OUR GUTLESS LEADERS AND THE 'COWERED' MASSES!

Some inside government in Nigerian today, may not have the guts to speak out against the charade of incompetence that permeates our presidency, the legislature and the judiciary. But, it is unfortunate that the rotten political and civil organs that control our destiny are hitherto dragging us all in to the abyss.

What an unfortunate commentary for us all. Our situation today can be likened to that of a child who was whipped by a parent but prevented from crying out loud!

Nigeria burns deep inside with anger and frustration over the state of affairs at the highest levels of our government, at the same time, we all cry with bloody tears over the realization that no one who is supposed to protect the weak and the poor, especially one with the means to do so, really cares or even fleetingly considers the responsibility to do so as binding upon him or her.

Our politicians and most of the current leaders, in their most basic line of thought and their obtuse and warped understanding, consider the following as their honourable way of life, achievement, and
right! They fight tooth and nail to get power wherever they can. They steal, maim, and oft kill to consolidate that power. They promise the heavens and sometimes even earth but in vain. They are blinded with greed yet plough on - quest to climb the tower. They will occasionally return to our villages to appease us with okada, keke and sewing machines. They will then claim our destiny.

It goes without saying that the presidency is so arrogant that they have all but forgotten that nobody stays at the top forever, at least, not in the Nigeria that we know. They have all but discounted the need to care for the common man, to act with integrity and inculcate give and take in governance. Unfortunately, the fate we were, and continue to be condemned to, isn't the same as that of our messianic leader who does not listen to anyone under any circumstances, until and unless his singular power to govern without question is threatened. 

The legislative arm of the government whose responsibility for appropriation and lawmaking includes the power to keep the executive in check has all but abdicated their sacred oath, and is currently fighting for its own survival.

They know we are gullible and continue their undemocratic outing. When we complain they castigate us. But give it to the Fulanis, they speak their mind, just as Junaid Mohammed did. Most APC leaders from the South are only trained in idiotic rationalization.

Despite the president’s well-mouthed commitment to Nigeria’s unity, his actions have consistently proved otherwise. Never in the history of our modern democracy has the nation been so bitterly divided along ethnic and religious lines than as it is under Buhari. Although he has claimed on some occasions that his appointments have not breached any section of the constitution, he has not admitted that these appointments offend humanity and morality.

The recent reconstitution of the Board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, by President Muhammadu Buhari is another gross abuse of the powers of the president and flagrant disregard for our laws, the same laws which Buhari swore to uphold at his inauguration.

The cryonic appointments which the president himself has had to defend on several occasions saying most of the people he is appointing are those who have been with him since his days at APP through ANPP, the CPC and then APC, reduces Nigeria to the archaic system of monarchical governance. The continued appointment of Muslims from northern part of the country to the exclusion of Nigerians of other religions and ethnic extraction is the reason for the continued multiple restiveness bedevilling the country today.

If any president cannot live above his ethnic and religious sentiments in a clime like ours, it is only natural that the resultant effect would be crises and more crises. While we all want peace, it is the president’s sole responsibility to create the atmosphere for that.