The sad events of the past couple of days – which were reportedly orchestrated by some disgruntled members of the Edo State House Of Assembly, paint a horrible spectacle of the miserable depths to which some politicians are willing to condescend in their debauched quests for the ephemeral trappings of life; a sad sequence of events that have, once again, exposed the pettiness, hollowness and mediocrity that saturates and drives the warped minds of some members of the political class.
In a well rehearsed, but poorly executed, attempt to overthrow the incumbent leadership of the lawmaking arm of government in the state, some comic characters attempted to act out a poorly written script; pantaloons who made a mess of a Pantomime that was designed for mischief. This group – made up of the opposition members of the lawmaking chambers, in conjunction with some turncoats of the All Progressive Congress – attempted a Mafia-style coup that was meant to turn back the hands of the clock. It is not my intention to bore you with the nuances of the crisis – as details of this are available on all available media, regular and social – but proceed to express my displeasure at this gross display of immaturity and irresponsibility by those from whom much is expected, having being given so much by the system they are desperately fighting to destroy.
The conduct of the opposition members of the House, together with their APC co-collaborators, is shameful and unbecoming of elected legislators. The unfolding drama is not only embarrassing, but absolutely preposterous; a clear exposure of the true colours of the Chameleons masquerading as angels of light; shameful performances by a band of mercenaries doing the biddings of their evil masters – the evil Vicars who are more at home fomenting trouble than engaging in any meaningful enterprise; the conflict entrepreneurs and instigators who profit from chaos; the power-crazed demagogues who, having suffered series of defeats in past popularity contests, have been scheming to take Edo State back by fire and force.
One very saddening and laughable aspect of the unfolding drama is the treacherous roles some individuals, who rode on the wings of people power to office, are playing. I am talking about the ignominious roles of some APC legislators who have allowed themselves to be used as agents of destabilization in the state. It is highly regrettable that the same set of people, who owe their current stations in life to the magnanimity of the good people of Edo State, are the same ones constituting themselves into clogs in the state’s wheel of progress; annoying that people who had no political clout whatsoever before the former Action Congress of Nigeria ( now All Progressive Congress – APC) offered them the platform to sell themselves to the people, are the same set of people who have ganged up with the trouble-courting members of the opposition to derail the democratic train.
That individuals who were elected by the members of their constituencies to represent their collective interests could turn around to bite the hands that feed them is very unfortunate; an outrageous attack on the civil liberties of the people; a punch on the people’s collective jugular; a betrayal of the popular mandate that brought them to office; the height of treachery, so to speak.
The truth is that any attack on the Legislature constitutes an attack on the people’s collective right to participate in government, as the legislature is the only representative body among the three arms of government -Executive, Parliament and Judiciary – through which the people participate in the processes of governance. Thus, any attempt to inhibit the proper functioning of this very crucial arm of government constitutes an attack on the principles of popular rule – a system that is based on mass participation. The legislature is the voice of the voiceless; an organ that embodies the very soul of the polity; a conduit pipe of information flow between the rulers and the ruled; the life-force of any truly democratic society.
Popular sovereignty is superior to political sovereignty; the power of the people is greater than the power of elected political office holders. The led extend their mandates to their leaders who are expected to conduct themselves responsibly, while in office, and diligently discharge their official responsibilities to their chief constituencies to the letter. That is the traditional practice in all truly democratic societies. Anything short of this is a crisis of democracy. The people decide those that are fit – or unfit – to govern them.
The erring members of the Edo State House of Assembly have gone against the terms of the mandates that were popularly given to them by the citizens of their constituencies and have, therefore, lost their legitimacy. Governance, ideally, should be a trust between the people and their leaders; a social contract with clearly defined conditions, one of which is that: anytime the bearers of mandates go against the terms of the pacts, on which their relationship with the citizenry is based, such individuals automatically lose the privileges afforded them by their offices. The rebellious members of the Edo House of Assembly, having gone against the wishes of the people of their constituencies, by agreeing to be bought over to the side of professed enemies of the people, are guilty of gross insubordination and dereliction of their core duties as the representatives of their people. They have, therefore, forfeited the mandates that were popularly given to them.
Here is calling on the members of the constituencies that these shameless charlatans claim to be representing to rise up in one accord against this latest attempt to clog the wheel of the fluid and uninterrupted developments rolling across the length and breadth of Edo State. The time has come for you to show, once and for all, that it can no longer be business as usual for these Marabous who have been masquerading as your representatives. The indecencies of these Bushwhackers should no longer be tolerated. They constitute threats to your continued enjoyment of the dividends of the current democratic order. Their actions are not only perfidious and damnable, but atavistic and demonic. You have the weapon to annihilate this Phantom menace once and for all by exercising the popular authority constitutionally granted you as Nigerian citizens – one that you are yet to brandish – the power to “Recall” lawmakers who betray the terms of your contracts with them.
Chapter Five Section 110 of the Nigerian constitution states that:
A member of the House of Assembly may be recalled as such a member if –
(a) there is presented to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission a petition in that behalf signed by more than one-half of the persons registered to vote in that member’s constituency alleging their loss of confidence in that member; and
(b) the petition is thereafter, in a referendum conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission within ninety days of the date of the receipt of the petition, approved by a simple majority of the votes of the persons registered to vote in that member’s constituency.
My brothers and sisters, rather than allowing ourselves to be continually subjected to the impudence of individuals we elected to represent us, the Recall Clause in the constitution should be immediately evoked to check and balance the intransigencies of the debauched characters trying to throw Edo State back to barbarous times. These leeches have lost our confidence and should be shown the exit door. We can no longer call these cankerworms our representatives – they are nothing but self-seeking opportunists who represent nobody but themselves and their cronies. That is why they have the effrontery to sell the mandate we willingly gave to them for peanuts without recourse to the possibility of any form of censorship. That is why
they can insult us with so much effrontery and think they can get away with it. They are Stool Pigeons who should be shooed off the seats they have unwittingly declared empty by their shameful conduct. By allowing themselves to be used as agents of destabilization, these graspers should be relegated to the lowly backgrounds they came from.
This is not the time to dilly dally, anymore, on the steps to take; no longer time to cringe in fear, when we can stand up and act. It is time to rise up and say a reverberating “No” to the insidious designs of these mountain Trolls who should be sent back into their Trolling holes. This latest attempt to destabilize the state is a scheme that should not be allowed to stand. It is our collective duty – as stakeholders in the Edo project – to save Edo State from the suffocating grip of our common foes – the desperately wicked members of the opposition who have remained unrelenting in their morbid attempts to throw this this state back to the dark ages of modern times. The aces and jokers are on our table – let’s throw them wisely. Off with these impostors!
