Nigerians should stop dissipating their energies on frivolous protest. Police brutality is just one of the manifestations of an endemic decay in the structure called Nigeria. The decay is a product of the electoral system that is faulty and prone to manipulation by charlatans and mediocre men who know nothing about good governance.
Politics to the current leadership at all levels and in every organ of government is about self-enrichment and aggrandizement.
The leadership recruitment process has to be urgently and expediently reformed. The protest should be about the electoral reform. The current which has moved from end SARS to stop police brutality is a scattergun that will end in futility.
We are tired of thugs and ragamuffins who consistently come to power through this faulty electoral process to mess up the country. No country can grow with this kind of electoral system. It is incapable of producing the quality of leaders that are needed to move this country forward.
Until power returns to the people freely and fairly, Nigeria will continue to face inhuman treatment like police brutality, extortion, erratic power supply and misappropriation of its commonwealth. What is needed to normalize the system and put it on the path of growth and development is #ElectoralReform. Reform that will make election seamlessly free and fair, and without intimidation, victimization, incineration, maiming and killing.
Under this condition good governance will continue to elude the country as the current “elected” occupants of all the arms of government at all levels know that it is still the barrel of the gun that determines who remains in power. That is why they are arrogant and callous.
Our grouse as a people, in my own sense should be about this incomplete electronic voting system that has robbed us the power to choose our own leaders. The current leaders are not accountable to us, they are accountable to their guns and killer thugs. Election in Nigeria is war, it makes the country to appear like a jungle. We cannot continue like this.
In getting out of this mess, this writer must say for the umpteenth time that our agitation now should be to compel General Muhammadu Buhari as our own president to set up a committee to modify our voting system in line with what is obtainable in the UK. A system that produced Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May. These were selfless and patriotic leaders that thought Britain first. They were not like Nigerian leaders who allegedly take bribe from multinational companies like Multichoice, MTN, Cocoa-cola, etc., to shortchange their nationals.
The British are who they are (refined) because their system makes them accountable and transparent. Primitivity (in most barbaric form) interms of rapacious accumulation of wealth at the expense of the people is abhorred in Britain. That is why the country is great.
The earlier the British electoral system is modelled, the better for the unity of Nigeria. Nigerians are falling short of their equanimity. I’m afraid the country is on the verge…it is obviously symptomatic.
Mohammed Lawal Shuaibu
