By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
The one-party phenomenon that ruined many African countries in the past is being regurgitated in modern-day Nigeria. It’s so obvious that gruesome tragedy is brewing all over the land that used to advertise itself as the Giant of Africa.
Nigeria has just marked 64 years of flag independence, but protesters are all over the place.The poverty and hunger overwhelming Nigerians cannot be joked about even by the most evil of masochists.
The leaders are placing politics all over everything at a time the country is almost sinking into a hole.
It’s so galling that the president had to tell his party men in the recent gubernatorial election that he would return Edo to his party with the power of his incumbency.
Even in the local government elections in Anambra State some characters whose names were not on the ballot openly boasted of getting certificates as winners because of their touted backing by Federal Might and INEC purporting to obey a spurious court order.
Everything points to the scandal of foisting a one-party state on a country that is reeling from the decay of bad governance and leadership.
Nigeria has thus become a scam. It did not start today because everything about this nation is shrouded in the kind of mystery that underscores the 419 charade. Nobody can tell for a fact the accurate population of the country. Literally all elections in the country are fixed like American TV wrestling.
The very idea of democracy in Nigeria is fraudulent.
Now that the country is marking her 64th independence anniversary it is indeed apt to highlight the season of foisting one-party totalitarianism on a hapless people. The so-called amalgamation of Nigeria in 1914 by Lord Lugard from which our colonial master Britain continues to reap from bounteously to this day is getting to the precipice.
The British that merged three unequal regions into the wobbly patchwork now known as Nigeria is still manipulating the neo-colonial land. The country inauspiciously began life somehow managing to stand on three unequal legs, and it is indeed a miracle that it is still standing today, no matter how staggeringly.
The dubious intentions of Britain on Nigeria started quite early. The very first census figures were doctored by the colonial powers to favour the North; the facts are there in the uncovered archival materials in the London library.
The 1959 elections were rigged in the interests of the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC) as opposed to the more broad-based National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) by colonial Britain. An early joiner of the West African Frontier Force (WAFF) which later metamorphosed into the Nigerian military told me they were encouraged by the British officers to learn Hausa as the language of power as far back as the 1940s and 50s! When Nigeria was embroiled in crisis in the 1960s especially in the then Western region, Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was engrossed in an escapist Rhodesia conference the army struck, killing him for his efforts and sweeping away his government.
The British crept in quickly by labelling the putsch as “Igbo coup” and helping the Northerners who were asking for “araba” (secession) to stage a bloody revenge coup.
The Nigeria-Biafra war that the country fought between 1967 and 1970 ended up as a classic crockery with the Reconstruction-Rehabilitation-Reintegration project promised by General Yakubu Gowon coming to naught.
The “No Victor, No Vanquished” slogan became just that – a mere slogan. Marginalisation is the rule rather than the exception in Nigeria. Gowon’s promise of returning power to the civilians turned into a ruse until he was overthrown by Gen Murtala Mohammed in 1975.
Murtala Mohammed was himself shot to death in Col Buka Musa Dimka’s “we are together”, “dawn to dusk” 419 coup in 1976, and he was mourned by the musicians Oriental Brothers with the song that said “Ogba egbe g’esi n’egbe la” that is, “He who kills with the gun will go by way of the gun”!
General Olusegun Obasanjo who took over and fulfilled Murtala’s promise of handing-over power to the civilians in 1979 foisted on the country a tragic caper in the Richard Akinjide-manufactured Twelve Two-Third legal arithmetic. The President Shehu Shagari civilian government initiated in such a dubious manner came to a tacky end in 1983 when the military struck on the last day of the year after a disputed 419 “moonslide” re-election gambit.
When SG Ikoku learnt of the dramatis personae of the coup he told his wife: “There is no coup. Let’s go back to sleep. Only the military wing of the ruling NPN has taken over.” Irrepressible SG Ikoku was borne out when heavy prison sentences were handed out to non-NPN politicians such as Abubakar Rimi, Ambrose Alli, Jim Nwobodo, Bisi Onabanjo, Bola Ige, etc.
For his efforts, Gen Muhammadu Buhari was toppled by the past master of the scam art, General Ibrahim Babangida, via a palace coup. Babangida ended up in utter disgrace with the greatest fiasco in capers such as the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election was.
Poor Ernest Shonekan was foisted on Nigeria as an interim regime leader until General Abacha came with fire and force to break all the records of brutality. The rehabilitation of Obasanjo who could not win an election in his local Abeokuta ward into the Nigerian civilian presidency gave democracy a Fela-style “Army Arrangement” slap.
Obasanjo tried a Third Term caper, and failing quite woefully, he installed Umoru “Are You Dead?” Yar’Adua as the president of this woebegone country.The death of Yar’Adua paved the way for the unshod Jonathan who had to be swept aside for Buhari to take his turn.
After the eight wasted years of Buhari, President Tinubu has seized his own turn, but the country is still in dire straits. The auguries point to a diabolical one-party state, but the voice of the street is crying: The fire next time!
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is a renowned poet, journalist and author
