By EBENEZER OYELAKIN
Many Nigerians are so quick to want to heap all the deluge of our problems ,particularly the security challenges upon President Muhammadu Buhari. I began to wonder if such people have sense of diligence to monitor our current democratic dispensation which began in 1999 and how we had practice our democracy in aberration of democratic intendment and we had defaulted grossly in democratic faithfulness, ethos and norms, or they simply chose to be mischievous.
1) Our elections were conducted with arms and armaments ,with serious guns battle, powered by Executive recklessness and impunity from the President Obasanjo to all the Governors; this became the norms.
2) And because it was a practice of do or die elections, perennially won at the expense of guns, bullets and blood it requires same to sustain it’s political products.
3) The role of Tafa Balogun as Inspector General of Police under Obasanjo and others is still fresh in this respect .
4) The Kidnapping of Governor Chris Igige by Obasanjo political Thugs, against the sanctity of our established National constitutional order is a good reference of Democratic aberration and abuse.
5) Militants were contracted and patronised and freely supplied with guns to rig elections in the South South and South East.
6) In the South West Criminal elements among OPC were engaged to ensure elections manipulations and were armed.
7) Many military officers, police officers and officers of the DSS were employed to not only rig elections, but supplies guns and uniforms to thurgs in order to enable them to have free movement to rig elections.
8) The Ayo Fayose Ekiti war, with hooded and armed manners of security personnel; in the name of elections comes to mind.
9) In the North, people like Former Governor Danjuma Goje built a powerful Criminal gangs Alkaleris boys or something like that was their name for the purpose of winning election at all costs
10) Then in North East Former Governor Ali Modu Sheriff had his own Army from which Boko Haram emerged and drew confidence.
11) Jos in Plateau State lost its virginity as a peaceful and most serene state in Nigeria to Wars and killings occasioned by electoral and political expediency,partisanship and criminality.
12) In all, our democracy became synonymous with impunity, wrong permissiveness and corruption.
13) Because of these gross misconducts and democratic unfaithfulness; Criminal elements easily ascended to Power and positions of authority, governing and practicing in lawlessness and above the law mentality.
14) As a nation, we lost our sense of values for human lives and become so accustomed to death and blood letting.
15) We inadvertently encouraged arms proliferation and we traded our political, democracy and electoral victory on the table of superior violence mechanism.
16) This was the democratic foundation laid for us by no other person, but Former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
17) Obasanjo carried such democratic violence with so much pride that he kill whomsoever he will to kill:Bola Ige, Harry Marshal, Dikibo and many more perished in such democratic violence.
18) People like Sunday Awoniyi, even Audu Ogbe suffered electoral violence, at PDP internal elections level; being forced to resigned chairmanship of PDP at Guns point.
This is how we arrived here, in the flame of conflagration of violence, killings with impunity and flood of blood in our land
It is all products of our demonstration of craze headed and kick started by PDP /Obasanjo instead of the democracy which we bargained for.
President Buhari underestimated how bad things had gone. He is only to the rescue. He was not and has never been part of our problems. Let the truth be told and let good conscience speak out.
Let us all unite to support the corrections President Buhari is carrying out, let us unite against forces of darkness and agents of blood letting, let us build our democracy in decency, truism and self discipline. Let us reculture our security forces to adhere to democratic faithfulness, let us as a nation move against arms proliferation and recall all illegal guns and arms from all that are illegally holding them. We must necessarily build a new national spirit and consciousness. The time is Now!!!
*Hon Ebenezer M Oyetakin, Political Sensitisations Desk.
