Are the political lords afraid of their shadows? The much awaited season for campaign is fast approaching and already claimants of good governance in power are cold. Although the time is yet to be ripe, those already afraid of their scorecards in public office, or not comfortable with happenings in their parties, have started defecting to other parties, holding nocturnal meetings to strategize against the d-day when it finally comes while those in the rigging business, are also gathering financial strength to fund electoral malpractice, judicial manipulation and doctored results.
For the umpteenth time, Nigeria is passing through another trying period in its political journey to stability in dark and somber mood. There is a foul distemper in the air. Everyone is cross with everybody and all are working at cross purposes. Except for solitary triumphs in the areas of sports, music, arts and fashion, there is no feel good factor which invigorates and reassures many other nations that found themselves in equally distressing circumstances.
One cannot heap blame on anyone for crying after a thorough whip. Nigerians, have already taken a ten-year bad beating under the agents of Change and now Renewed Hope Agenda propagandists, as the Americans will put it. Only their legendary toughness, an inbred resilience combined with an elastic capacity for suffering, has kept many Nigerians surviving the effects of clueless governance. Never in the history of the country have so many man-made adversities come together at once. Insecurity, poverty, hunger and malfunctioning governance created by a federal government piloted by those with questionable credentials and renowned active players in deceit and falsehood. Sadists garbed in political attires with neither conscience nor empathy to the sufferings of the majority.
Youths have been turned to clowns, morons and tricksters. They are forced by circumstances to succumb to clownish and deceitful system.
Just consider these. University students and students of other tertiary institutions are periodically denied access to education by either, striking lecturers, non-academic staff or marauding bandits. The economy is prostrate. There is an administrative bankruptcy the like of which has never been witnessed in the socio-political history of the country. Given the unprecedented bloodletting and other existential nightmares, the country seems to be on an auto-pilot to the zone of extinction unless we act fast to arrest the appalling situation. This is where the issue of political marginalization in appointments comes to play.
For instance, the position of Senate President and that of the Speaker House of Representatives for the 10th National Assembly were loaded on the lawmakers for a hidden executive agenda now on play with massive disapproval. The selected occupants have now turned the national assembly, to an assembly of zombies, morons and clowns. Those courageous members that throw periodic challenges to lapses for correction are either silenced with fiat or suspended. Senators Abdul Ahmed Ningi, Muhammed Ali Ndume and Natasha Okpoti Uduaghan, are examples.
One is not talking of ministerial positions or other appointments but those of the national assembly which is the arm of government responsible for checkmating the executive but disorganized from the onset before its inauguration on June 11, 2023.
So far for the Senate Presidency in 2023, over five credible contestants were on the bit that showcased their credentials, lobbied and reached out to their colleagues for endorsement while the House of Representative had over 11 qualified contestants for the Speakership position that combed every corner in search of endorsement to carry the day.
But if truth must be told, for the Speakership position, the most qualified of the lot was the former deputy speaker of the 9th House, Ahmed Idris Wase with the required experience, connection, determination and shock absorbers to stabilize the House for optimum productivity devoid of rancor.
He overtime displayed his political prowess, wizardry in stabilizing the House and support to the executive arm tailored to good governance far above any other equally qualified contestant.
Although, one was not at liberty to decide for the House what to do or who to vote to the exalted position for its own good, but we all know that Nigeria has never been badly and bitterly polarized along imaginary fault lines artificially created as of today. From the possibility of elite consensus, we have now arrived at the probability of elite disruption of the electoral process for pecuniary interest.
On all sides, there are parasites of religious passion and vermin of political implosion fanning the embers and rallying their supporters to the rampart.
If it can be recalled on several occasions, I had warned about the dangers of electoralism which does not make a dent on major aspects of the National Question. Once our politicos allow themselves to be boxed into the corner, structural contingencies and hegemonic conspiracies will take over returning us to familiar circumstances in which elections are held but nothing is positively received.
Now the chickens have come home to roost. Perhaps for the first time in the post-independence history of Nigeria, we went into an election without a substantial elite consensus. Now again, an elite consensus was missing in the election or selection of a Senate President and Speaker House of Representatives and Nigerians are paying the price.
The old power blocs are in disarray due to insincerity, greed and cluelessness. As the gyre widens, the falcon can no longer hear the ancient falconers.
It was symptomatic of this confusion that sponsored lionized image laundering interest groups of less qualified candidates for 2023 Speakership position of the House of Representatives, rooted for a candidate of rogue political provenance and even more suspect ideological pedigree without feeling the pulse of other elite segments of their people or caring a hoot about ancestral memory and sub-regional sensitivities in perpetual animosities.
Meanwhile and as if to emphasize the strategic futility of their particular gambit, opposition’s most preferred candidate within the ruling party (APC) stonewalled about the political and economic value of the most credible candidate preferred by the majority, Ahmed Idris Wase.
Unfortunately, that made the sponsored groups, grandee very vulnerable to the charge of the instrumentalization of politics for pecuniary gain and the purpose of envy, hate, class struggle, vengeance and vendetta if any.
As for the old Northern feudal hegemonic bloc, they kept silent and discombobulated by unfolding developments even against their ancestral heritage. They had it up to the hilt with Tinubu’s ethnic revanchism which came at the stiff price of the imminent disintegration of the country.
But they were afraid of what was to come from the Sheriff on the throne. They watched with rapt attention and refused to be dragged into the struggle which was for the best interest of Nigeria.
One cannot keep a people down without equally staying down with them. For the very first time, Nigerian electorates had their political wits completely shattered and scrambled. Despite the grandstanding, the huffing and puffing by opponents some sponsored to the emergence of Ahmed Idris Wase had been impossible for them to come up with a more viable candidate and more qualified than Wase. Their comeuppance was then around the corner.
Unlike the national unifiers they claimed to be and despite the fruitless covert dalliances, some of them hoped for a historic gridlock which is now the case.
How this was to help them, or save them, from retribution when the storm has broken, and we are now victims. After the election or selection in both chambers, the political graveyard accommodated bones of indispensable people, to recall Charles de Gaulle of France. Nigeria in 2027 cannot afford to be denied the best for the national assembly top jobs. We must get it right to correct the ongoing wrongs.
Nigerians cannot remain tolerant and patient with a docile national assembly that has transformed to the smoking chamber of the executive. Nothing works correctly in that Akpabio and Tajudeen led chambers. It is always On Your Mandate We Stand as if they lack a mandate from their electorates for reliability. Membership of same party is not a ticket to be a zombie or sycophant. The foolery is becoming madness and the people are feeling the effects of the madness!
But, there is light at the end of the tunnel with the ongoing series of defections and alignments. Those trained and groomed by the PDP over the years as democrats, can hardly, if not impossible to tolerate the lapses of APC governing style. Those periodic directives and orders usually transmitted from the highest level of government to gullible followers at the receiving end will not be acceptable by PDP defectors. We are watching the permutations!
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues
