Despite our history and freshest experience, we still vote along religious and ethnic lines. In the Anambra case, Ngige is said to intend to Islamize Anambra, just as Rochas has Islamized Imo. Please how is this possible in a democracy, especially when we consider the contents of our constitution? This is the agenda we the elites have sold to the mostly non-elite electorate. We manipulate them via religious sentiments. The same elites have also tribalized political parties, we forget that PDP is the leading party today simply because no tribe can lay claims to her. PDP is ruling because she is the only true National party in Nigeria. APC understands this, which is why they are trying to model the PDP by merging across tribes and religion to form our first national opposition party since 1999, rather than encourage this, we resort to selling the agenda that the move is Islamic because the arrow heads are muslims. We fail to recognize the importance of opposition in a democracy, we fail to forsee the benefits of a PDP being the opposition tomorrow, we ultimately fail to forsee the benefits of rotational leadership just like we have in advanced democracies. If a party remains in power longer than it should, they tend to pursue political powerbase solidarization and expansion rather than their electoral mandate, this is the case with the PDP even with the recent opposition within the party. Anambra is case study of how our political climate has evolved, thus far the result is retrogression. We should expect to see a winner emerge in Anambra based on benefitial agenda and developmental roadmap for the state, not as a result of tribal and religious affiliations. That it is always the case of the ruling party always producing a successor is retrogression, the courts must not always correct this anomaly which rightly should be corrected at the polls. What is the logic behind elections not holding in the strongholds of an opposition candidate only for it to be postponed to a Sunday when most Anambrarians will be in church? Will the churches be shutdown while the elections hold? How about the willingness of the people to return to the polls the next day after their precious times have been wasted the preceeding day? It is not just Anambra, but also other states which other parties control. We allow the incumbent decide for us making our votes an exercise of futility. Now the elections will continue in the courts, the judiciary will again undergo the painstaking long road to deciding for us. Where then is the progress? The 2015 picture is unfolding before us, it is obvious we will make the same mistakes, it is obvious we have refused to learn, it is even more obvious that while the lower class does the voting, the middle class decides for them. Perhaps, why the lower class has been sustained over these years; for political gains. We cannot solve our problems if we continue in the same consciousness we used to create them.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 07:39:59 +0000