For the sake of our nation exposed to
insecurity by absence of governance, the time has come for us to
differentiate between a political jobber and a statesman. A
political jobber is a merchant who buys and sells loyalty in order to be
in power. He does not care about the morality of his
means. He would, therefore, do everything to win an election or be
declared the winner. His sole and ultimate objective is access to
power and to the perks of office.
But the ultimate aim of a statesman is not
power. It is service of the common good. And even if he
plans to win an election, he does not transgress the boundaries of morality. He
is fair in running for office and fair in running the
office. He works for the good of the nation and for the good
of its citizens. Rather than use or threaten to use violence, he
shares his vision with the citizens, respects their right to share or repudiate
the vision, and their right to decide through an electoral process free of
fraud or coercion. Political jobbers manipulate the electoral
process. Statesmen respect its integrity. The choice
before Nigerians in the 2019 elections, therefore, is that of choosing between
political jobbers and statesmen. And, for the sake of our nation, we
must make a right choice this time around.
Nigeria’s two major parties, and, almost without exception, all the
other parties have been hijacked by political jobbers lacking in
statesmanship. Bereft of internal democracy, they have become gangs
of the fraudulent and the violent. Boko Haram continues to bomb,
herdsmen continue to murder, while parties stage congresses and primaries, their
members unleashing thugs on one another and on us. Silence is reasoned
discourse, but loud is the sound of gunfire. And as the year 2019 approaches
like a fast-moving train, we the people are chained to the rail line by violent
and deceitful politicians. Our politicians threaten our peace.
Outwitting and
outfoxing each other within their parties, emerging through a nomination
process that breaches all tenets of democracy, candidates without democratic
credentials prepare to rob us of our votes. Recycled, packaged and
repackaged, like fake products, they tell lies, they make false promises,
promises they have neither the capacity nor the intention
to fulfill. Parties insult our intelligence by imposing utterly
incompetent and unworthy candidates on us and ask us to choose the lesser of
two evils. But the lesser of two evils is evil, and no upright
person will choose what is evil, not even the lesser of two.
Our psyche as a
nation was militarized when young and immature men, wearing army uniforms and
holding guns and bullets, shot their way into power. Our multiethnic
land lost her innocence when they resorted to ethnic cleansing, leading us into
a totally avoidable war. At the end of the first and second rounds
of bloodshed, they declared: no victor, no vanquished. But the
wounds remain. They held us hostage from 1966-79, and from 1983-99, pretending
they were endowed with the sagacity of statesmen. Their
antipathy for democracy destroyed its institutions, instituting
violence and lawlessness as means of getting into power. Then they
were young men in ages twenties and thirties. Now they are
grandfathers, kings and kingmakers. After brutalizing the nation,
they refused to show remorse and they refuse to quit the
stage. Nursing their illusion of integrity, of being sole
proprietors of patriotism, they put on the toga of infallibility. But they
would have been unable to hold us hostage without the collaboration of
civilians with whom they enter into friendship of convenience,
civilians whom they use and trash like paper towels in an era of politics
without principle. Who then can say there are no kingmakers? They
are still alive. Call them by any other name, a spade is still a
spade.
Do we still wonder
why our country has been damaged? Should it be otherwise
where selection is election? Would it be different
when democracy has been turned into the government of godfathers, kings and
kingmakers, for godfathers, kings and kingmakers, by godfathers, kings and
kingmakers? Now, therefore, is the time to advise ourselves to break away from
this unhelpful past and paralyzing present, and embrace a future of sanity and
decency in politics. Our voices must unite in persuading yesterday’s warlords
and their civilian friends of today to quit the stage and allow a truly
democratic culture to emerge in 2019. For where no one manipulates
the democratic process, even if you are not elected, you have not lost, because
your fundamental rights as a citizen are protected.
For the sake of our
nation, let us, in 2019, practise true democracy, disband an oligarchy of kings
and kingmakers, free ourselves from politicians who, for decades, have held us
hostage. For the sake of our nation, let us, as
a people, insist on internal democracy within the parties, on a
nationally-televised debate among contenders for various offices, especially
the presidency, and let us insist on a credible electoral process. Such will be
for the good of our children and our children’s children. For the
sake of our nation, we are watching and waiting.
*Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie is the Catholic Archbishop
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