By Abadom Lawrence Amechi
OUR DEMOCRACY should be more important to us now than anything else. If we get it right democratically, everything else will fall into place.
The greatest challenge to democracy today is our faulty leadership recruitment process and our lack of belief in this nation. Every ethnic group wants to dominate the others. It is difficult to find people genuinely in love with this arrangement called Nigeria. There are no patriots. Our allegiance is to our ethnic groups, not to Nigeria.
Our political space has always been a theatre of the absurd. Our politicians, not just Oshiomhole, have learned to act different roles depending on what is at stake and the gain involved. There is no difference between Oshiomhole and Akpabio or any other senator. It has not been recorded anywhere that Adams Oshiomhole raised objections to the many borrowing bills and other initiatives of this government that Nigerians find unacceptable.
No ethnic group can dominate Nigeria. We must understand that, and the earlier we do, the better for us. Entrenching a system that guarantees equity and fairness will benefit us all. Our politics has become an inter-ethnic war fought with insults and abuses. It has diminished people we used to respect. It has exposed the putrefying hypocrisy of religious and traditional institutions.
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In 2022 we saw alleged bishops in tattered cassocks and hoods. I wonder how they look today, after 3 years of unapologetic hardship unleashed on the nation by the government they gave spiritual backing.
So, let’s stop fighting for tribe and start voting for character?
When you see the video alleged to have been recorded in Ekiti, with people running and jumping to pick bread, noodles, biscuits, etc. thrown from moving cars and trucks a day before the governorship election, you will understand that poverty and economic hardship are intentionally designed.
They give the ruling elites the flexibility to control the political destiny of working people. Our leaders use poverty as a tool for control, and the people do not understand it. The elites also understand that the hallucinations of religion and tribalism are effective tools for political manipulation.
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What a politician will do in Ekiti to win an election is what an Edo politician will do in his state, and the same for Anambra and every other state in the nation. The Ekiti election has come and gone. A winner has emerged. Those who disagree will go to court, as usual.
There is nothing you can do today that will stop a man who has not eaten since yesterday from collecting ₦20,000 in exchange for his vote. A hungry person cannot think clearly. That is why the Indians say the only way God can appear to a hungry person is through food. Politicians have weaponized hunger as a strategy for winning elections, and it is working for them.
They have succeeded in dividing us along ethnic lines. They have succeeded in using religious leaders to put a leash on our necks. They have succeeded in impoverishing us, making sure we cannot think right. One day, they will arm us against one another, and we will gladly go after each other.
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When you see Senator Adams Oshiomhole take on the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, the NNPCL unaccounted N210 trillion scandal or speak on illegal mining, you are forced to say: “Wow, this is a truthful and courageous man.”
Elites are united in enslaving the working masses. Unfortunately, when they disagree, probably over sharing our common patrimony, they whip up tribal and religious sentiments, knowing full well that the working masses will fight a war they know nothing about.
But it is the same Oshiomhole who has not seen anything wrong with the ruinous leadership of the APC since 2015 that has crippled our economy and unleashed insecurity on the ordinary people. It is the same Oshiomhole who said that when you join APC, your sins are forgiven. It is the same Oshiomhole who played every role to ensure that Senator Monday Okpebholo emerged as governor of Edo State.
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Our political space has always been a theatre of the absurd. Our politicians, not just Oshiomhole, have learned to act different roles depending on what is at stake and the gain involved. There is no difference between Oshiomhole and Akpabio or any other senator. It has not been recorded anywhere that Adams Oshiomhole raised objections to the many borrowing bills and other initiatives of this government that Nigerians find unacceptable.
It is not impossible that one day, Yahaya Bello, former governor of Kogi State, who is now struggling to enter the next Senate, will start activism against corruption, bad governance, electoral malpractices, and breach of process. Before long, some people will start to see him as the upright politician we need, ignoring past allegations of graft against him by the EFCC.
Many people have forgotten today that Chibuike Amaechi, Nasir el-Rufai, and Atiku Abubakar were among the principal actors who unleashed the APC on us. They are still struggling to bring in the ADC. The Senate, the entire National Assembly, and indeed our whole political space are replete with “successful” people whose backgrounds are not morally attractive.
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Even if Okowa or Oshiomhole becomes the next Senate President, since it is zoned to the South-South, that is, if the APC still controls the Senate after 2027 election, there is no assurance that the 11th Senate will be better than the 10th Senate. For the average Nigerian to think that politicians care about what they feel or go through is the highest form of delusion. What gets to the common masses are the crumbs that fall from the masters’ tables.
If the Biafran nation becomes possible, it is the Biafran elites who will enslave the working masses of Biafra. The same thing will happen if Oduduwa State is realized or Arewa State. The struggle is not ethnic. It is between the working masses and the elites. Supporting the slave master from your ethnic group only deepens your own misery.
Elites are united in enslaving the working masses. Unfortunately, when they disagree, probably over sharing our common patrimony, they whip up tribal and religious sentiments, knowing full well that the working masses will fight a war they know nothing about.
A politically unconscious working mass is the joy of ruinous and exploitative political elites. It makes manipulation easier. That is what is happening now in Nigeria as we push towards the 2027 elections.
Comrade Amechi is a Lagos-based trade union activist and pro-democracy advocate.
