Just the other day, the nation was hit with the news of the defection of the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Hon Aminu Tambuwal, from the ruling PDP to the opposition APC. While his defection does not come as a surprise to one & all, given his open fraternity with the APC complex & blatant disregard for PDP, a disregard which resulted in his emergence as Speaker in the first place, the way & manner he orchestrated his defection nonetheless, must be discouraged in any avowed democracy & civilised society. For the records, a Tambuwal has the right to defect to any party of his choice, but what he does not have the right to do is sending the entire House of Reps on AWOL, just to secure his position as Speaker, which obviously has become shaky as a result of his ill-conceived defection. Such an act amounts to subjugating national interest to selfish whims & caprice. Evidently, it tells you something about the character, or rather a lack of it, of the Hon. Speaker. It also says something about the progressive & patriotic credentials of all those, mainly of the APC, who have hailed his undemocratic & regrettable move. What this simply implies is that, what matters to the APC is power, position, & its attendant perks; the nation & her people can go to hell & burn, as long as APC is in total control of the levers of power, who cares? Certainly, not them! So, the process of governance can grind to a halt, even be upended, if thats what it takes to catapult APC to power. Haba... truly, its a bad & sad day to be a Nigerian! However, one thing that the political gerrymandering of a Tambuwal has brought to the fore is the regrettable double standard that has come to define APCs political strategy & propaganda. Recall that when President Goodluck Jonathan, as an incumbent, ran for President in 2011, he was roundly accused of flouting the zoning principle of his party; that accusation was championed by the APC apparatchiks, irrespective of the fact that they had no business meddling with PDPs internal affairs. But when a Tambuwal blatantly flouted the same PDPs zoning & power sharing formula to emerge Speaker, he was hailed by the same apparatchiks as the poster boy of true democracy & freedom. Doublespeak. Double standard. Certainly, the cause of true democracy & freedom cannot be served when a prominent political party that prides itself as the alternative platform, jettisons democratic principles & ethos in favour of a doctrine of graded morality & graded citizenship. Surely, that is not, & can never be, the path to peace, progress & prosperity in a plural, multi-ethnic nation like Nigeria. As things stand, the way forward for the nation & the survival of the cause of her democracy & good governance ambition lies in a Tambuwal quickly reconvening the House & facing the consequences of his actions. That is the path of honour, that is manly. For the collective destiny of Nigerians & their aspiration for greatness, cannot be wickedly subjected to the selfish Whims & caprice of the Hon. Speaker & his band of vandals. Period. Shikena.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 14:22:55 +0000
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