By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
The ultimate recommendation of democracy is this: where a party performs badly it gets voted out.
In these shores, it is a different ball game.
Even if a party unleashes horrendous hardship on the people, it keeps winning so-called democratic elections.
It is only in Nigeria that some characters are making the mad magic of believing that there can ever be democracy without the presence of democrats.
Every election is akin to a warfare, and the collation of results can only fit into the terrain of abracadabra.
All the rage in Nigeria today is about the gubernatorial election in Edo State where INEC declared the APC candidate Senator Monday Okpebholo the winner.
President Tinubu who had earlier promised that he would make sure his party won the election has since stressed that APC’s victory shows the people’s support for his policies!
A yacht for Mr. President!
Nigerian politicians have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing in the quest to grab old power.
Anything goes, and the good name of democracy is dangerously damaged in the circumstances.
Let it be known to all that one malfeasance in a corner of the country can end up leading to a national conflagration.
Back in time, the talk was of the “wild, wild West” where crude election rigging led to the torching of desperate politicians through “Wetie” human bonfires.
The impunities led to a coup and ultimately the tragic civil war.
It’s obvious the country’s politicians have not learnt any lessons whatsoever and are so giddily leading the country to the precipice.
These devil-may-care politicians are quite desperate to eviscerate the normal rule of law that ought to be the hallmark of a true democracy.
Nobody, no matter how highly placed, should be allowed the impunity of suborning the due process.
There is the shameful case of former Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello who had been declared a wanted man by the EFCC having the temerity of walking into the EFCC headquarters and walking away free.
Let’s sing the old-new National Anthem in patriotism: Nigeria we hail thee!
Astonished Nigerians must perforce accept rank nonsense as unimpeachable sense.
I never get tired of stressing that shamelessness is the vilest disease.
Totalitarianism has completely emasculated democracy in the scheme of things.
Dictatorship is being celebrated by toadies and court jesters without knowing the dire consequences facing Nigeria.
The parliament that is billed to do the checks and balances is now the lapdog of the executive.
It has to be stressed that the only difference between military rule and democracy is the presence of the legislative arm.
After every coup, what the military sacks is the parliament.
Now the parliament is nowhere to be found, and the judiciary is a pathetic waste of time that is readily dismissed with the quip: “Go to court!”
Of course this serves the intents and purposes of the authors of misrule in this benighted country that now bears the legend of Dante’s Inferno: “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!”
There are some commentators who aver that attention should be paid to pressing issues in the country such as preaching national unity instead of spending time on insisting on the proper conduct of democracy.
For me, the crucial issue is that there can be no greater disruption of unity than the compromising of democracy.
Using ethnicity and religion to compound matters can only be a dead end, and toying with the will of the people leads to damnation.
The ground rules of democracy ought to be in place for this country to ever crow in the comity of nations about being democratic.
The sad matter is that the ruling politicians are exempt from the rules of mere mortals, and we claim to be practicing democracy.
The new dawn being touted in Nigeria is all about planting a man speaking unprintable grammatical errors as the helmsman of a state.
State capture can last for so long, but even this too shall pass…
Let me end with the fortune-teller’s quote from the play This Is Our Chance by James Ene Henshaw way back in 1956: “A mighty wind shall blow, a great rain shall fall, much harm shall be done. But out of destruction there shall be calm, and all shall not be the same again.”
Irrepressible Chinua Achebe gave the world a book before he died: There Was A Country.
My nod to that title is this: There Was A Democracy.
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is a renowned poet, journalist and author
