Away From Motor Park
Democracy, Leadership Ahead Of 2007
Prince Charles Dickson
These are indeed sad times, but then,
these are times when the nation needs heroes...a time when be it a
woman or man, the nation needs leaders that cannot be bought, men,
whose words are their bonds, not leaders that play comedy with the
national issues. Men and women who put character above wealth, not
those that cannot be trusted with the PTDF monies or those that
would dash women friends 607 cars with our collective sweat. In
times like these as the next election comes if it does come, we
need men and women that posses opinion and a will, leaders that
are larger than their vocations.
These new set or crop of leadership
will not hesitate to take chances, yet not loose their
individuality in the motley crowd of corrupt politicians. They
will be honest in small things as well as big things, they will
make no compromise with wrong. No Tom and Jerry arrangement in
refunding stolen money be it from Joshua or Solomon, Plateau or
Bayelsa.
These men will not do it because
everybody does it, they do not believe that shrewdness, cunning
political manovers are the best qualities of governance. Above all
these compliments, these set of men are going to be our heroes,
Tom and Jerry, Obj and Atiku, have failed us, PDP, ANPP, ACD, AC
and all the present arrangement do not have any formula that can
take us to the promised land. The present crop is all I call a
Motor Park democracy, a democracy of touts, a democracy that
creates more problems than it solves any, a democracy of the more
we see, the less we discern.
In a Motor Park democracy, the IG of
Police blames the Director of SSS, the President accuses his Vice,
Political parties have three, four factions all laying claim to
the followers' mandate.
The practice in Nigeria today, is a
system that recognizes one tout amongst other touts, and when
there is a fight, it turns into a fracas, a free for all fight and
the very institutions that holds us together as a nation are
abused. And this in itself is not odd because the arena is the
Motor Park, where drivers contribute money and the Union Officials
play hide and seek with the money till it disappears.
Take a drive to PDP's motor park, and
you will appreciate how it works, from pursuing Ekeueme, then
chasing Awoniyi, then giving Audu Ogbeh poisoned pounded yam with
Ota Farm soup served in Aso Rock. In that motor park, we saw the
travails of Pius Ayim, the man that was told he would be
President, Ladoja, Alams, Ngige, Tafa Balogun, and boy Atiku, all
have stories from that motor park...The god of Dariye has still
been protecting him from the area boys of Baba Iyabo. Solomon Lar
one time and first Union Chairman in the Motor park has since been
running an attache park.
To the onlooker and non-participant it
is obviously exciting to watch men fight dirty like Mama Segun and
Sister Atiku in a 'face me I face you' one room house in a typical
Anguwan Burukutu slum. The truth is that Nigerians are tired,
tired of it all, the ballot box is the peoples gun, can we use it,
is the question that is begging for an answer.
Today's leadership is made up of men
that readily will collaborate in a highly complex subterfuge which
is predictably heading towards confusion. In the motor park of
Nigeria we are besieged with men whose antics are allergic to true
democratic practice because of a neurotic pursuit for power.
Like we all desire, the fact is that
we do not need this democracy of the Motor park, we need
development, because what we are battling in this nation is the
crisis of development, our infrastructures are in a state of
decay, for the ones that have not been bought by Transcorruption.
Despite our enormous wealth and
potentials, we are impoverished, ethnically fractured
irredeemably, thus the North-South agitation for power.
The democracy of our nation is played
in a manner likened to the politics of underdevelopment. This is
so because the saga between Obj and Atiku, and all the soldier
boys cannot bring any form of development. Our leaders are washing
their massively dirty linen not just in public but for the public
to feed on. In one word the inability of both men and their party
to bring them to order is translated to failure... failure of the
motor park politics that our leaders are playing.
In this big motor park where we are
all confined to by the politics of our leaders and their
definition of democracy, we have seen in full doze violent
aggression as against persuasion and consensus building,
diversity, true competition, freedom and equality. In this
democracy, we have not had religious or ethnic clashes because of
religious parochialism or ethnic parapoism, access rights,
discriminatory treatment but as a result of greed embedded in
corruption.
In this circumstances, we possess an
elite driven democracy, not a people driven one, so the politics
is not necessarily democratic even when theoretically the system
of governance supposedly is. Leadership should think about people
being the agents, means and the end of development, not the case
where Union officials disappear with our money, feast on it in a
most despicable manner at the expense of us all.
We need to experience development not
reform, as it is we do not have anything in the real sense that is
worth the onions of reform.
We presently do not have a democracy
of incorporation, we need a consociational arrangement that allows
for cultural expression, self realization, yet a strong national
identity. Not a garage arrangement with everything scattered here,
there and in a real sense no where.
Recently we witnessed the birth of two
'major' parties, the ACD and then more recently the AC, with its
logo, the broom stick, I smile because its still all the same
conductors and bus drivers, I hear one of the chief drivers Tony
Anineh would be jumping bus. The same dramatis persona that were
the characters in the PDP motor park have taken to other motor
parks, the question is what hope, if we all did not, I saw as much
as any of us during Solomon Lar's PDP. Ordinarily Audu Ogbeh looks
the good man, but he supervised that land, moon and water slide
rigging of PDP in 2003, that rigging is what we are all suffering
in the hands of chief touts heading their respective State Motor
parks, and you can see from the treatment they give to us as
passengers, that they care less.
In our democracy, we are still to get
to the point of people power, rather the area boys like the
Jamaicans say still run things, they run the show, they do the
exploitations, using the underpaid police, the ill motivated
soldier, the capitalist politician who borrows monies for his
campaign or sells his property and sees governance as an
investment and the populace suffer the neglect...
For the uptenth time let me say that
the ordinary Nigerian like in the Motor Park do not care much
about these thieves, they only want a safe trip, they want to pay
the right price and get service delivery that is commensurate with
it. Food, shelter and clothing is all we desire, not all the side
attraction of our leaders which actually is nothing in concrete
terms.
If nothing changes and indeed soon,
one day problem go tie wrapper, that day the passengers, touts,
drivers and commercial sales people will engage in a bolekaja...(come
down lets fight) scenario. In the nation of blind people, a one
eyed man is king, but woe to the nation of full sighted men that
are led by blind people, either the blind is really good in
governance or there is a wuruwuru and magomago to the answer which
the populace that have sight need to revolt against.
We cannot continually be pooh booed by
some select few...Almighty Allah save us from ourselves, we are at
out wits end.
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