First, let us not simplify the challenge. There are no
blacks and whites. It is not a contest between saints and demons, not one
between salvation and damnation. If anything, it is closer to a fork in the
road where uncertainty lurks - whichever choice is made. Someone in the media
has called it a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea, another between
Apocalypse and Salvation. The reasons are not far-fetched. They are firmly
lodged in the trauma of memory and the rawness of current realities. Well, at
least one can dialogue with the devil, even dine with that creature with the
proverbial long spoon. With the deep blue sea however, deceptively placid, even
the best swimmers drown. The problem for some is deciding which is the devil,
which the deep blue sea. For most, instructively, the difference is clear.
There are no ambiguities, no qualifications, no pause for reflection - they are
simply raring to go! I envy them.
Let all partisans of progress however constantly
exercise self-restraint in assessment and expectations. Facts remain facts and
should never be tampered with. Verification is nearly always available
from records and – the testimonies of witnesses. Yet memory may prove faulty,
so even those who were alive during any political regimen should exercise even
greater caution and not get carried away by partisanship in any cause, however
laudable or apparently popular.
In the interest of truth, embarrassing
though it is, we are obliged to correct all such tendencies openly, since
revisionism is a travesty of history, and never more treacherously so than in a
time of critical democratic choices. I apologize in advance to the authors of
the instance that I must now use as an example, apologize because it does not
come close to the most atrocious revisionist stances propagated in the past few
weeks. However, it is one of the most recent, is born of noble intent, but
serves to remind us of the saying that the road to hell is paved with good
intentions. From that same origination however also came a corrective, and that
very adjustment offers us optional routes in the way we deal with historical
facts, especially when we find ourselves on the same side of commitment to the
positive in a political cause.
In recalling, or commenting on any event that involves
victim and violator, there is a difference between “It never happened” or “it
was the accepted norm for the time” etc. etc. on the one hand, and, on the
other, “we have forgiven what did happen”. Both positions converge at the
point of “moving on”. One, the first, however disparages and trivializes the
suffering of – in this instance – victims of the abuse of power, dead or alive.
In so doing, it also desecrates the memory of these and other victims.
The second approach insists on its entitlement to justice, waives that right by
drawing on a store of magnanimity and even – places the violator on notice! Its
example also challenges the adamantly unforgiving, challenges them to join in
an exercise of their own capacity for obliterating the past, acting in the
collective interest, and perhaps attaining closure.
When I read the statement attributed to a scion of a
political family that his father was “not jailed” but was merely “invited for
interrogation as required by military tradition and policies then”, I felt
deeply offended, but mostly saddened. For this adjustment of reality provided
evidence of yet another lesson unlearnt. Exoneration through denial, and
without evidence of remorse or restitution by a violator is a serious lapse in
public accountability, and an invitation to a repeat by the offender – or other
aspiring emulators. In any crisis, it is not unusual to find oneself in bed with
ideologically embarrassing partners. Let it be understood that this does
not require that we actually begin to dress them in saintly robes.
What makes our situation especially galling is the
fervid intrusion of some opportunistic sanitizers who bear direct, sometimes
even originating responsibility for the plight in which a people have been
placed. These are individuals who should be doing penance, walking from one
corner of the nation to the other covered in the equivalent of ‘sackcloth and
ashes’ for their role in bringing the nation to its lamentable condition. Yet
they insist on remaining obsessively in the public face, preening themselves up
for recognition as the primary forces behind a nation’s renewed efforts to
redeem and re-determine itself. They are the promoters – actively or by default
– of the current national trauma of a Boko Haram malignancy, the
anti-corruption rhetoricians who however believe that they have literally got
away with murder. Rather than make reparations in any number of unobtrusive
ways, they impudently exploit a permissive, and despairing atmosphere for
regaining relevance. The nation should watch out for their antics, even
while exploiting them to the hilt for the overall remedial purpose. They owe
the nation. We must ensure however that they are incapacitated from making more
mischief. I am consoled that not all the Nigerian electorate is as
simple-minded and gullible as they believe.
The nation finds herself at a critical turn, where the
wrong choice places it beyond all hope of remaining intact – and by ‘intact’ I
do not refer to breast-beating mantras such as the “non-negotiability of
Nigerian sovereignty”. I am speaking here of the viability of whatever calls
itself the Nigerian nation, its functional proof, the ability to generate its
very existence and cater for the future. Since I still have some time invested
in that commodity, the future – with apologies to impatient Internet
Obituarists – it becomes impossible to refrain from direct participation in the
process of, or the encouragement of others, in the process of making a choice.
In any case, I am compromised by the wiles of unprincipled campaigners whose
pastime is to propagate a choice I have never declared. It is meagre
consolation that I am not alone in being subjected to such fraudulence. Even
the dead, who cannot answer back, have not been spared. In and out of
context, the ongoing campaign appears to have appropriated any public figure as
free-for-all material, to be quoted out of turn, his or her utterances mangled
and distorted, forced into incongruous contexts, and sometimes, even in a
counter-productive manner, although such desperate campaigners appear
blissfully unaware of this. What is being overlooked however is that,
while facts remain constant, the environment evolves, and may play a tempering
role in the very evocation of a record of the condemable acts of governance. I
am not speaking of time now – as a dulling agent of painful memory - but of the
very actualities of the present as an advocate of – at the very least –
remission.
The era of this election offers an
incontrovertible proof of that reminder. Let us leave aside for a moment the
parlous condition of the Nigerian landscape and look outwards for some
inspiration. We live in an era that we, on this continent, may be forgiven for
inscribing as the era of The Mandelan example. Mandela’s life trajectory
remains a lighthouse in any voyage into uncharted waters – anywhere and any
time that a people’s history is cited. Confessedly, we can only adopt
bits and pieces of this Monumental Examplar. The bit that is called upon
in this instance is a virtue that is aptly designated civic courage, an aspect
of courage that enables one to make a leap of faith when confronted with a near
intractable choice.
Let me state, right on the heels of that exhortation
that the acceptance of this imposition by society demands in its turn a massive
reciprocity, a condition of individual moral courage that manifests itself in
the ability to express contrition for the past, with its implicit commitment to
an avoidance of such acts as violated the loftiest entitlements of human
existence such as – freedom. We have no apology for declaring that our
civic Muse is, summatively - Freedom. The right of choice. Volition. The Right
of participation in the modalities of collective existence including its
rituals, the sum of which is routinely known as – Democracy. Its antithesis is
enslavement, and we who have undergone centuries of enslavement and disdain
from the imperious will of outsiders, have no intention of changing slave
masters, irrespective of race, colour, religion, social pedigree, profession or
political ideology. This is why, apart from a few deranged species that have
removed themselves from the definition of humanity, we are united against the
tyranny of Boko Haram and other proponents of chains – visible and invisible -
as the rightful portion of their fellow beings.
Through participation, direct or vicarious, we find
ourselves landed within a system that has thrown up two choices – realistically
speaking, that is. Formally, we dare not ignore the claims of other
contestants. Of the two however, one is representative of the immediate past,
still present with us, and with an accumulation of negative baggage. The
other is a remote past, justly resented, centrally implicated in grievous
assaults against Nigerian humanity, with a landscape of broken lives that
continues to lacerate collective memory. However – and this is the
preponderant ‘however’ – is there such a phenomenon as a genuine “born-again”?
It is largely around this question that a choice will
probably be made. It is pointlessly, and dangerously provocative to present
General Buhari as something that he provably was not. It is however just
as purblind to insist that he has not demonstrably striven to become what he
most glaringly was not, to insist that he has not been chastened by intervening
experience and – most critically - by a vastly transformed environment – both
the localized and the global. Of course we have been deceived before. A former
ruler whom, one presumed, had been purged and transformed by a close encounter
with death, and imprisonment, has turned out to be an embodiment of
incorrigibility on several fronts, including a contempt for law and
constitution. Would it be different this time round? Has subjection to police
tear-gas and other forms of violence, like the rest of us mortals, and a spell
in close detention, truly ‘civilianized’ this contender? I have studied him
from a distance, questioned those who have closely interacted with him,
including his former running-mate, Pastor Bakare, and dissected his key
utterances past and current. And my findings? A plausible transformation
that comes close to that of another ex-military dictator, Mathew Kerekou of the
Benin Republic. Despite such encouraging precedents however, I continue to
insist that the bridge into any future expectation remains a sheer leap of
faith. Such a leap I find impossible to concede to his close rival, since we are
living in President Jonathan’s present, in an environment that his six
years in office have created and now seek to consolidate. That is the
frightening prospect. It requires more than a superhuman effort to concede to
the present incumbent a springboard for a people’s critical leap.
I address only those who require no further persuasion
that the present is untenable and intolerable – and from virtually every aspect
of national life. All men and women of discerning can separate actualities from
their exaggerated rendition, can peel off the distracting gloss that is smeared
all over our social condition by those who seek to blind us to an unjust and
avoidable social predicament. We have tasted the condiments of an incipient
police state. We recognize acts of outright fascism in a dispensation that is
supposedly democratic. We have endured a season of stagnation in development
and a drastic deterioration in the quality of existence. We are force-fed the
burgeoning culture of impunity, blatantly manifested in massive corruption. We
feel insulted by the courtship and indulgence of common criminals by the
machinery of power. The list is endless but above it all, we understand when
there is a failure of leadership, resulting in a near total collapse of
society. We are now brought to a confrontation with choice, when we must
make a leap of faith, to open up avenues of restoration.
Leadership is, I acknowledge, an often imprecise
expression, conveniently absolving those who invoke its absence of the burden
of proof. When I make that accusation, it is based on hard instances for
which proof is not only demonstrable in all spheres of governance – and
superabundantly so - but can be provided if challenged by anyone, including the
obscene convocation of the cretinous, who even believe that they have
earned the right to poke their messy fingers into strictly family
travails of a political contestant, that the medical challenges within a family
are matters of public relevance or offer the slightest evidence of that individual’s
ability to discharge public responsibility. Some tactics deployed in the
process of this political campaign remain some of the most vulgar and sickening
that the nation has experienced on its democratic journey. Perhaps it is just
as well. The exercise on its own offers warning of fascism in the offing
if the wrong choice is made, if the crucial leap of faith is rejected by the
faint-hearted! Of course, it has not all been one-sided, but let us leave
the exercise of assessment to every individual capable of applying the most
stringent objective yardsticks.
Has the campaign in itself thrown up any portents for
the future? Let all beware. The predator walks stealthily on padded feet, but
we all know now with what lightning speed the claws flash into action. We have
learnt to expect, deplore and confront certain acts in military dictatorship,
but to find them manifested under a supposedly democratic governance? Of course
the tendency did not begin with this regime, but how eagerly the seeming meek have
aspired to surpass their mentors!
We must not be sanguine, or complacent. Eternal,
minute-to-minute vigilance remains the watchword. Whatever demons got into a
contestant to declare the spread of Sharia throughout the nation his life
mission must be exorcised – indeed, are presumed to be already exorcised. Never
again must any leader ban the discussion of democratic restoration in the
public arena. Nor must we ever again witness the execution – even imprisonment!
- of a citizen under retroactive laws. This persistent candidate seeks return,
but let him understand that it can only be as a debtor to the past, and that
the future cannot wait to collect. If this collective leap of faith is derided,
repudiated or betrayed under a renewed immersion in the ambiance of power or
retrogressive championing, of a resumption of clearly repudiated social
directions, we have no choice but to revoke an unspoken pact and resume our
march to that yet elusive space of freedom, however often interrupted, and by
whatever means we can humanly muster. And if in the process, the consequence is
national hara-kiri, no one can say that there had been no deluge of warnings.
The art of leadership is complex and unenviable. Among
its most basic, simple demands however, is the capacity for empathy, since a
leader does not preside over stones but palpable humanity. Thus, in asserting a
failure in leadership in a rivaling candidate, I pose only one question, a
question of basic humanism that is directed at a leader who equally demands that
a nation make a leap of faith for him also, that a people presume his
capability for self-transformation. That question is this:
“If you had received news of your daughter’s kidnapping,
how long would it take you to spring to action? Instantly? One day? Two? Three?
A week? Or maybe TEN days?”
While we await the answer, the clock of Change cannot
tick sufficiently fast!
Source: Sahara Reporters
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