We are, indeed, gradually losing some of the most fundamental perks and privileges a democracy guarantees. Our God-given, constitution enshrined, inalienable right of expression, in whatever form it manifests, is being mutilated.
The world, as blessed and liberated as it is today, was forged by the will of men and women who resisted the whims of dictators, fought traditions , stood in defiance of racism, bleed for justice, and walked for freedom. That freedom, that has so greatly improved mankind, engendered prosperity, made nations great, is being traded for self in Nigeria.
In our time, history is being made, we are witnesses to the birth of a new form of government, the emergence of a despotic democracy; the reincarnation of the maximum ruler, who does no wrong. Arrayed with the philosophical strength of an ethnic and religious fundamentalist, and a constitutional armour, President Buhari, much to our dismay, is being coronated a despot.
In one event-filled year, this administration has equaled and exceeded levels of brutality and gross violations of human rights that were hitherto the exclusive preserve of the darkest of military dictatorship in Nigeria.
The despot has murdered over 500 unarmed shites in Zaria; killed over 30 unarmed Biafra agitators in the South-East; brazenly disobeyed unambiguous court orders; taken political prisoners, yet we have expressed no qualms whatsoever.
We stand in awe, enraptured by the saintliness of our president: zilch intellectual mutiny to these despotic tendencies and actions of president Buhari. In this event-filled year, a great apocalypse has silenced and altered the voices of reason, of statehood, of freedom, of democracy and of constitutionality.
Sycophancy has always been an integral part of Nigeria’s political philosophy, but this wholesale romance with fascism transcends sycophancy. Even at the height of it, Nigerians still spoke critically of leaders, questioned motives, censured policies. Which ensured a robust and resilient system; served as checks and balances, a position the 8th national assembly has long leased to the despot.
Whoever coined the term rubber-stamp legislature, never thought our National Assembly will be the quintessential example. The brotherhood of vampires, have traded their existential functions for personal favours; to enjoy a level of “immunity” that has been the exclusive preserve of Governors and the president. The National Assembly has been disconcerted, hounded and conquered, not because the fascist is all too powerful. In this government of the blind, no one has been able to prove if the leader is actually one-eyed or as blind as the rest.
This is the source of the ever increasing power of the despot. The usually critical voices have swallowed, so they keep their ears under water, their eyes fitted with augmented reality googles. They don’t see what Nigerians see, neither do they hear what we hear; their reality is well augmented and ensconced.
These people that usually serve as megaphones to the plights and sufferings of the masses, are indifferent. They have not been bought, they have sold themselves to intellectual and philosophical slavery.
Corruption has always been cited as the bane of Nigeria’s under-development. We have been proselytized and indoctrinated, lectured and schooled, of what corruption, in the diverse form which it manifests, has deprived Nigeria and Nigerians. But we have never been told , that because so many did engaged in it, it will lead to the emergence of a despot in a democracy; the unwitting coronation of a fascist.
In this historical, event-filled year, the fascist has virtually undone all the accidental and co-incidental progress we have made while wallowing in corruption: millions have lost their jobs; the economy has been pummeled, smashed, and eviscerated; national cohesion is at an all-time low.
From projections and postulations, the trajectory still point southward: economic apocalypse, pogroms, more genocides, and the eventual dissolution of a union that has been successfully managed for over five decades -despite its numerous flaws- but not for long by a strong-willed, sectional and unsavvy dictator.
This is how corruption fights back, in the end, it hits the tectonic plate of the nation, and then, she implodes. Since no one was willing to make a personal sacrifice; to unswallow what was swallowed in error; to pay the price of indiscretion; to speak truth to power; to stand for justice, and to be selfless and forth-coming.