Big Lie: Naija Democracy and The Pple

There is, today, a feeling of
despondency and disillusionment
running through every stratum of
our society because the hope of the
people in the national-democratic
freedom have been dashed by the
big lie of pseudo-democracy –
government of money for money;
the pursuits of the old, dreary tricks
of self-advancement – bribery and
blackmail, flattery and gossip,
playing off one section of the
country against another.

The
leading men in politics today seem
to have lost sight of the true duties
of leaders in a democracy – the re-
education of the masses in the spirit
of freedom and the raising of their
living standards.
Our politicians have forgotten that
democracy is not realized merely
because the people are allowed, at
periodic intervals, to elect their
rulers, but only when ministering to
the needs of many are made the
guiding principle of state policy and
when people participate in power
and property without which the
dispossessed become dissatisfied
and irresponsible and social stability
is thereby endangered.

Its a known fact is that a free tongue
without a full stomach is weak, and
democracy will be meaningless to
one who has no work, no home, no
education and no decent clothing. A
change of person in government is
not democracy anymore than a
change of clothes denotes moral
regeneration. What Nigerians need
is a change of things, a better life
for the masses for whom life has
become so sad, so tawdry and so
stagnant.
There is danger today in Nigeria
that mass unemployment, tribalism
and corruption might disrupt the
social fabric. But these evils can be
checked if the entire resources of
the nation are mobilized to tackle
them, if extensive public works and
industrialization are pursued and
comprehensive systems of
cooperatives, trade and technical
education are established and
leading men set the highest
example.
It is laughable that Nigeria
politicians argue that the reason for
our slow pace of development is
lack of money because it should be
clear enough to even the simplest of
minds that what we need is neither
Naira and kobo, US dollar nor British
pound but trained men and women,
for with knowledgeable cadres, our
inexhaustible supplies of energy,
roots, nuts, leaves and mineral
resources will be turned into wealth.
Is it not a wonder that our
governments at various levels have
not thought seriously of integrating
adult education with our Universal
Basic Education and Community
Development Schemes. For it is
shortsighted to believe we can lift a
child from the morass of ignorance
and superstition without raising the
levels of its home environment or
the awareness of the parents; and
without educating the masses on
rights and responsibilities of
citizenship.
There has been in Nigeria of today,
a little too much “pragmatism”, a
little too much dissembling and
hypocrisy, a little too much
patchwork and “covering up” of
ineptitude and outmoded
institutions. And it is a fact that in
any society where a governing elite,
faced with wide social inequality,
mass poverty and conspicuous
waste of limited resources, resorts
to a systematic denial of its earlier
pro-people slogans, such an elite
class is bound to be challenged by a
frustrated younger generation
whose future is left in jeopardy.
Herein lays the relevance of rise of
different militant groups and militia
men across Nigeria.

instead of laying the
blame for the ethnic and religious
tension pervading the land on the
appropriate quarters the nation’s
ruling elite prefers to play the
ostrich and pretend to be finding
solution where it does not reside.
This deepening sense of
helplessness and hopelessness
resulting from the misrule of the
various wings of the Nigeria ruling
class since independence have
been responsible for driving the
country to the edge at various times
thereby giving rise to uprisings that
continue to task the unity of the
country. Most of these uprisings,
whether they are religious or ethnic,
have succeeded in pitting the poor
Nigerians against one another, while
the sponsors of such conflicts
continue to partake of love feasts,
contract sharing, looting, company
directorship, chieftaincies and the
misguided application of our
national patrimony.
If tomorrow must come, the task
ahead of all patriots in the land is to
partake in enlightening the
predominantly illiterate people on
the need for vigilance and
continued education on the
character of the so-called democracy
being practised by the ruling elite
with the view to understanding
what it takes to build a national
democratic culture. They must be
brought to the consciousness that
the ethnic and religious champions,
either of the East, North, South or
West have never defended and
would never defend the oppressed
Nigerians in their different enclaves
against massive retrenchment,
arbitrary laws, levies and taxes of all
kinds.

We
must struggle for provision of full
employment of all available men
and materials as well as de-vesting
of the vested interests – the chiefs,
landlords, legislators, members of
the executive arm of government,
feudalists and other agents of
foreign capitals – without which
democracy will be a sham, a regime
of cats feeding on the rats.
Democracy, its weal and its woe, is
for all to share but even freedom is
not enough without a fuller life for
the masses which only mass
participation in democracy can
guarantee to them.

Dayo Olagunju, Ph. D
X6B Sunnyvale Homes,
Abuja.
deekayhoo@yahoo.com