One of the core attributes of democracy as it is practice in Nigeria and other countries that adopted the system is a periodic election. It is believed that democracy gives room for qualified citizen to exercise their franchise.
In Nigeria, owing to the current democratic dispensation, the 1999 constitution as amended states that every elected officers has a period of 4 years in office after which such candidates can still seek re-election but not more than two terms. This re-election depends on so many factors especially the performance of such candidates.
Although, every candidate would want to rear their head righteous without considering the kind of perfection that define them. They would want to blow their trumpet of lie and treacherously make promise with both sides of their mouth thereby making it difficult for the people to know where there are coming from because they come from nowhere. I bet you there are only coming to take some people for a ride and if fail to understand their swindling method then salt would still be rubbed on our wounds again. All they want is just to be the set-man map-reading the resources of the state to their narcissistic reason.
Well, that is politic. The game of who get what when and how as define by Harold Lasswel.
It is no longer news that the Kogi State gubernatorial election is around the corner and in no time, my good people of Kogi State will come up in their large numbers to elect the person that will lead them for another round of four years. It is the constitutional right of the people to vote for their desired candidates. So many things must have been left pondering on our minds; some questions are beseeching for answers. To some extent some are even confused as to who is capable of sailing the ship of Kogi state that has been sinking for the past four years now.
Meanwhile, some are of the opinion that the current government under the leadership of Gov. Yahaya Bello (GYB) is the best. Well, I am not in any way to takes sides for now given the fact that everybody is subject to their opinion even when comparison and justification will be made at the latter end. While making an attempt to decide who will authoritatively allocate the state’s resources as well as pilot the affairs of the proletariats, we need to as a matter of urgency wake up from our primitive ways of thinking, do away with preponderance mindset (population wise), and wake up from ethnic bigotry.
Did I just say ethnic bigotry? Yes of course. If history needs to be told, then I beg to say that ethnic bigotry and preponderance mindset is what beleaguered us in our own state.
Given to the fact that political affiliation, ethnicity and candidacy connection among others are some of the things that characterize voters’ behavior in Nigeria which Kogi is not exempted, it is very pertinent to consider the fact that experience is the best teacher.
We need at this time to go back to our memory lane. The memory of how some people could not pay their children school fees and some even have to drop out of school as their last option not because they wish to but because they were been denied of what rightly belong to them, the memory of how some people commit Anomic suicide not because they wish to but because the government of the day upset their Apple cart. No wonder Emile Durkheim in his book on suicide theory emphasized on the needs for government improvement on the welfare of the citizen. Do we still need to flashback to so many people that have lost their jobs for no reasons? May be I should forget about those that lost their lives to road accident during the incessant and historical screening.
Do I really need to prove a point by flashing back to some lecturers that were rudely and illegally sacked from our only most cherished Kogi state university thereby leaving the institution apparently stark of some intellectually and sagacious workforce. I am still left stunned as to the level of brain-drain that must have hit-hard the institution then.
I think four years experience is enough for us to wise up, it is enough for us not to be kept in the wilderness of sugar coated mouth, it is enough for us to wake up from the nightmares we were since been hauled into by some political desperados, it is enough for us to make wise decision as it is very important that any decision we take in the coming Kogi state gubernatorial election can either make or mar us for the next four years.
It is obvious that we have been in a docile and recumbent situation over the years. It time for us to know what we want and stopped accepting what we see even when we deserve to leave better than whom we are now. We deserve to grow and not groan, our children deserve better life than what it is now. They deserve to leave in their own fathers land not as strangers. They deserve better education as their fundamental human right and not by privilege. The laborers should be worthy of their wages and not to beg for it, we deserve to walk freely in our own state without any intimidation, the era of half bread is better than none has passed.
Although, I will not be bewildered if the arm of some electorate will still be twisted with stipend the political desperados stole from our coffers, it will not be news when cups of rice and cubes of maggi would be made available to lure us into another round of political and economic tsunami. All these sham, benevolence and sudden remorsefulness of political gamers are not worth exchanging our destiny with.
As put forward by Adam Smith, ‘it is not because of the benevolence of the butcher, the bakers or the brewer that we expect our dinner but as regard to their self interest’. If they actually deserve our votes, then we need not to be induced by our own resources.
Reciprocating the action or the performance of this GYB led administration cannot be over emphasised. The performance of this administration I believe is visible to the blind and audible to the deaf. We don’t need anyone to come and sell their product of conviction. Convincing the people to buy to their ideas of deceit should be practically channeled and not with words from their sugar coated mouth.
We have seen the best and the worst of this administration. We have seen what this administration has to offer to the people. We have been led among the sharp of the forest and we have reached the ultimate, our legs are feeble that we cannot continue any more, we have cried and nobody hears us, we have shout and our throats were blocked that we cannot shout anymore.
We have been held captive in our own land that our groaning fell on deaf ears. We have gnashed our teeth both day and night and no one comes to our rescue. Nothing we can do than to fight back. It is now our turn to pay them back in their own coin. It is often said that whatever a man sowed, that he shall reap.
– James Gift Arome.
