...Some people say that Nigeria’s problem is corruption, but I do not agree! Not that I am in support of corruption, or that I am saying there is no corruption in Nigeria.
I disagree because to my mind, corruption is a symptom of a social disease that stunts development. That disease is known as parochialism.
We have been having challenges with combating corruption in Nigeria, because we have been focusing on the symptom of a disease. And then eventually like now, it becomes like the egg and chick dilemma – which is first. If the rest of us cannot speak about issues with one voice, and act on them with one resolve, then, corruption will be with us big time, for a long while!
Politicians in Nigeria have found out that so long as they can find ways to keep the populace divided along parochial lines, they will always get their ways by playing their game cards along those lines, and removing the focus of the populace from issues through which they, the politicians can be held accountable by the populace.
Issues like how people are elected into any political office in Nigeria.
If Nigerian politicians are really voted for, and they get to win elections based on actual votes from legitimate electorates who know what they want, who they voted for and why they voted for those persons, when those politicians get to whatever offices at which they need to serve the people that voted them into those offices, they will behave themselves because, they know they would have to get back to ask those same electorates, to vote for them again.
But that is not the situation right now. Nigerian Politicians are accountable only to a flawed electoral system characterized by an unreliable voters’ register, multiple single persons’ thumb prints of ballot papers and illegally stuffed ballot boxes, as revealed by former Cross River State governor Donald Duke; and they had been smiling to Aso Rock, and then to their banks, stashing away funds with which they continue to legitimatize parochialism.
Why, because they can afford to take a largely ignorant and divided electorate for granted, since the politicians did not need them to get ‘elected’ in the first place.
This is one of the reasons why we need to have a credible, and constantly updatable voters’ register.
It is also a reason for which all Nigerians that are qualified to vote at elections should go out and vote, at all elections, like happened in 1993.
When we are able to conduct credible elections, and politicians become accountable to a legitimate electorate, corruption that is linked to politics (which is actually the largest form of corruption, and the one that directly impacts on development in Nigeria), should die a natural death.
Simplistic you say?
I do not think so...
----BIAFRA:LEST WE FORGET!
2 comments:
The book is well thought off,but the question is will this book get to the source or better still the target?i mean our so called politicians.
@brnnenna, thanks a lot for your comment.
But please note that the first thing is that we all need to do our parts. I have written this book, it is not just about the politicians, it is about all of us, I have told a story, it is up to all of us. If we say because someone might not do what is expected of him or her, and so the rest of us also decide not to do our parts, then the change we all crave is not going to happen anytime soon.
If we make it a habit to do our own parts where ever we find ourselves, whether in private or public service, it then becomes easier to fish out and address those that are not doing what is expected of them.
Take voting at elections for instance, most elites do not go to vote because, like former governor Donald Duke said, they reason that for instance, '...three clowns are out for an office, so there is no need to go to vote,because whatever happens, a clown would win..' That is not a good position to take. A voided ballot paper is still better than not voting.
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