NIGERIA AND THE IRONY OF ITS DEMOCRACY.

Am sitting here trying to put a write up on Nigeria and I find different emotions running through me from bewilderment, disdain, anger to that of fear. At a time when nations are progressing despite the multitude of problems facing them, Nigeria is retrogressing faster than any other nation under heaven.

Since I have had knowledge of my surroundings and particular my nationality, I have known that Nigeria has never been a safe place to live as armed robbery and the likes displaced families and marred that season with their actions. Years have gone past and we have moved from that face of armed robbery to greater issues of terrorism happening within our borders and to establishing a democracy that is an irony of itself.

Looking back at my teenage years, all I can ask myself is "How did our Nigeria get here?" At some point in our national history, people were imprisoned for their social activism and political affiliations but these days, people are murdered on a weekly basis for their religious beliefs and I wonder when it became a crime to practise Christianity in the Northern Nigeria. I thought freedom of religion was a fundamental human right guaranteed by the country's constitution..maybe I am wrong. I also used to think that though our tribe, tongue and religion may differ, we would stand in unity and even though our leaders may be robbing and playing us for fools, we will all stand together. I guess am wrong as usual.

One of the primary reasons why the U.S and UK Armies are present in Afghanistan is to protect its citizens from terrorist acts as we all know that if these governments do not tackle the said terrorism, Britons and Americans will be more susceptible than ever to terrorist attacks. Whist power starved and/or drunken individuals keep fostering terrorism in the country, our dear government has decided to take these issues in its stride like those dying are not its citizens and the government is sending troops to Guinea Bissau in an attempt to play the big brother like our own security is not enough for us to deal with.

I have seen a trend in GEJ's government, which makes extremely apprehensive of Nigeria's future and indeed the so-called democracy we have. I have also been forced to ask myself if we weren't better as a nation under the Queen's government than we are now. The question then becomes, Has independence done us more good than harm? I may be young, naive, un-intelligent, not properly schooled or even lack the finesse of a skilled writer/observer, but I am yet to see the benefits of Independence and/or democracy.

During the peaceful protest against subsidy removal by the GEJ government, I watched with shock as GEJ dispatched army officer's to ban Nigerian citizens from exercising their human rights. Also, in more recent times, GEJ announced the change of name of UNILAG to MAULAG and the news did not go down well with at least 80% of the Nigerian population, which resulted in protests by the students of the institution and an uproar from a considerable number of alumni and other well meaning Nigerians.

Like the previous time, GEJ's government announced that it will not rescind its decision and after the Nigerian populace had educated the government that the purported name change was void ab initio, GEJ and his cohorts sent a bill to the senate, which was unanimously passed.

These two events stand in my heart and makes me question what Democracy means to GEJ and his Senators, I thought "...it was a government for the people" and if government decision was unpopular, it will be reconsidered and most likely rescinded because power lies with the people.

However, it has finally dawned on me that GEJ might just be another Bashar Al-Hassad who got into government with a fake and properly doctored popularity and who once the populace demanded re-instatement of civil rights, political reforms, end of state of emergency and some other measures of accountability turned on the said populace and has up till date killed about 14,000 Syrians with violence.

It seems to me that if Nigerians had continued the protest against subsidy removal or protest against any government policy the Army would also be used to suppress Nigerians as done earlier and if need be open violence on citizens to get the desired result.

I sincerely hope this does not become the plight of Nigerians and I also hope that the spate of bombing does not move to other parts of Nigeria and whilst it becomes a thing of the past in Northern Nigeria.

Not trying to be an unpatriotic citizen with my reasoning in this post and particularly with Nigeria's independence just trying to analyse issues objectively.

p.s. On the Farouk Lawan and Femi Otedola  saga, I never knew Nigerians could be so comical.

Yours Always,

Tola Elesho

Integrity will preserve us as a nation.

While we were celebrating yesterday with the Queen of the United Kingdom on her Diamond Jubilee reign over the country, news filtered in at around 3:43 pm of a Dana plane crash in Nigeria and the news has since saddened our hearts, brought tears to our eyes and indeed changed our lives.

The realities of the world we live in is that there is no integrity in the hearts of men and particularly Nigerian office holders. From the news that has gone around, it has unfortunately been confirmed that the Dana Aircraft that crashed and killed all the passengers and crew members on board has a history of having faults in the past few weeks and beyond that, a history from its manufacturers and previous owners (Alaskan Airlines).

In July 2011 News of the World became involved in a phone hacking scandal and  in the wake of the allegations, the Chairman of its Parent company James Murdoch announced that due to the increasingly damaging allegations against the paper which are shocking and hugely regrettable, the paper would be closing down. It is rather noteworthy that at the time the Chairman made the decision, they had not been indicted by any committee or court but the organization took responsibility for its actions, closed its 168year old business with integrity and tried to right its wrong.

In 2007, a Chinese national named Zheng Xiaoyu, who was the Director of the Republic of China's State Food and Drug Safety Administration was executed for accepting bribes in return for approving medicines with deadly side effects.

Last week in Ghana, while a march was on at the National Stadium, there was a power outage, which affected the stadium and the Regional Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana was instantly fired for the lights out.


It is rather unfortunate that "someone, somewhere" certified that Aircraft air-worthiness and allowed its commercial usage in Nigeria's airspace and they are yet to take responsibility and vacate office neither has the president sacked or asked someone to resign.

We do not want our leaders to cry, we need some of them to vacate office and allow competent individuals to take the position.

I need everyone who thinks public officers should be held accountable and who agrees with me that Nigerians do not need to die needlessly because of people's negligence and failures to go and sign the petition on http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/call-for-resignation-of-the-director-of-ncaa-and-the-ni.html

Thank you all,

Tola Elesho.