I hear that the Supreme Court-appointed governor of Imo State, Mr. Hope Uzodimma, resents being called the Supreme Court-appointed governor. And as an exhibition of his discomfiture, the man is seeking to criminalise or make enemies of all those who refer to him, correctly to my mind, like that.
But all men and women of conscience must have felt outraged by the manner the Supreme Court of the land made Uzodimma governor. And I think in his heart of hearts he must acknowledge that he cannot be correctly described as the democratically elected governor of Imo because he was not democratically elected by a majority of the people of Imo state as governor to preside over their affairs.
To my mind, it is only fair for him to be constantly reminded about how he got to that place. Such a tactic will serve to prick his conscience and the consciences of all those who subverted the will of the people to do what they did for him and for themselves. That will also serve as a deterrent to those who contemplate to get to power through modes not prescribed by the laws of the land.
The impunity in our land and in all of Africa may not be stopped by our meekly endorsing aberrations that have appearances of legality. We must not confer legitimacy on people who subvert the will of the people because they have power or money or influence. Words may appear not as powerful as guns but their impact sometimes can be more powerful than guns.
I remember that when the Pakistani soldiers overthrew the democratically elected President Zia Ul-Hag whom they eventually hanged judicially, what gave them the greatest headache was when they were reminded that the country’s constitution forbade anyone or group from subverting its provisions. The soldiers said that they had not subverted the constitution but that they had merely suspended it! But suspending the constitution was a way of breaching or subverting it. Words have power.
This brings me to the recent coup in Mali and ECOWAS subsequent move to abort the popular coup because it is, according to that club of the regional bloc leaders, unfashionable to stage coups to remove leaders (their club members) who are subverting the will of the people.
Since the formation of the Organisation of African Unity and its change to the African Union and the existence of various regional blocs, these bodies hardly act in the interest of the ordinary peoples of Africa. Rather, they see themselves as primarily there to defend the interest of their brother heads of state.
Consequently impunity on the part of African leaders has increased. In the OAU days no one could express horror at the wickedness of one African leader against some of his people because it was the ‘’internal affairs’’ of the leaders of such offending countries. This allowed a dictator like the late Seuko Toure of Guinea to give his challenger for presidential power, Diallo Telli, what he mischievously called ‘’Black Diet’’.
He was starved to death after being kept in an underground prison in complete darkness and denied food or water for over 60 days. His brother heads of States allowed him commit that cruel murder because it was the ‘’internal affairs’’ of Guinea Conakry!Regional blocs and continental bodies such as the EU exist to promote the well being and welfare of their common nations and the peoples of those countries.
But from Africa always comes something stupid as one European philosopher had famously remarked. Here our continental body and regional blocs exist to undermine the will of the people and to protect their ‘’union members’’.
When Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was misbehaving in Mali, rigging election to keep himself in power against the will of the people, what did ECOWAS do? Its leaders did not rebuke him sternly and called for the right thing to be done because they themselves do exactly the same thing or are contemplating doing exactly the same thing.
What happened in Mali is good for Africa because it will serve to remind our leaders that they still have to fear the real opposition political party in their countries who can wrestle power violently from them if they are not ready to play by the rules. That opposition party is the military.Rather than make progress, much of Africa is in retrogression because of leaders who feel that once they are in power no one can remove them. They do as they please. They recruit some unscrupulous elements in some of our institutions like the judiciary and the state security apparatuses to ride roughshod over the people and the laws laid down to guide living in the country.
My advice to potential coup plotters who will sack unpopular governments now and in the future if the trend of misrule continues, is to look beyond the political leaders or the politicians and look down to those rouge elements in the judiciary, the election management bodies, the security agencies, etc and severely punish them.
Unless corrective coup leaders terminate the careers of these unscrupulous people or punish them in a manner that those in those institutions fear, we will not be making progress in our self-rule stride.For me, the civilian coups we are called upon to witness periodically in Africa in the name of elections are more painful than military coups.
The rogue elections that do not produce any real change when one is needed are too expensive to be tolerated for too long as we have been doing.
Today in my country Nigeria it has become one huge election territory such that I humbly advocate that Nigeria’s name should be changed from the Federal Republic of Nigeria to The Federal Republic of Elections or The Federal Elections Territory because all we seem to do is hold elections, nullify them with flimsy excuses, hold another again and point out small anomalies and hold yet more elections until a preferred candidate is declared winner. Our journalists now talk about season and off -season elections.
In fact, we have more off -season elections than the seasonal, constitutionally approved ones. Our many and often repeated elections guzzle billions of Naira that should have been invested in economic regeneration ventures. Three days ago the election tribunal nullified the Bayelsa state governorship election as part of an elaborate maneuver by the powers that be to ensure certain desired political outcomes in that state are attained.
The judges who pass these judgments never bother a hoot about what they themselves call public policy in the delivery of judgments. No one is concerned that we cannot continue to hold elections ad infinitum and forget about governance which is the essence of those very elections.
At huge payoffs, these judges continue to ruin our economy and make us look like a banana republic.I urge the great people of Mali to defy the UN, the USA and ECOWAS and their enlightened self interest and support the military boys to carry out the necessary reforms and put in place strong institutions that will guarantee that they live in dignity. That is, if the coup makers are themselves sincere and corrective redeemers. We are being raped and serially abused by our leaders too much.
The coup is good for Mali and the rest of Africa. If t will take the military to play the role of violent opposition leaders to drum sense into the politicians I think I welcome it. And all misruled Africans should welcome it too.
Concerning our conscience -pricked or conscience -tormented friend Uzodimma and his many likes in Africa, I sometimes dream like a teenager that I were a head of a guerilla press outfit somewhere in which I will continue to prick their consciences by correctly identifying them such as “INEC- anointed governor or President’’, ECOWAS-backed president’’, “Government-backed xenophobic attackers in South Africa’’, “American-backed President, French-enabled president of Cote d’ivoire, “sleeping Senator Abubakar’’, “incompetent governor Ikechukwu’’ or “Comical governor Adenuga’’, “Corrupt representative Ole Uji Karakpokpo’’ and such other derogatory identifications that will show clearly that we the people are not happy with them or the way they often come to power against our will and permission.
Idang Alibi is an Abuja- based journalist, publicist and farmer and can be reached on [email protected]
