Princewill Odidi|31 December 2015|11:20am
I watched PMB on live-stream yesterday. If you still have doubts that this man mean business, think again. The impunity meted to Nigerians was so much that militarizing our democracy and due process
became an option.
How do you explain the former
president ordering Central Bank to give an individual N40 billion naira when Internal displaced persons in
North-east have no food or clothing he quarried?
On Biafra agitations, like every other Nigerian, he questioned what the definition for agitation when
every state is represented in the federal executive council.
We may dislike Buhari's face, call him a northern bigot, we may accuse him of planning to islamize
Nigeria, or hate him for just being himself, one thing I am certain and will stand by is that He means well
for Nigeria.
Late Claude Ake, Africas foremost Political Scientist argued similarly just before his demise on the
crystallization of state formations in Africa, he opined, "the militarization of society and democracy may be tolerated in developing economies and argued further that it may lead
these societies faster to development".
He used the Asian tigers of Indonesia, Singapore and Malasia as examples. I am not in support of the continuous violation of
court rules on Dasuki and others, but since our legal system has continued to be violated by the
people themselves, the prevalence of the big man factor in Nigeria, I have no option than to take side
with PMB, if militarizing our society, democracy and the judiciary can help us get it right, then go ahead
my General.
What is the value of democracy when you cannot feed your people, when we still have dilapidated roads, gross unemployment and general societal insecurity?
Democracy is a learning process. Ali Mazuri once opined, "you can teach a man how to dance and he dances well, you can teach him how to speak a language and he perfects in it, you can teach him how to dress and he dresses well, but you cannot
teach a man how to govern himself, that's one thing he has to learn from experience".
Nigeria's political development is progressing gradually and we are learning everyday, Jonathan gave us a far more liberalized democracy and rule of law, we abused it, subsidy thieves could not be jailed because the institutions lacked capacity and were bought over by the powerful, the failure of the
Jonathanian liberalized democracy and the consequent failure of our institutions to play their legal roles led to the emergence of a more
militarized democracy. If this will help us get it, I respectfully lend my support to PMB. I stand to be
corrected.
Princewill Odidi
Is a Social Commentator, writing from Atlanta.
princewillodidi@yahoo.com
