16082018 - Uproar as EFCC seeks minutes of Benue's security meetings

32—Vanguard, THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 2018
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More on the macabre dance
NIGERIAN
Citizens,
NCNC, won an election
into the Western Region House
of Assembly. Chief Obafemi
Awolowo’s Action Group, AG,
had been defeated. This was
short-lived.
Between the election and
inauguration, a lot of water
passed under the bridge. The AG
did not resort to the use of brute
force as we see today. They got
their calculations right and on
the day of inauguration, at roll
call, one by one, many members
of the NCNC walked across the
aisle to the AG side. The table
had turned and that was the
genesis of the inglorious practice
of carpet-crossing whose
adulterated version has
remained with us till date. That
was how, there and then, Chief
Obafemi Awolowo was sworn-in
as the Premier of Western
Nigeria, instead of Dr. Azikiwe
who had arrived at the House of
Assembly, properly attired for the
purpose.
At the inception of the Second
Republic in October 1979, no
single Political Party had a clear
majority to form the Federal
Government alone. The spread of
the political parties in the House
of Representatives was as
follows: NPN 171; UPN 110; NPP
78; PRP 47; and GNPP 43.
Today’s politicians would have
done anything, significantly
unorthodox, to forge themselves
into office; but the NPN resorted
to a coalition arrangement with
the NPP. The coalition constantly
ran into murky waters but it
wobbled till the end of the First
National Assembly.
At the general elections of
August 1983, the NPN embarked
on the band-wagon escapade and
was able to conquer for itself,
enough seats to go solo at the
National Assembly.
Since then, things have been
getting incrementally worse; and
we soon got to the ugly era of
parliamentary parallelism,
which invariably produces a winwin
situation – all victors, no
vanquish! In the Fifth Assembly
in Edo State the defunct Action
Congress of Nigeria, ACN, had
16 seats as against 8 seats of the
Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Trouble soon crept in. After the
battle–royale on the floor of the
Each time we
begin to see
some ray of
light, we are
plunged further
into the dark
ages
Assembly, each party went its
separate way; proclaimed its own
Assembly; and elected its
Principal Officers.
With the active support of the
Federal might (Federal
Government and all its
instruments of coercion – the
police and the armed forces), the
PDP Assembly soon gained the
upper hand to the extent that they
ousted the ACN Assembly from
the Assembly complex and
occupied it while the ACN
Assembly squatted in one
enlarged room in Government
House.
The same scenario played out
in the Fifth Assembly of Rivers
State where the Wike Assembly,
which was originally in the
minority but with the support of
the Federal might, ousted the
Amaechi Assembly from the
Assembly complex while the
latter took refuge in one obscure
corner of Government House.
This is how the concept of the
majority of the minority is
developing fast, no thanks to the
Federal might.
The new trend at the Federal
level is that at the threshold of
every general election, a good
part of the majority party would
yank itself out of the majority
party, collect other
inconsequential political parties
and together empty themselves
into the main opposition party
and the minority party
automatically becomes the
majority. This could be
encouraged, if only as a way of
obviating perpetuity in power by
any political party. This is a
subject for another day.
In 2006, six legislators in a 24-
member Assembly constituted
the two-thirds majority that
impeached Governor Joshua
Dariye of Plateau State. That was
not all. The 18 “minority
members” who refused to go
along with the illegality were
locked up for long enough to
declare their seats vacant for nonadherence
to the 181 days
minimum attendance to the
Assembly in the legislative year.
Oyo State was a theatre of the
absurd. On January 12, 2006, 18
members of a 32-member House
constituted the two-thirds
majority that impeached
Governor Rashidi Ladoja.
It took 11 long months for the
impeachment to be overturned at
the Court of Appeal. After that,
the then Attorney General and
Minister of Justice of the
Federation, Mr. Bayo Ojo vetoed
the judgment of the Appeal
Court, saying that the judgment
was merely declaratory and not
meant to be implemented. Hear
the then Inspector General of
Police, Sunday Ehindero,
“Governor Alao Akala can
lawfully remain in office until the
appeal is disposed of at the
Supreme Court”.
Even when the Supreme Court
had affirmed the Appeal Court
judgment, Justice Iyabo Yerima
of Oyo State High Court still
granted a black market
injunction for a stay of execution
on the Supreme Court decision.
Will this rumble in the jungle ever
end?
Each time we begin to see some
ray of light, we are plunged
further into the dark ages. See
how shamelessly, in Benue State,
the Federal Government with its
police brutality is protecting the
“majority of 7” members (8
members minus the former
Speaker who is on suspension)
and allowing them into the
chambers while the “minority of
22” members are chased away.
And so quickly have the “mighty
7” embarked on the process of
impeaching the State Governor!
Who would have imagined this
back in 1918?
By Stanley Amuchie
WHAT does ideal democracy offer the
people of Imo state? Ideally,
democracy offers the people of Imo the
promise that at the barest minimum, they
should have unfettered opportunity to choose
those to whom all Imo citizens can entrust
with our welfare and collective development,
those who will best represent Imo because
our aggregated choices, counted as votes
will make them our honest representatives
taking our individual and collective interests
before their personal and vested interests.
Maximally, democracy promises the people
of Imo that in exercising the interests of Imo
people on their behalf as governor or other
elected positions, from this it is expected that
elected officials will formulate and
implement public policies to maximise the
welfare and benefits of Imo people and
make their lives more joyful and fulfilling
and make the future more sustainable for
the generations that succeed us.
What are these policies that democracy
will help us to make into welfare and benefit
for Imo people? They are simply problems
and opportunities that we identify daily and
yearly in our communities and state. In
identifying them we use the best brains,
established benchmarks and lessons learnt
both locally and globally to develop
solutions and alternative solutions
following technical and paradigmatic
principles, applying our resources according
to deliverable priorities, efficiently and
effectively to turn such solutions and
alternatives into democracy dividends.
These are the simple explanations for the
promise that democracy offers in the form
of acceptable elections and the deliverables
from credibly and legitimately elected
officials. Many early philosophers like John
Stuart Mills, Thomas Hobbes, Schumpeter,
Jugen Habermas and others have elucidated
these promises and their dimensions, while
more modern philosophers and technocrats
have shown the nexus between philosophical
expectations and ideals and the technical
nitty gritty that transforms identified
problems and opportunities or what policy
What does democracy offer Imo people?
makers call policy issues to the solutions of
modern societal challenges and needs.
Where these have been applied diligently
and committedly, society has been the better
for it. These steps are important to
development and although they may also
be found in some none democratic states, a
contrast that stands democracy out is the
attribute of accountability to voters and
where that fails, the freedom of the media to
call out those who have failed either to
deliver the expectations of democracy or be
At the heart of accountability
to our people is the need to
allow the wishes and
aspiration of our people as
expressed in intra-party and
inter-party elections to be
fully expressed, for only in
subjecting leaders to such
approval or rejection will
they truly be alive to their
democratic obligations
accountable to voters during and between
elections.
Many of those we elect to deliver these
ideal promises of democracy on our behalf,
run away from doing these things for our
people, instead they take our meager
resource to such places where people have
been true to these ideals, to enjoy the
sacrifices their leaders made to deliver such
promises of democracy to their people.
Worse, they have become not only resistant
but increasingly intolerant of accounting to
voters, instead they are gradually trying to
create a new model that disdains and tries
to dispense with voters by undermining the
process of credible and acceptable voting.
Indeed, we must ask what have they delivered
as Democracy to our people?
To be more specific, what has democracy
through elected representatives offered Imo
people since the state was instituted? When
they go abroad with our resources to enjoy
effective healthcare, they create a system
that they are even afraid to use. Although,
they promoted such sub standard health
facilities as part of their accomplishments.
They send their children to educational
systems that provide higher standards in
content, higher standards of reward to
personnel and better outcome for providing
life skills for learners, at the same time they
create and perpetuate sub-standard
education at home.
They turn our state into a regional and
urban planning nightmare while posing for
pictures in the architectural paradise
created by diligent and altruistic leaders in
other countries. They are quick to describe
other countries as a machine that works
when referring to regimes of reliable,
effective and efficient weights and measures,
financing and insurance. They marvel at the
transaction interphases –banking, transport,
etc.
These things do not work in other places
because God loves them more than us, but
mainly because their leadership deferred
immediate gratification of their personal
interests and need for the collective benefit
of their society and as a reward they built a
better society in which naturally as leaders
they live a better and safer quality of life.
Contrastingly, those who have been
entrusted to do the same for our people have
debased and corrupted Democracy rather
than make it work for our people. It is heart
warming that Imo people are resilient,
despite the many shortcomings and much
disappointment, the hard work and coping
abilities of our people have aided then to
not only survive but in some cases outdone
expectations. Still, we can do better, where
our people managed to survive they can soar,
its only takes a disciplined determination
to create enabling incentives and regimes.
What can we do differently? First we must
create an enabling political environment
that stays true to democracies expectations
of accountability, allowing our state to
benefit the most from what Albert
Hirschman describes as effective “voice”
that avoids the exit of our people from
participation in the decisions that affect
their lives, their progress and their
development.
At the heart of accountability to our people
is the need to allow the wishes and
aspiration of our people as expressed in
intra-party and inter-party elections to be
fully expressed, for only in subjecting
leaders to such approval or rejection will
they truly be alive to their democratic
obligations. Secondly, as simple and
mundane as due processes may sound, it is
only by a diligent compliance with such
processes that we are certain of quality
outcome in applying whatever innovative
policy ideas we introduce to identify and
solve our problems or to obtain the most
benefits for our people from opportunities
that present themselves. And most important
we have to revert to a value of merit and
excellence, because it is only when we insist
on applying this value to health, Education,
Social welfare, Trade and Industry and
basically all our endeavours that we can
truly build a State that, influences the people
to do excellently for themselves and by
themselves what they have the potentials to
do.
When it is time to talk to Imo people about
how best to do these things excellently, when
campaigns are legally allowed for
nominated candidates, I will present
overarching visions and operational details
on how I will turn these aspirations to
deliverable benefits for Imo people, for now
it is important to renew our faith on the basic
expectations and promises of democracy
and to admit that our people are yet to fully
enjoy those promises. But they deserve to.
Mr. Amuchie, a chieftain of APGA, wrote
from Owerri, Imo State.
C
M
Y
K