentially from aberrant political systems that are quite far from democracy; where there are no institutions but individuals who personify the state and usurp the powers of the people to determine how they are governed. In the kangaroos’ kingdom this kind of trial constantly goes on. A relatively small kangaroo has to deal with a smaller kangaroo to avoid being kangarooed by a bigger kangaroo. The impeachment of the Deputy Governor of Enugu State was clearly the same. Both the House members and the Panelists, like the small kangaroos, were trying to avoid being kangarooed. It will be recalled that Governor Sullivan Chime was widely reported to have said that the impeachment process, which he obviously initiated, had become necessary in order to determine between him and his erstwhile Deputy who was the boss. This suggests that the impeachment of Onyebuchi was nothing but an ego trip of a Governor who is caught in the web of absolute power and has been corrupted absolutely. What made Onyebuchi’s impeachment more pathetic was that he was accused of rearing chicken in the Enugu Government House even when the Governor was equally said to be rearing pigs in his part of the same Government House. If the chickens had to give way and the Deputy Governor had to fall with it, why didn’t the same Enugu House of Assembly and the Panel , which indicted Onyebuchi raise questions about the piggery of the Governor? Both the House and the purported Panel could not have done otherwise, since the primary aim was never the chickens but removing the Deputy Governor, to massage the ego of the Governor and send a chilling message that he had absolute control of Enugu State in readiness for the 2015 vaulting ambitions. Investigation has shown that the actual sin of Onyebuchi was nursing a senatorial ambition just like the Governor, as Nigerian Senate is fast becoming the retirement haven of Nigerian governors. Onyebuchi’s senatorial ambition is said to alter the equation, as some other person has been penciled down for the office by the Governor. And since votes do not usually count, whoever the Governor picks, goes to Abuja as Senator-elect unopposed. Two things made it impossible for Onyebuchi to have survived. First was the State Legislators, who are products of the same selection process, which does not allow inputs from the electorates, and second were the panelists, which the deputy Governor himself noted were not going to be impartial as, according to him and many observers, are nothing but cronies of the Governor. It was for that reason that he looked beyond the Panel for justice and was ready for the courts even before the Panel turned in the unsurprising indicting verdict. This approach to political organization of human societies were rife in the medieval times, such as when the President of France Louis XIV could say, “Je suis L’etat c’est moi” (loosely put, I am the State and the State is me). But that was then. To think that Nigerian Governors and President are saying the same thing to Nigerians in the twenty-first century is, to say the least, most unfortunate. The origin of impunity in governance in Nigeria can be traced to the anachronistic 1999 Constitution, which has foisted a unitary system on a clearly federal environment and removed the power from the people and vests it in individual officer occupiers. The framers of the inelegant 1999 Constitution contrived it in such a manner as to make it impossible for the people to rise from their poverty-stricken state and make a change. The President of Nigeria and the Governors saw the lacuna and cashed in on it and thus became gods. This, as a consequence, becomes the making of the absolute power wielded by the President and Governors of Nigeria. In the States particularly, absolutism is simply inescapable and a great allure to immature minds in power. First, the three arms of government are fused in the Governor. With the prevalence of piper syndrome in States emanating from the absence of legislative independence, the State Legislators are forced by the 1999 Constitution to go their Governors, cap in hand, to demand for their budgetary allocations since they are not on first line charge. Virtually the same fate befalls the State Judiciary. With the State Assemblies and State Judiciaries in their pocket, the Governors cannot but play God. Recently, pictures of a certain State Legislators kneeling before another South East State Governor went viral in the social media, clearly showing the complete absence of democracy in States and the danger it poses in Nigeria. Second, the same Constitution allows the joint State/Local Government Account, which the State Governors have since put to sometimes private use, dissolving the Local Governments Councils and putting their loyalists as Caretaker Committees. In many cases, Local Government elections have not held for upward of a decade. Despite the obvious constitutional violation, ALGON is too scared to confront the almighty State Governors in court. What is happening in Enugu State therefore is a spin-off of the same aberrant Constitution and the docility of citizens and inability of the civil society organizations to really identify the lacking factors that underpin true federalism and fighting for them. Surprisingly too, Nigeria Bar Association has done nothing too. Absence of a true opposition Party has also gravely undermined democracy in Nigeria. All the so-called opposition parties are doing at the moment is agitating to take over the mantle of leadership, not working for actual change. If indeed they are working for change, they ought to realize that true democratic change flows from proper laws, true federalism, sustainable democratic institutions, independent judiciary, and independent legislature, both at Federal, State and Local government levels, and democratic best practices that guarantee power to the people through free and fair elections. All these are clearly lacking and are not likely to be put in place any time soon. What is more, opposition Parties are doing little or nothing to bring them about. The world over, change does not come from the leadership itself, except where such leaders are direct products of the struggle, which produced the change. In Nigeria’s case, the current leaders are almost always byproducts of departing military class, which reluctantly left the stage and many of them dropping their uniforms in favour of agbada after bequeathing a unitary Constitution. What is happening today in Nigeria’s democracy simply calls for a holistic reform and renewed activism. Democracy is a long journey and not an end in itself. This presupposition calls for an untiring effort on the part lovers of democracy and civilized existence. If the trend is not urgently checked, it will continue to breed more rapacious politicians who can only bleed the nation further and cause further dislocation in the social system, where the rich becomes more stupendously rich while the poor becomes more miserably poor. The crisis in the system , particularly kidnapping, militancy, and the like, and even Boko Haram insurgency to a reasonable extent, are simply criminal social disobediences against a greedy political class that has failed to reform itself or live up to the fundamental objective of government, which is simply making life more abundant to the greater majority of the citizens. One more point that must not be missed: there is no way this current system can be sustained and will more likely crass when we least expect, as many more Nigerians are now vulnerable, angry and ready to go. And as change comes to nations through either evolution or revolution, Nigerian nation may be taking too much for granted. Like JF Kennedy once grimly noted, those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable. The nation is at crossroads and the path we choose will make the difference. Nigerian leaders should pause and ponder what would have been the fate if the Boko Haram insurgency and other regional agitations have been national resistance movements. What else is a revolution if not the citizen taking their destinies in their own hands and telling the authorities, ‘be damned’? A nation that has bred suicide bombers is not far at all from the precipice and has to act with a sense of urgency and be less laid-back as we are. • Law Mefor, Forensic Psychologist and Journalist, is Director, Center for Applied Psychological Research, Abuja; Tel.: +234-803-787-2893; email: lawmefor@gmail
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 06:42:15 +0000
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