http://felixucheakam.com/two-fingers-of-a-leprous-hand/
Again, they have pulled a smart one on us and we seem to be falling foolishly to their tricks. The Supreme Court judgment that restored the leadership of the People’s Democratic Party to Ahmed Makarfi is meant to dominate public discourse and distract attention. When we call it victory for democracy, we reformat our memory, reset our psychology, and get ready to install second batch of rogues on the bench. Nothing happens in Nigeria without secret meeting. The days ahead will reveal the politics in-between the ruling; only then we can realize that the judgment was delivered for some people. Whatever tags they go with, the two parties that have led us at the national level are two fingers of a leprous hand.
Distraction has been the strategy of the political class to continue dominating the masses because we are horrible students of history. The Dasuki Gate, Ikoyi raid, the corrupt justices of the Supreme Court, Nnamdi Kanu’s comrades in prison custody, the suspended SGF David Babachir Lawal, etc are already dumped in the incinerator of public forgetfulness. As soon as one issue comes up, we forget the former. National amnesia is how psychologists describe a collective tendency of a people to bury history and vibrant with exorbitant enthusiasm on petty issues. This may be just one of the reasons why restoring Nigeria to all Nigerians may be difficult.
Any group who moves to win her freedom must open multiple war fronts for the oppressor. No issues, no mistakes against public morality committed by a regime should be left to die unaddressed. Shouting out these mistakes have multiple advantages. The people have more options when they come on the table. These force the oppressor into tight corner making him fall into exorbitant concession. Dog-vigilance also inclines the oppressor to walk with caution, paying attention to all that matters since every wrong opens wound on the reputation of the regime making it more vulnerable to public attack. Vigilance demands asking powerful questions on issues of national interest especially the ones the oppressors do not like to answer. It does not matter how long the oppressor chooses to ignore the citizens; the questions, the ignoring all add up to inflaming public anger.
Nigerian institutions are decayed such that the moral headquarters of churches are among the worst hit. We are able to arrive here because we played along with the oppressors at each stage. They know our psychology and always manipulate; that is why we lack platform today to unite our tears and form ravaging flood to sweep the enemies and all institutions built with our stolen money.
In “Let the Funeral Begin” we propose the need to bury the present structure by evicting the hippos and building a new social contract on the philosophy of “Humanizing”. Humanizing calls for two actions- rejection and drain-the-ponds. Rejections enjoins us abandon every role that has made it possible for the present structure to persist irrespective of whatever party that is in power. The philosophy of ‘drain-the-pond’ is a call to use the fishery technique of sorting to separate all political big bellies who have enriched themselves with our resources and lost characters humans in order to create a new society of men.
We cannot plot the downfall of the present graph of oppression by walking through familiar paths. If we dissolve into parties, we will end up with the same system that has manifested its incapability to work. Our problem is no longer a party but a system set by elite parties. The APC is an old error called PDP with a new label recycling familiar faces most of them on life supporting machines at tax payers’ monies. The PDP did the killing using as foot soldiers; the APC did the funeral before us as mourners. They set up system that disenfranchises us, rejects our votes, and allows them access to common purse every four years.
Since we cannot destroy the system through votes, we need to reset the password and lock them out. Once a password is reset, they can no longer log in. That is the change we long for. That change is not with any party with elite anointing nor will it be granted by any regulatory institution set up by the diseased system. It is in our ability to pull our will together as nucleus members of the society. It is our ability to unite our sorrows, our anger, our pains; and where they catch fire we should allow them burn. The billows of smoke will send clear that there is limit to oppression. If we wait for another party to come before making our dissatisfaction public, they will always use our cries to campaign. Then our hope we be like ‘Jesus is coming very soon.’ With repeated mistakes of the APC, the remaining two years may be just that time we need to reset our system with our voices.
Falling for any of any of the parties is like selling dog to buy monkey. Their national dramas are but psychotherapy designed to massage the political ego of party fanatics and prepare them always for another round of damage. If we lower the velocity our present demand for restructuring or secession, I am just afraid our chance of seeing a beautiful system may be in heaven; and woe to you if you don’t make it there.
Meanwhile, a group of young Nigerians has invited us to join their page with the campaign tag: “Our-mumu-don-do”. How I love that name!