2023, Power, its serial skit and a Cast of Thousand -By Jimi Bickersteth

It’s going to rain, as I stood staring through the window in the forecourt and the garden in the background, looking askance and puzzled at the same time dazed at the news filtering in at what Magodo has become; what the state governor versus a CSP, and an outgoing compol, a newly promoted A-I-G on a social visit, flag flying and with the full compliment of his office, were doing to the peace and tranquility of a peaceful community in Lagos.

The sordid picture of the last #ENDSARS protests that culminated in that October 20 2020 Lekki tollgate ugly outcome came to my mind. I came to the conclusion that their indeed was a little difference between the politician and the police rank and file in temperaments, judgements and split-second decision making.

I’ve read quite a few comments and backlashes on that harassment and intimidation on the social media, including the supposed Magodo Brook estate’s chairman’s unfettered apologies to the compol hurriedly put together on a plain A4, and I marvelled at our peoples senses of Rights, obligations and privileges, and resilience in the face of naked power; ambivalent as usual, particularly, when none of our family members and or friend(s) were involved.
I giggled. The nation still have a long way to go at modern, civilised policing. I also know that its beneath the office of the compol to do recce personally, and visits, social calls and the new one, visits to “strategic partners”, such visits are best done incognito and unannounced. Why the showoff at the Brooks!.

My face was set to the window, already streaked with rain, it was raining hard by the time I settled down at the balcony and caught a glimpse of wifey’s neat profile in the glass window. I sat thinking of what to write about in this pissing rain, in the uncertain atmosphere of hunger, insecurity, deaths and more deaths of our compatriots from Borno to Adamawa, Zamfara to Taraba to Benue to Ekiti; and in contrast the frolicking, the noisy fun and banger throwing excitement in Lagos and its environs, and of course, the overbearing, overarching, intoxicated, power drunk cop, and a governor who wants to be seen as an action governor.

In the season of anomie, the Attorney-General of the Federation caused a stir at another end of Magodo as he caused the Inspector-General of police to invade another estate in utter disregard and sullen defiance to the constituted authority in the state. The Attorney-General, the Inspector-General and by inference the Federal government certainly couldn’t have meant well by intervening directly to invade the estate without giving the state governor a say in the matter, no matter how pressing. This is not a zoo, for crying out loud.

The law, it is said, is made for Man not man for the law. However, rather than ridiculing the office of the state governor and resolve the impasse, the Lagos governor should be accorded due respect as the dejure chief security officer of the state, so says that 1999 constitution, even when the defacto chief security officer resides in the police as could be gleaned from current happenings in and around the nation. That being the case, the governor should be encouraged to pay compensation to the aggrieved parties in the matter, here, being the bonafide land owners at the ongoing land prices at the dates of purchases of the respective plots.

I doubt if the state governor was properly briefed before jumping into the fray at Magodo in full glare of camera lenses and pressmen, and asking a functionary of state, a CSP to stand down. He was duly and rightly rebuffed though. That face-off between the Lagos state governor and the IGP represented by the CSP was a battle neither the two sides on the opposing ends won, but it called to question the validity of the 1999 constitution as it concerned the governor as a chief security officer, which that Magodo face-off and section 317 of the 1999 constitution had shown to be a misnomer. What a good time to revisit the constitution and resolve once and for all the status of a state governor as a chief security officer.

By now twilight had purpled the sky and deepened the shadows around the house when I finally sauntered into the living room. I entered and shut the sliding door of the living room behind me. A gust of wind rattled the windows as if to protest its exclusion. I went motionless, my gaze looked on the TV and the drama of real-life killings and hemorrhaging in parts of the country particularly, in the northern parts of the country.

That PMB’s Channels TV interview and some of his responses as it relates to the PDP and his choice of a successor had certainly opened the floodgate of discourse on 2023 and the serial drama by its cast of a thousand. At this, I shook my head at the menaces the people have become unto themselves; and remembered instantly all that had passed between the nation’s politicians, all of their passionate, compelling and disturbing reasons with which they have loved one another and always constantly, fought against that same love.

Now, the rain as if on cue stopped, giving way for a bright sun. Well, let’s consider the nation’s politics 2023, in view of the last general elections and also, view from the crystal ball, what 2023 may portend for the nation, in an aphrosim that is tempered and tendered in the formalities of reality, relevance and need of all the reactions a person may have to it. Although, in view of the frustration and anger all over the federation, right now, I can think of none worse than a stifled yawn. However, this slightly satirical allusion and aphrosim, would be auspicious enough to intrigued all the victims of the unease at the political stage – where everyone, and, all of us, seemed dissociated and ill at ease at the living conflicts that had become more of extraordinary interruptions to governance.

The unease, though global and endless, either in Africa or in Europe and elsewhere in the whole wide world. The Cold War and the reduction of military and economic aid from developed countries have since brought about democratisation and competitive elections all over the world, and this the nation have earnestly benefited immensely from.

Of course, in the search for power and control an election is the first hurdle to step over in order to rule a modern Nation- state. Election, the formal process of selecting a person for public office by voting, but here, it is important to distinguish between the form and the substance of elections and where the nation has fallen or got a passed mark in the last twenty two years or so for a sustainably suitable future.

In the nation, in some instances, electoral forms are present but the substance of an election is missing, as when voters do not have a free and genuine choice between at least two alternatives. It appeared that in this nation elections are held in at least the formal sense, but the elections are not competitive because it is highly compromised. The nigeria scenario have consistetly and patently highlighted, that, although it is common to equate representative government and elections with democracy, and although competitive elections under universal suffrages are one of democracy’s defining characteristics, universal suffrage is not a necessary condition of competitive electoral politics, and this was an area where the nation’s politics has thrived so hopelessly well and poorly.

In the nation today, politics of this nature happened and continued to, and everyone had given their views, had expressed surprise, distress, and disappointments with the inherent weaknesses in its adopted system that the noisy, vocal minority, were all today screaming “Restructuring” in voices that were not exactly lowered, but they lost volume. Yes! It was pretty hard to tell anyone about something without letting slip one’s own point of view, even though, one’s point of view may, probably, be wrong, but then, there it is, and it is there.  

In the nation’s elections or what invariably could pass for one, often, fewer than a quarter of the registered electorates usually voted. Although legal or self-imposed exclusion can dramatically affect public policy and even undermine the legitimacy of a government, it does not preclude decision making by election, provided that voters are given genuine alternatives among which to  choose. 2023 is almost on us, and the nation has to do something by the way of intervention about its present electoral application. The present unease about power acquisitions, entitlement and equation, the electoral Act, the indecision on direct and or indirect primaries and or the electronic transmission of elections results are here relevant.
The Greek word for “Power” is dynamis, from which we get dynamite. Talk about impact. Impact in this unpredictable season of power mongers meeting the people where they were, not where they ought to be. By the people, I mean, the several millions of angry young men and women, loose-living hookers, naked victims of demonism, Yahoo plus and grieving parents in a national conflagration of vague living; for whom the nation’s politicians orchestrates the pointlessness of their existence with impish delight in shocking the people. Thus, the politicians and the people, all of who captured and presented a tempramental theatrics of a generation going through the motions of a vicarious season, seen through the lens of sentiments, and it is affecting emotions. 

The dreams of the 9th National Assembly in birthing the Electoral Act, the inherent insincerity, uncertainty, and politics of entitlement that 2023 power distribution and tussles is precipitating was beginning to revive the old highways, longings and hunger. Here, frankly, I felt a sense of incompleteness in the nation for the Southeast, and sincerely, the feeling has become so strong that one felt that the nation cannot seem to ignore. But my gut feelings says that politics and power acquisition were games of number, presence and compromise.

The hunger for 2023 was beginning to make the nation’s politicians thinner, giving a gauntlet to their cheeks and hardening their features, toughened by some imaginary harsh demands of rights, equity and equality, in voices that were like velvet sheathing steel. Let me state here though, that a man’s pride be it Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba is a fragile thing and beyond politics and political science and any mundane permutations. Sometimes it is the only protection a man has. But it can be easily wounded; men may appear insensitive – invisible ever – but aren’t. Only two things I know that could beat it – a bottle of good whiskey or a beautiful woman. A man could get drunk and behave so, on wine, woman and pride. So, as 2023 beckons, if the people concerned don’t laugh at what they have become, then they must cry at the dire situation they found themselves in.

I was writing this piece under the taste of the chill tang of air-conditioning I switched on whenever PHCN power was available. Its steady hum pitched at a note that always seemed just about to break off, but never did. The television was beaming a high drama still in the moon to the audience. Looking out through the window I saw a beautiful and unusually laid out landscape and the view of an automobile cemetery – a vast wasteland littered with carcasses of taxis, trucks, cars, buses and military vehicles, all in various stages of decomposition.
Through the shimmering heat and shortening shadows in the vastness of space the dark night presented, the only colours came from the slalom of slogan and political parties posters which were uniformly green and red. Around the street corner, I noticed an armoured car with its hatch shut. I saw army and police trucks with men’s eyes button-black with hatred on red alert. All in an attempt to curtail and control power.

One can’t broker the topic, ‘Power’ today without a mention of its cast, the people, the political parties and its electoral umpire, INEC. In the last election, the INEC was seen as an obscene, life-size, plastic model, naked and bald. It reminds one of a porpoise, benign and playful, in the puddle of its own connivance, with the initial perfect, bungled attempt under the flimsiest excuses, which had surreptitiously promoted a delicate politics of an intricate Byzantine nature, which the nation found difficult to explain – now it was purely academic.

Yet, the onus to carry out a successful, free, fair and credible elections hung on INEC’s neck under a head resting like an invalid’s in a nest of cushions – and it became a moral peccadillo! I was reading the catalogue of complaints against the INEC that was panning towards indignations on the pages of the newspaper and the page suddenly appeared blank. Then, flashing pinpoint of light danced before my eyes, escalating into a surreal chessboard display of zigzag lines and bizarre geometric patterns.

The personae trumped by the nation’s political exigencies were deft and maliciously calculative as in chess games, where one has to move according to certain rules and calculations, not precluding the assumption that human beings are moral individuals. Today, looking back at the political characters that emerged in the nation’s landscape since 1999, it showed politicians that emerged as clumsily complicated individuals with comedy and tragedy standing side by side, grim tense scene followed by a lively amusing one. This generation of politicians that was fast becoming something of an enigma, getting to figure it out was like peeling an onion – there’s always another skin underneath, and at the end of it, all you’ve got was tears in your eyes.

The Constitutional matters with critical bearing on the Rule of Law and the time hallowed doctrine of Separation of Powers that has over time made for stability in sustainable democracies the world over had on the Abuja air a cold reminder of reality, and as the blue moon was rising after the rains, its sky was beautifully clear as harbingers preceding still the Fates and prologue to the omen coming on here and showing our compatriots that the air is invulnerable and our vain blows malicious mockery. I wondered at what the biblical prophet Ezekiel called “…Things men do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery.”

My expression became indulgent. Upset! No, of course not. Every process’s got some drawback. I have been around long enough to know there’s no such thing as a perfect one. In a nation where politicians in the quest for Power – Absolute Power such as the 1999 Constitution guaranteed, were always as desperate like a Cobra that hadn’t eaten in a month – mesmerizing, but deadly. But there are nations and men who know how to keep their imperfections from interfering, or whose imperfections don’t seem at all obvious.

One was seductively fascinated, though, as everyone else was, of Ultimate power over people and situations. The big failing and albatross was the lack of subtlety, that has been the nation’s lot and a history of politicians who consciously brushed aside Duty and professional conduct. Notorious heritage! May be it is in our DNA’s and it probably explained our background and what and where we were as a nation.

It’s seldom talked about. Yes, but for some reasons, the nation’s politicians intense, passionate relationship figured they had to climb to the top over the bodies of other people. They spared no one whom they saw as entrée as were all weapons – a tool to feed their obsession, get what they want trying to act blasé – in the power tussle, whose pursuit was half the fun.

A crystal ball look at the 2023 elections in a mellow splendour was fast shaping up a fascinating scenario. That, reminded me of the Middle Ages – not mine, Europe’s, and that era of politics of urbanity and s3x, with the ‘Not too young to run’ people, hinting pretty broadlike the young version of the nation’s old politicians. The material evidence were still very fragmentary, unsubstantiated, yet, were there.

The evening wore on and over the sounds of crickets and frogs in the soft Abuja night, it was like going to the edge of the known world. Suddenly the television screen blanked, the public power supply went down, and there was eerie silence, twenty two years of democracy, no stable power. I sat still, listening to the night sounds, contended with the lies and rumours on social media which depicted the nation with a heart and soul as corrupted, and wondering, whether the nation would get things right with this politicians wild and impetuous and whose hearts were always in wrong places. With the glaring failure in their scorecards, one didn’t feel much charity for any of them. In the attendant misery the nation was lying prostrate and spread-eagle on the ground like a pinwheel on a stick. The people’s hearts rocked in their chest at the grandmother of subterfuge, suspense at the swinging political pendulums in PMB’s chest. A balance of dismay and incredulity.

The nation was now primed under the boughs of the sycamore of elections, waiting for the results of which would be like keeping a vigil for the dead. Everybody had begun to fear the worst. The other problem that would almost probably arise, apart from the “threats of no elections” by some local warlords and interests, was, who was going to win in the contest of credibility, between the two major contenders, the APC and the PDP on one hand, and the INEC on the other.

Even though it was past midnight, the air was warm, thick and sultry, the silence in the dark night accentuate the noise of the crickets at the vast wilderness the night presented. What was in our genes that had us created twisted, and with some of the meanest streaks! Something was messing up with our wisdom and craftiness. In looks of complicity and amusement, our collective amnesia and desperation had practically turned a commodious nation into a Chinese laundry.

The nation’s politicians with their fat face florid, and enjoying the pinnacle of the republic’s power while always fishing for compliments. A class that perpetually want to stay relevant and if possible bequeath to their offsprings. A rich and insecure lot who with the combination of their lies and enough bundles of ‘Dr Nnamdi Azikwe’ portrait to the bargain with righteous indignation too outrageous to be taken seriously.

The battle for the soul of the nation had been pitted into two distinct struggling camps, one seen as pro-poor and the other on the side of the grande bourgeoisie. With the way things were going and with the desperate straits the nation was in, the norm and a nostrum put forward by the Mafias as a cure for the nation’s afflictions was not likely to pull much weight. One could see them protesting the characters, the situations and circumstances rather than live it. What a strange non-sequitur.

The nation was today witnessing scenes that got on everyone’s emotions and on the nation’s without a philosophy, profound and composed serenity to curious uncertainty. And with the way and manners with which INEC got the people on the end of the stick and some politicians evil machinations got everyone one way or another behaving as a horrible lewd whore, selling ourselves, our conscience and probably the nation’s future. Everything on tenterhooks and the nation became insecured.

The price in view and the stock in trust was the nation’s commonwealth, with the politicians as the sole trustees, which may preclude them from carrying out their obligations. What they were indeed struggling for was a life estate, exclusive use of the commonwealth, the oil blocs, and the nation’s nest eggs for a lifetime.

One would have expected the people to with a blend of irritations and contrition tried to be as bold as their politicians, though, shaking imperceptibly at their money and everyone had their turn at the trough. It would be an understatement to say that the politicians appearance and motives and an acquisceing populace were deceiving, showing apparently they aren’t even men and women of integrity.

Abuja was bathed in a layer of light rain. In spite of its misgivings, early signs of recovery from the trough of recession and immense modest proportions, one was scared of its ten times more expensive than Lagos status and outlook. Looking back across the road to the Three Arms Square where Aso Rock, the, 2023 Grand Prix, laid obscured to the point where its top was nearly invisible.

I now began to think about the proposed electronic transmission of elections results; about how results from polling units across the country were slow in coming in the last election considering the nation’s topography, wide terrain, attendant logistics, the network failure and the feelings as though mother nature was peering directly into the nation’s soul as the late declaration would have the politicians balls on the griddle and the reasons hazy.

I, without prejudice or bias began to see how much there is to make politicians involvement and responsibility clear. In the throes of the electioneering campaigns and the elections proper, the politicians at the marketplace of ideas could only advance their hunger for power but not much common sense. Their carriage was that of most entrepreneurs who have reached a point where they are ready for harvesting.

At the campaigns, they were almost going to rout for power to the extent that they were going to remove the melting blocks on which the nation’s unity and nationhood stood. The people could not lapse into the patois of their origin and oneness. It became like a preparation for war. All the politicians, all kind of a pair, actually with lots of polish on the surface – but there was dust from the chicken yard between their toes.

The elections have often showed there were wide differences between us as a people that we were less willing to admit; but rather wish, to skirt the border of propriety. Lots of pretensions that were making us less human, and in fact, phony sometimes. In the nation’s politics money was the end, it was the means. The politicians and their friends cornered the oil blocs while the rest of us were sitting on nothing but red clay. Yet, that, little trick of fate would not deter us, even with our brains and guile, from noise making or making noise, over nothing.

In retrospect, the nation’s politics was bizarre for all the wrong reasons. The jealousies and resentment drove a wedge between the people. Those symbiotic things that make sense only at some deep level that nobody understands, not even the politicians. There evidently was perverseness in relationships across the Niger, and politicians managed to bring out the worst in the people and in themselves, instead of everyone’s best. Like the PMB’s interview, always goading the nation on the path of life as consisting of either eating or shitting.

One’s mind turned to the future, and looming ahead was the first hurdle – perhaps, the most difficult of all, the elections, the results of the elections and the post-election partum. I stared at the television screen, sensing that the evening was going to be the most pivotal of the nation’s future. Though the room was warm, I felt a chill ran over my skin, and every hair on my body seemed on end. In spite of myself, I was nervous and wished INEC, the natural front and centre would handle this 2023 election right.

The nation was unsure, uncertain, throwing surrounding pines into unnatural relief. The time frame between the elections and the declaration of results, which ordinarily should be between a  flash of lightning and the thunder, would still be a big prime factor that could cast shadows of doubt further on the credibility of an election.
You wonder if it was because INEC was being thorough and managing the late arrival of Data from some of the most difficult and toughest terrain or the long list of political parties, 91 in number, involved in the exercise, that singly and or jointly made the job tougher, cumbersome and slow.

The sun was dropping toward the end of the Abuja horizon I saw the INEC chairman on the television, with his rimmed glasses, a man who exuded an artistic countenance and dynamically appealing – I never understood how he always managed to look as though he had just suffered a tough day, whether it was morning or noon. Feeling as though he were at court. But despite his regal air there was a suggestiveness about him.

Meanwhile, the 2023 expectation was beginning to heat the system. It was war. War, Power, Money. In this clime, elections were always tug of war, a war with no suit of armour, no ammunition except verbal missiles and the occasional fireworks from thugs and miscreants. The two major contenders, the incumbent APC and the PDP which felt it had a foot in the door and nobody was going to keep it out; while the wait lasted, eyed each other like two alley cats, each waiting for the other to pounce and strike, and a nation whose last hope was the truth, left waiting.

The people know affection was one thing knowing what to do with it was another. Now the world was on its head – Old Glory on the street was upside down. In the nation, there are a lot of potential political investors, who’ve got the money and the wherewithal. And as serious actors, they look at roles for their dramatic potential, not their image.

 Democracy and the presidency is not a casting couch interview to become president of Africa’s largest. The PDP reaction to the PMB’s interview was, albeit, hasty. Take politics away, the people all love Ceasar – when he’s Ceasar. In any case, the people have taken the politicians behaviours for granted, as much as the politicians have taken the nation for granted. Its been a mistake on both parts. It is politics, and as they say, all politics is local.

The PMB/APC had not done anything other political parties doesn’t do, as a matter of course. The opposition, most of who were worth more today than most people could earn in two or three lifetime, only didn’t like the short end of the stick now that it was in their hands. Helpless and teetering in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. Even as it took the only option available to it, the party could perpetuate the hoax.

Life is strange. This was perhaps the last way on Earth the PDP would have thought it would happen. What with the propaganda, Dubai strategy, money sprees, social media blitz et al. Thinking of the nation’s feeling, its peace and tranquility, progress and all. That’s another issue entirely. But this politicians with their sense of unusual prescience, uncanny obstinacy and pretensions that the nation needed its help, and therefore, could engaged in a game of the throne that was inimical to the nation’s peace. One would ask, do power, transient power and ambitions make the nation’s politicians invulnerable to such normal human concerns. It was sad, terribly so, that, the force that drove ambitions could suppressed their humanity.

The momentum of events should allow all the knave Gambits live up to the nation’s expectations even as they bring it out of the dark ages and its yet to be seen if its politics is into the 21st century era of political thought. Here’s hoping that once, just once, we’d do what was right. The nation would find a solution and move on. It always had. Expect what you wish! But as far as the nation was concerned, enough has finally became enough.#Jimi Bickersteth

Jimi Bickersteth is a blogger and writer. He can be reached on Twitter

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