Having been promised a rig-free, fair and credible elections by Nigeria’s political leaders, many Nigerians temporarily suspended their epicurean habits and dutifully headed to the polls, with gusto and unmistakable pride, to elect their leaders.
To demonstrate their impeccable resolve, many stayed back to ensure that their votes counted, at times, in inclement weather and physically demanding circumstances. Some people died as a result of horrific crashes, bomb blasts and mayhem.
It is therefore painful to see that all those sacrifices, especially by some new graduates serving out their National Youth Service, have ended in the wilderness and “gone with the wind.”
“Since nothing can be hidden under the sun”, the power of truth shakes the foundation of untruth and exposes lies for the whole world to see.
After the 2011 elections in Nigeria, there have been a welter of protests and complains against the credibility of the declared results by INEC. Some politicians have become so aggrieved that they have filed suits in various tribunals and courts.
One spiritual commodity that is in short supply in the world of politics is the truth. The international media is full of lies, misinformation and disinformation. Government spokes persons lie all the time, addressing the world community as if they were addressing brainless children.
The fact is that with time, the truth must prevail, come what may. Truth is all conquering, all pervading. This is why the Bible says ” And ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free”. In this context, the Truth is Jesus, the Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and Life.
Those who lie consistently are of the devil. In Courts of law, litigants are obliged to speak the truth, the whole truth and must call on God to witness.
We are going to listen carefully to the proceedings in the Tribunals, review the outcome judiciously and reserve our findings, which the legal experts at BOSAS INTERNATIONAL LAW BUREAU, Abuja will present in volumes after the Tribunal verdicts.
It is very surprising that after the positive assessments of both international and national monitoring groups, some parties are in court, which is their constitutional right.
The electoral officers, Resident Commissioners, the Professorial teams, who participated in the 2011 Federal elections cannot be all wrong. My reservations can only be clarified by truthful judgments, based on overwhelming evidence.
I again sympathize with the parents, brothers and sisters of those who died during the elections as a result of one reason or the other.
I have engraved a befitting epigraph in my heart in their honour. The psyche of mankind has been so brutalized by wars, blatant lies, and hard attitudes that many are no longer having the milk of human kindness.
Our dead compatriots should be sad that there is disquiet in the land as a result of serious complaints of election mal-practices they worked very hard to eliminate.
Certainly, there are frivolous complaints by bad losers, who will never accept defeat. There are those, who have gathered evidence, yet to be tested by judicial reasoning, which they believe, rightly or wrongly, would prove that, which they have alleged publicly. We shall see, who will win and by how much.
It is my strongly held view that allegations must be treated with benign indifference until the sword of truth pierces the haze of the dispositions of those alleging.
Very often the ingenuity of the person alleging can sway the gullible inexorably. As a son of a police intelligence officer, I learnt that one must listen to the other side, investigate thoroughly, before arriving at an objective decision after the truth emerges in white robes.
Reading through depositions made by those, who allege, I have found that they often allege in unfinished sentences, bad grammar, and failure to enunciate final consonants.
They speak in dull, monotonous, shrill over-loud voice, filled with emotion and they lack the courage of their convictions.
I have argue times without number that Nigeria’s major problem is that it has not been able to overcome the Lugard curse, the constitutional concoctions by the military which ruled Nigeria using force and untutored methods. They relied upon supine scholarship advanced by the usable and docile wing of the intellectual trading post agents.
That Nigeria is not a Federal, but a Confederal Republic. While in a Federal Republic the emphasis is on the central government, in a Confederal Republic, the composite units of sovereign entities stress their independence.
Whereas in a Federal Republic the emphasis is on the Federal Government, in a Confederal Republic, the composite units invest their efforts to improve their societal advancement, instead of sitting idly by, waiting for allocations from the central government.
This arrangement often meets with resistance from those states that lay the golden ages. The positive aspect of a Confederal Republic is that the power of the composite units to organize their social order is assured.
The United States experience and that of Napoleon’s Germany yield useful information on the nature of the Confederated states in history.
The post-election diatribes amongst the various political blocks on the recently concluded general elections in Nigeria, reinforces my view about the need for a confederal arrangement.
We have watched the intense pursuits for political offices by interest groups in the South East, South West, South South and the North.
These various political groups could constitute the foundations of a Confederal Republic, since all their demands cannot be met by the President.
As we witnessed during the elections and after, political mal-contents resorted to religion and ethnic sentiments to stir up discontent. Right now, our Republic is under the pressure that could lead to trouble.
Many of those, who were declared winners in the last elections, have been taken to court. There will be gruelling judicial combats laced with judicial orgies, intrigues and subterfuges.
I have heard virulent, demagogic effusions, with underlying threats, couched in separatist slogans.
It is a matter of utmost concern that some Nigerian politicians still believe in rigging elections and still engage in fraudulent methods of acquiring political power.
Fortunately, most Nigerians are now politically aware and will defend democracy. It is clear that the Nigerian elite only pay lip service to democracy. They are only interested in the “dividends of democracy.”
In “Elections and Electoral Practices in Nigeria, Dynamics and Implications”, which was published in THE CONSTITUTION, a journal of Constitutional Development, Vol.5. No 2. June 2005, Iyayi articulated the dynamics of electoral practices in (1) the historical context of state formation in Nigeria, (2) the nature and character of the Nigerian state, (3) the nature and character of the Nigeria’s ruling class,(4) developments in the international economy and politics, and (5) the relative strength of the progressive forces in Nigeria.
Iyayi concluded his treatise by saying that”what is required is not reforms but a radical departure that understands elections and electoral practices from a completely different perspective that addresses the political economy of the Nigerian state.
It is clear that the foundations of Nigeria’s statecraft were built on the British colonial legal heritage, which has held the neo-colonial state firmly in place, with occasional tinkering, constitutional amendments, electoral law reviews that accommodate frictions that are endemic in Nigeria’s social order. There are still disparities in the geopolitical structure of Nigeria, which militate against its jurisprudential system. There are problems in the power structure of Nigeria. One should identify the jurisprudence of the matter and the complex jurisprudence i
n the matter that need learned disquisitions by thinkers. Also, in order to fully appraise the truth, one must logically examine the truth of the matter and the truth in the matter in order not to be carried away by vague expositions.
Judicial pronouncements each time there is need to expose critical issues in Nigeria’s statecraft are often greeted with groveling equivocations. The turmoil and imperfections in our political system lie in our inability to change the archaic political models we have copied from Britain and the United States.
Contacts with Euro-American political cultures have etched indelible attributes and we have been enamoured by the power of a celestial political order from which we cannot extricate ourselves
Up till today, the acquisition of a British or American citizenship is the highest glory for those enlightened Nigerians, who live in those climes.
Post-elections atmosphere in Nigeria underline the tumultuous nature of Nigerian politics. it is a sign that the foreign ideology which promotes elitism cannot shape a Nigerian society that can ensure social justice.
We appeal to all Nigerians to let the Courts look at the evidence and pronounce on the facts. It will be counter-productive if, at the end of the day, the allegations are found to be false.
By the way, is it true or false that Governor Ohakim tortured, assaulted, battered and maltreated a priest of the Holy Catholic just because the priest could not make way for the Governor on the high way?
Friends of the Catholic Church in Imo State are determined to report the pugilist Governor to the International Criminal Court for torture and at the Federal High Court in Owerri for assault, illegal detention and battery as from June 1, 2011, after the Governor’s immunity lapses.
The Governor’s act may have contributed to his electoral failure in a state, where reverend fathers are highly revered.
Besides, God, the Father had said, “Touch not My Anointed and do my Prophets no harm” It is frightful to incur the wrath of the Most High God.
After the truths of the matter and the truths in the electoral practices or mal-practices have been established based on impartiality, the Nigerian state must put on the buckle of astuteness and build the Confederal Republic of Nigeria, in order to set it on a pedestal acceptable to our citizens.
In spite of the formidable pressures being mounted on the President by licensed lobbyists, God-fathers, fortune and favour-seekers, he should appreciate that he alone will be held responsible, if he ignores wise counsel and again parades political and intellectual under-achievers, who will only spoil the broth. He should make a corban (Jewish word for offering to God) that only the truth will he abide by.
If the President had not been a person of quiet disposition, the pressures on him are enough to drive a person over the top and over the bend.
In any proposition, there is always an element of truth. However, the truth may dovetail into belief, which may become an ideology.
When George 111 colonized America, he believed that it was right to do so. When George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Madison and Jefferson revolted against British imperialism, George 111 regarded them as terrorists, who should be hounded down and killed.
When the Normans conquered England in 1066, those English soldiers, who defended their native land, were slaughtered after they were captured. The Romans, the Greeks under Alexander the Great did the same thing.
Adolf Hitler believed that he was right in killing millions of Jews and attacking European nations.
Nixon thought that he was right when he attacked Vietnam and killed millions of Vietnamese. Osama Bin Laden thought that he was doing the right thing by attacking America. NATO thinks that they are saving Libyans .The point I am making is that one man’s truth is another man’s burden.
The power of truth that becomes overbearing can lead to disaster.
The justice of the courts of law in Nigeria must be weighed carefully, so that the truth can set us free. Election by the people is the only way any government can earn legitimacy.
