WHEN people suggest that our faulty leadership recruitment process should be left unchallenged, and the critical minds should allow the will of God to prevail, I’m always thrown into the wilderness of bewilderment.
I know that all over the world, there is no democratic system that started as a perfect one. They all came with a deluge of imperfections, and over time, through struggles and advocacy by patriotic citizens, they were able to attain their present level of sanity and civility.
“Down through the ages, can we say that all the injustices and man’s inhumanity to man represent the will of God and should have been allowed to prevail? In Latin there’s a popular maxim that says: ‘vox pouli vox Dei’, meaning, ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God.’ Every voice expresses a will. If the voice of the people which expresses their will is the voice of God, then the will of the people is the will of God.”
Without organised civil society, democracy will suffer diabolical manipulations. Responsible citizens must always act as the conscience of their society. Civil society monitor government policies and actions and hold government accountable. They engage in advocacy and offer alternative policies for government, the private sector, and other institutions. It is this intellectual and civil task of patriotic citizens that make nations grow and nothing more. Nation-building is largely not a spiritual exercise.
There is this reluctance by ruling elites to allow change especially if existing status quo provides comfort for them. Going through all layers of history – prehistory, ancient history, Middle Ages, modern history, and contemporary history.
The pages of history are replete with human struggle against entrenched forces of oppression, domination, injustice, etc. The people who benefit from the status quo resent change. It is painful and repulsive. Evil appears to be permitted by nature, so that we should strive against it, in faith, and hope, and charity. Our creator expects that we must never quail before it because of its extent and duration; never feel as if its power were greater than that of goodness.
One great part of the mission of every man on earth is to contend with evil in some of its forms; and there are some so dependent on opinion, that every man, in judging and reproving them faithfully, does something towards their removal. Let us not, then, shrink from the contemplation of human sufferings. Even sympathy, if we have nothing more to offer, is a tribute acceptable to the Universal Father. We must always stand up to resist what is wrong in our society. The will of God is not enclosed in the dark recesses of injustice. Those talk about the will of God are only being emotionally fraudulent.
There was great inequality in medieval society because of the distribution of land and wealth. The nobility was able to raise large amounts of money from payments from peasants living on their land. Peasants were usually villains. The feudal mindset is based on principles of greed, arrogance, exploitation, torture and corruption. Feudalism neither treated the peasantry equally nor allowed them to move up in society. A person born a serf was supposed to remain a serf, just as a person born a lord received special treatment without earning it. Most peasants were serfs. They were not allowed to leave their lord’s lands.
While the evil system lasted, the victim continued to groan, resisted and struggled for freedom. They never accepted it as the will of God, because God’s will does not genuflect before oppression and injustice.
If you think feudalism was evil, wait until you hear the horrible story of transatlantic slave trade. Human beings were captured and loaded into ships and transported to Europe and America and traded as wares in open markets. Colonialism followed that with its attendant exploitation, humiliation, etc.
Down through the ages, can we say that all the injustices and man’s inhumanity to man represent the will of God and should have been allowed to prevail? In Latin there’s a popular maxim that says: ‘vox pouli vox Dei‘, meaning, ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God.’ Every voice expresses a will. If the voice of the people which expresses their will is the voice of God, then the will of the people is the will of God.
“Social justice includes a vision of society that is equitable and all members are physically and psychologically safe and secure. Social order can only be attained through the behaviour of individuals to abide by the shared social contracts that entail laws, rules, values, standards, and norms. If your behaviour and position on national issues are determined by religious and tribal considerations, then you are not a patriot.”
Those who are telling Peter Obi and Labour Party to allow the will of God to prevail are being subtly and diabolically mischievous. The will of God in the February 25th presidential election is the votes cast. God has no other will in 2023 elections.
The 1993 presidential election that was presumed to have been won by Chief MKO Abiola, of blessed memory, was the will of the people and that was why all Nigerians mounted a very strident opposition against its annulment by the then military junta led by Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. It was not abandoned just because some people think it was the will of God for it to be annulled.
The struggle for its actualisation led to the return of democracy in 1999. Some of the leaders in that struggle who have suddenly become confidential secretary to God and are privy to the will of God were spiritually inept then, and couldn’t decipher the demography of the crystal ball. The goal of social justice is to ensure that everyone in a society gets full and equal participation that is mutually shaped to meet their needs. Social justice includes a vision of society that is equitable and all members are physically and psychologically safe and secure. Social order can only be attained through the behaviour of individuals to abide by the shared social contracts that entail laws, rules, values, standards, and norms. If your behaviour and position on national issues are determined by religious and tribal considerations, then you are not a patriot.
All over the world, democracy helps to deepen jurisprudence. Judiciary is the strength and pillar of democracy. Without the judiciary, democracy will produce anarchy, chaos and social disorder. Going to court is a civilised way of trying to seek redress for a perceived injustice, wrong or deviation from established democratic norm. All cases in court should be allowed to run through; and all of us – Labour, Obidients, APC and PDP – must be prepared to accept the ruling of the court.
Anyone or group advising Mr Peter Obi to withdraw his case in court is an enemy of democracy. The will of God cannot exist outside the rule of law, except we are saying that God does not respect laws of nations.
Comrade Amechi, a trade unionist and pro-democracy activist, writes from Lagos.
