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Nigerian Democracy: Oshiomhole As The Icing On The Cake
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By Erasmus Ikhide
 Published
November 16th, 2008
The political equation has swung in Edo state; forcing the
spider to un-spurn its ominous web! And for those who know;
spider and its web represents spiritual enclosure and
decimation of an otherwise bright aspirations, dreams, hopes
and change of future of an individual, group of people,
nations and the world at large. Like I said earlier,
cheaters don’t quite, you quite them. The Nigerian state
needs people who wouldn’t stand aloof in the face of
bare-face tyranny from their comfortable mountain tops and
watch the mass of people wallow in despicable and
dehumanizing condition, fit only for animal.
Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole; the diminutive giant, a man with the
teeth of steel, unbendable courage and fierce intellect is
the icing on the cake of the Nigerian political space and
freedom fighters who have waged relentless war with the
forces of darkness who emerged from the pit of Hell and
unleashed monumental terror of equal indifference on the
Nigerian nation and its people. Now is it obvious that if we
must imbibe the re-branding of our political culture towards
acceptable standard of practical democracy Adams Oshiomhole
is the rallying point for its actualization.
The Nigerian dream which Oshiomhole ably envisages and
represents is a country where the people will elect their
leaders themselves through the ballot boxes, and not through
the barrel of the guns and malicious manipulations of the
electoral process that falls within the purview of their
inalienable rights; and that the duty of government in a
given and working state is to harness the commonwealth and
aggregates it judiciously to assuage the common good of
greater numbers; such things no individual can
singlehandedly provide for him or herself.
The People Democratic Party PDP, and its felonious
gangsters, which thrive in electoral fraudfest whose
headquarters is ignominiously squatted; hams and heels in
the land of my forebear are now at the receiving end. It is
with redeeming joy and abundant celebration that the good
people of Edo state received the sounding of death knee on
the culture of impunity, brazen callousness that gripped the
soul of Edo state for nine-year and above. If there was
anything to show for it developmentally, the people would
have been consoled in the main that the crumbs have fallen
squarely on their mouth, right under the table. But that was
not to be. Now, this is the end of history, the Anenihian
mess has been cleared.
You are wont to ask, what justify the mindless maiming,
bludgeoning and killing of Edo and Nigerian citizens who
legitimately trooped out excitably – armed with their civic
rights to elect representatives of their own choice, in
their own state and country? What does it profit a man who
gained political power nurtured and nourished with the
peoples’ blood? What transpired in Edo state, April, 14,
2007 in all intents and purposes in the name of election in
retrospect is the devaluation of the peoples’ culture of
sanctity for human lives and brotherliness; trampling on the
political rights, needs, and aspirations of the people; the
dreamed heritage of the peoples’ value system; violation of
our cultural identity, the decimation of the authentication
of the peoples’ cultural oneness within the state’s cosmic
whole, and an abuse of the word DEMOCRACY.
It was a ghastly physical image a couple of them represented
at the Appellant Court sitting in the ancient City of Benin,
November 11, 2008, which pronounced Prof. Osarheimen
Osunbor’s occupation of Osadebe Avenue as not just illegal;
but that as a decfato governor he was never there as a
governor! To me, that judgment, though poetic, is not
punitive enough. We are in for a mimic round next time with
zestful opportunists riding the roughshod knowing that the
judiciary, if they didn’t buckle under the yolk of money
bag, might still made away with their salaries and other
entitlements while in office, should they be sent packing by
the courts. Oshiomhole would have as well laboured in vain
if the judiciary had caved in under the pressure of these
money bags. The Appeal Court President, Justice Abdullahi
said this much on 12, November, 2008 in Lagos at a forum
chaired by the Justice of the Supreme Court that Tribunal
judges are being intimidated by politicians who are bend on
hanging on to power on stolen mandate. That is the closest
we got of an attempt to arm stringing and blackmailing the
judiciary.
All that has become history in Edo State , but not before
the damages were done in many state of the federation. This
judgment was a mere face-saving stuff, particularly for the
Appeal Court President who knew the implication of doing
injustice in the case of a man of justice; a hero of protest
and a mobilizing machine who would simply have waved at a
waiting crowd if the case had gone otherwise and everyone is
consumed in the inferno – including the entire occupants of
the Appeal Court.
Adams Oshiomhole is not unmindful of the fact that his
victory at the Appeal Court is the beginning of the
challenges that lay ahead of him in months and years to
come. This is so as the saying goes, ‘to whom much is given,
much is also expected’. He didn’t get his mandate on a
platter of gold; neither did he ride on the tails of
godfathers whose ruinous influence on the state leave a sour
taste in the mouth. The impious ex-governor Lucky Igbinedion
told the bewildered citizens of Edo state and Nigerians
alike that he emptied a large chunk of the state’s treasury
of his leprous rein of eight-year on the vanity of, Chief
Tony Anenih, Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, his father and Samuel
Ogbemudia, while the people rammed their teeth in the sand!
We are well on the known that Oshiomhole’s performance or
lack of it will opens or closes all political doors against
him and the rest of us, who by providence, find ourselves in
the left-wig of the social struggle of in a nation that have
been dragged mercilessly on the uncharted part of
visionlessness. He can’t afford to fail the people whom he
promised at the crowded Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, Benin City
to remain accountable. The ‘Comrade Governor’ vowed under
oath to guaranty the welfare of the electorate and his words
will remain his bond affinity as far as I know.
Now the people of Edo state have spoken. And like the
children of Israel , their counterparts in a struggle of
legendary commonality are saying never again! Edo people are
wearing the badges of electoral honour and saying never
again to godfathers whose rigging industry didn’t have their
children as employees!! They are saying never again – being
the Heart Beat of the Nation – shall they be taken for
electoral ride that was programme to fail!!! Never again
shall the incurably insane felons who parade as leaders be
allowed to snatch ballot boxes and be hack to death!!!!
Never again shall one man arise in the name of Chief Tony
Anenih to profane the democratic essence this nation and
foist the representatives of the people on Edo state and a
nation in a supposedly representative democracy!!!!! Never
again…!!!!!!
Erasmus, Director of Research, and
Communications, Constitutionalism and
African Democratization, CAAD.
Africandemocratization@yahoo.com
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