George F Will, one of America’s best known public intellectuals, policy analyst and a syndicated columnist, once wrote an insightful piece in his weekly Washington Post column. These immortal lines, best exemplifies or more candily illustrates our warped political culture. He submits:
“There are political moments, and this might be one, in which worse is better. He was aparently referring to the emergence of Donald Trump, a none starter to the political scene in America. Unfortunately, we are at that same ignoble point where we have to accept worse as the improbable ideal.
Better is not an option. Neither is best an a factor in the equation. Our bests have been consigned to the sidelines – to enjoy the status of observers and commentators. You can’t find them in the vortex of political contestations. Why? Because they do not have neither the bravado nor the methel to brave it into the arena. Often marred by roforofo fights. This is not, in any way submitting that the field lacks decent characters. Far from it. They are far and between.
George, an award winning veteran journalist did not end his thesis there, he surmised his proding thoughts with a fitting descriptive clincher. Again, a picturesque illustration of Nigeria’s uncomplimentary situation. He offers: “Moments, that is, when a society’s per capita quantity of conspicous stupidity is so high and public manners are so low that a critical mass of people are jolted into saying “enough, already.” The conspicous stupidity often on exhibition in the public space, I make bold to subscribe is the bane of our retrogressive democracy. I therefore, join forces with the critical mass, George identified in his article, to say enough of this jaundiced political shenanigans in our clime. Enough of the regression. Enough of this miasma of indolence. And enough of this culture of silence and subjugation. Perhaps one should also add, enough of the deceit and subterfuge and buffunery.
The entire political environment is so toxic as a result of the inordinate ambitions of our supposed supretendants and magistrates.
We cannot continue to pretend as though all is well and good when, indeed, we at the verge of torpidoing, if not truncating our nascent democracy. We have forgotten too soon how some individuals exchanged their lives to procure this democracy. How some journalists including yours sincerely were involved in the demands of the day. And how journalists and rights activists were brutally murdered in cold blood. This democracy didn’t come cheap, some persons paid dearly for it. We must guard it. We must defend multi party democracy. We must not allow it to derailed. The beauty of democracy is the multiplicity of voices and options it throws up. When, once that cardinal.principle is derogated, what you’re left with is not democracy but “demonstration of craze” ala Fela. Or at best what you have is pseudo dictatorship or autocratic governance. Where dissent is a taboo.
That implies that we must detoxify the system for the sake of posterity. And the heroes of democracy- living or dead.
Certainly, George never had Nigeria in mind when he penned those words.
There are no better words to construct this season’s political moments. I mean this allignment and reallignments bode a bad omen. Of particular interest is the poetic episode in Bayelsa State, where the entire political structure of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP was passed on to the All Progressives Congress without any consideration. The man at the helm of affairs decided, willy nilly, it was time to part ways with the party that brought him into power. And that sealed the faith of PDP in the state. Bayelsans have never known any other party other than the PDP. Today, that party has lost its charm. It must be ditched or discarded like a pack of disposable pampers. Every body must follow the footsteps of the emperor. The entire members of the state assembly were herded into the new grassland. Pronto. Where the shephard goes, the sheep must follow suit. This is prebendalism at work. No one can stake his contrary views in the polity. Afterall, hewho holds the ace, dictates
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