As 2015 general election is two years away politicians and thier allies across the divide are already overheating the polity over who occupies the Aso Rock seat of power. So whose Interest is served by the festering crises in the polity now? SAMSON EZEA reports:
DEMOCRACY, according to one-time United States President, Abraham Lincoln, is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. A government that is to be upheld by all freedom loving people and not just the select few who hold a seat in the state.
It is also a government to be free of injustice that would violate the country’s laws. It is by far the most challenging form of government – both for politicians and the people.
With 14 years of uninterrupted democratic governance in Nigeria, majority of Nigerians are yet to see the proof that democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people. It has obviously become more of the government of the few, for the select few at the expense of the suffering majority. It has been more of bogus promises during electioneering campaigns, but less delivery while in office.
Majority of wealthy people in Nigeria today are those appointed or elected into government office before and now, or those who are doing businesses with government and at the same time serve as fronts or conduit pipes to loot public funds for selfish use.
Majority of the political gladiators struggling to grab political power don’t have the interest of the majority of the people at heart. Experiences in the last 14 years of democracy in the country have shown clearly that the political class have not faired well with power and the country’s resources.
That is why almost two years to the 2015 general elections, politicians and their foot soldiers are already overheating the political atmosphere through their unguarded utterances, actions and inactions over who will emerge the president of the country in 2015.
This is when some of them are not sure of being alive by then to witness the election. This is also at a time that the country is under security siege, considering the level of insecurity across the country with Boko Haram insurgency as the greatest threat.
From the North to the South, elected leaders, politicians, religious leaders and elder statesmen have been threatening fire and brimstone over who occupies Aso Rock Villa in 2015. Their threats depend on where their personal interests lie and not that of majority of Nigerians who cannot afford three square meals a day or have shelters to lay their heads.
The threats, which are already overheating the polity, are assuming ethnic and religious dimensions which majority of Nigerians believe is very dangerous for the unity of the country and upholding of good governance which the leaders were elected into office for.
While the major opposition parties, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and others are closing ranks to form a major opposition party with the sole aim of grabbing power from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the ruling party is also leaving no stone unturned to ensure that it retains power at the centre without minding whose ox is gored.
For members of Northern Elders Forum led by Alhaji Maitama Sule, it is either the Presidency returns to the North in 2015 or nothing. But the people of the South zone, especially the South-South zone, are also insisting that President Jonathan must complete two terms in office whether the North likes it or not.
The crisis in the PDP between the governors and the party’s leadership initially, has degenerated into a crisis between the Presidency and some PDP governors. It has also led to the suspension of the Rivers State governor, Mr Chibuike Amaechi. It has also trailed the outcome of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) which has polarised the governors into anti-Jonathan and pro-Jonathan camps.
Indeed, it is already affecting governance in most states across the country, as most governors spend much time now in Abuja for meetings after meetings on how to either grab power in 2015 or retain it.
In Anambra State, ahead of next year’s governorship election, the state governor, Mr Peter Obi and his estranged kinsman and embattled national chairman of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Victor Umeh, are at each other’s throats over who controls the party’s machinery ahead of the governorship election and 2015 general election. The battle is now thriving on the pages of newspapers with name-calling, propaganda and blackmail from both camps, and in courts, where different judgments have been delivered.
No one knows how the battle will end before the Anambra governorship election and 2015 general election and billions of public funds have been thrown into the crisis by both camps at the expense of the people of the state.
In all these crises and hullabaloo ahead of 2015 general elections, those at the receiving end of it all are the impoverished Nigerians. Have Nigerians forgotten that today, just six months to end of the year, this year’s budget has not been finally passed into law?
This is due to the lingering differences between the executive and legislature on the amendment of some sections of the bill. Most state governments have not implemented half of this year’s budget.
Some have refused to pay workers in their states the minimum wage of N18,000 despite the huge public funds the governors corner every month as security vote in the midst of overwhelming insecurity that is reigning nationwide.
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