Democracy was celebrated by all when it was returned to Nigeria by the historic effort of several Nigerian activists like Chief Ghani Fawhenmi of blessed memories and others with the kind cooperation of the tireless Retired General Abdulsalam Abubakar in 1999. The development ushered in the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with the entrance of Obasanjo/Atiku as the President/Vice President of our dear country Nigeria. We celebrated our democracy to an extent we now have democracy day being celebrated across the country yearly. We saw our political Paradise coming to a reality at the entrance of our fragile democracy by falling for so many tricks and lies done and told to us by power players and our supposed leaders, who unfortunately are there for their personal interest and not the interest of the public.
In Nigeria today, sycophancy is mostly rewarded as against rewarding sincerity. Sincerity has been tagged by our corruptible leaders as hate speech to the extent where the government ushered into power via democracy moves to “gag” the media. Insincerity is being promoted to an extent where sinners are being asked to cast stones on our relatively sincere monarch, even when it is glaring that the sinner has no moral right to stone the monarch.
The strength of a Democratic government is in the sincere function of the three arms of government (Executive, Legislature and the Judiciary) via the doctrines of separation of powers and principles of Checks and balances. But we seems to have diverted from all these ethos to enjoy personal aggrandisement blowing sirens to break the eardrums of the helpless pedestrians craning their eyes in all directions in search of their daily bread.
Until we resolve to sincerely agree that Nigeria as a country is in a fix, we may continue to live in our utopia vision. Pretence in Nigeria today is attitudinal to the extent that we see killings as normal societal activities. Terrorism is being rewarded by sponsoring terrorists to enjoy foreign Education instead of being prosecuted, while obedient Nigerians lacks basic social amenities to aid their daily activities. It has gone so bad that our politicians now encourage academic laziness among our youths by employing them into political thuggery rather than admitting them into positive political tutelage, to prepare them towards taking over leadership. The usage of an electric generator to power the Senate plenary session that sat on the bill to ban importation of the generators into Nigeria shows insincerity in us to address matters facing us. We the Nigerians must show sincerity for insincerity is the cankerworm that destroys our nation and democracy can not function where the satanic virtue is being practiced. Let’s join our hands together and make Nigeria work via commitment to our relevant governmental institutions and sincerely Nigeria will be great.
AROME ODOMA ESQ.
HUMAN RIGHT LAWYER
LOKOJA.