Thursday, March 20, 2014

There Will Be No Revolution in Nigeria! - Elomba

Orukotan Ayomikun Samuel wrote: "A nation bed-wetting on a waterbed needs revolution. A nation that cannot give its electorate the dividends of democracy needs revolution, no place for true-federalism. A nation that is rated the 144th most corrupt country and yet still come out to criticize and ignore this statistics needs revolution.
A nation that can no longer provide security, good roads, social amenities, jobs for its myriad citizens needs revolution. A nation that keeps celebrating mediocrity, criminals, thieves, political hawkers, shenanigans, tomfoolery needs revolution.
Nigerians, we need revolution, we cannot keep doing the same thing the same way and we expect different result. That is outright insanity. Revolution is the only sure solution to Nigeria’s problem. It is the only hope of the masses in this complex country, it is the idea of justice that divides power qualitatively not quantitatively as our constitutionalists do, it is “atheist” in religion and “anarchist” in politics. Anarchist in the sense that it considers power as a passing necessity and atheist in that, it recognizes no religion because it recognizes them all.
Enough by now should be enough. It’s time to experiment with revolution. It’s time to start “stealing from the rich” because it is a sacred and religious act in a revolution environment. It’s time to rewrite our history because revolution is the ecstasy of history. Honestly, it is time; it’s time we ask for a revolutionary change before our children yet unborn calls us fools who lived but has nothing to show for a living but let me also at this juncture highlight the effect a revolutionary change will have on our corrupt nation.
First, there will be wiping away of aristocratic titles and a host of other hangovers that has truncated the nation. 
Second, there will no longer be slavery from any quarter no matter how powerful you are and terrorism will be outdated. 
Third, social vices will be drastically reduced if not totally reduced because our virtues will now be operating on the principle of “the greatest good to the greatest number” which is the greatest humanitarian service to humanity and the story of eating “the national cake” alone will be of zero tolerance. So we stand a huge chance of having a bright future as a nation if only we will embrace a revolutionary change and curse the enemy of our future which is definitely “our today” which can be in human, material or non-materialistic format. Let us spread this message of revolution now; else, we will be prolonging our misery and storing trouble for generations to come".
HOWEVER:
Daniel Akusobi aptly punctured the dreams: "We can hear your weep deep down in your heart over the fate of our country in the hands of PDP and Joe. ( the president )
We can imagine how gloomy you feel the future of Nigeria would be if we continue the way we currently do, in governance. 
You came too close to firing the first bullet in your quest for a here and now change of leadership in Nigeria. 
It is probably the same observations you harbor that made OBJ scream and screamed again on Joe for fear things he started, the good and the bad , fading away in our hands.
Obasanjo had an opportunity of being a revolution agent but may have missed the opportunities for obvious reasons including our system of government- democracy, which naturally would not allow him to play God.
You came too close too to advocating ' to your tents oh Israel " process in your piece with regards to amalgamation process of 100 years ago. 
The British then did what they did for administrative convenience with hope that we shall grow as different people and become one mother, one father, identical triplicates. 100 years later, we have evolved from North / south Nigeria to North, West, East and Delta region Nigeria to a six political zones with each zone claiming ability to be a sovereign nation on itself. The expected identical racial or tribal genome never happened. 
Today, we know British  miscalculated .
My dear, destruction is always easy. In the case of dismembering Nigerian components today, the usual will surely be hectic to achieve.  This time around, destruction will prove as much a huddle as building for the first time.
The North will fight to keep the union. The West will fight to hold on the marriage called Nigeria. Both need the East and the Delta states to survive in Nigeria or as sovereign states.
The East will say, let others try. We tried and failed in the past.
So my brother,  we have nowhere to go with disbanding the components of the nation of Nigeria.
On your call for a revolution: I will wish you a good luck on that too. Remember the mouse and the cat story. In this case, who will bell the cat? The Igbos, no way. Few understood the Igbos when they foresaw today's Nigeria in 1967. You know the rest of the story.
Is it the Yorubas'? Again, recall 1967 to 1970, the story of broken trusts and alignments that were better imagined than consumated. The Igbos will surely back off from any Yoruba led revolution.
The Hausas will not lead any such dreams since it seems the  the Hausas, are dominating the leadership and commerce of the entire nation. I don't see how the Hausas will fight against a system that puts them in almost total control.
Is it the military?  No way about that in Nigeria today. We passed that phase already. No coup plan in Nigeria today will go a minute without being published on the Internet. Our military boys are more comfortable earning money without the hassle of dealing with our national problems outside their barracks. 
Shall we do with Arab spring style revolutions? That again can only work in Arab nations and not in Nigeria. Who in Nigeria can you convince to risk their lives for others in the manner the Arabs would do.
Our Christians do not believe in martyrdom, as such they won't have any incentives to risk death on the streets of Owerri or Abuja.
Our Muslims already have their army -Boko Haram doing some of their dirty  jokes in harassing us to submission.
What option do we have?
1 there will be no revolution of the nature you are calling for.
2 we will rather seek some ethical or moral revolution aimed at developing leaders that are much more less Nigerian than usual. That would mean leaders that will be more human, non selfish, less dubious,  more loving, and progress oriented.
3 ensure we have a strong public advocacy group that can sue the government for any mal-governance, any officer that steals from the public should be sued.
4 repeal the part of the constitution that grants immunity from persecution of   sitting politicians .
5  a more honest judiciary that is fully  independent of the executive.
6  ensure people of suspicious characters, or proven ones never win election again.
Concluding, we have a lot to gain by exercising some patience while we work on training our populace to learn to take their government policy problems to the government instead of their churches. 
The most we can loose is our freedom to do this, venting out our anger on our government by means such as publishing them.
Next presidential election can begin this process. Why don't we begin with that?"

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