Intruders In The Hill: A Dominant Trait Of Political Rascality -By Richard Odusanya

Few minutes past 10pm of April 14, 1865 would forever remain in the heart of the world’s history, most especially in the history of America. Actor John Wilkes Booth steeped into the presidential box at Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C and fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln (the best president ever in the history of America). As Lincoln slumped forward in his seat, Booth leapt into the stage and off he went through the back outlet.

“President Abraham Lincoln never pulled through this attack”. A rare “gem” was taken away from the world and humanity was denied the opportunity of getting more of the wonders up his sleeves.

Just like yesterday, 30 January 1948 came in the history of the human race but has refused to let go. It is a day that would never be forgotten by all true democrats and sincere freedom fighters. It was the day Mahatma Gandhi (the face of Indian, and one of the few purest souls that have walked the face of the earth) was assassinated in New Delhi.

Godse made his way out from the crowd flanking Gandhi’s path as Father Mahatma walked towards the dais, and fired three shots into Gandhi’s chest and abdomen at point-blank range.

At 6:01pm on April 4, 1968, the voice of the voiceless negroes in America was physically silenced, though his voice re-established itself like a volcanic eruption in his followers. Father King was brutally shot at Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

On February 21, 1965, the community of all forces truly standing for humanity lost a force in “Malcolm X”. He was assassinated in New York City by three (3) national members of the Nation of Islam.

Hanan Al-Barassi, an outspoken critic of abuses committed by militias of strongman Khalifa Haffar, was shot dead by gunmen in the eastern city of Benghazi on November 10, 2020.

Human rights activist Zara Alvarez was never allowed to see the end of 17 August, 2020 as he was gunned down along Sta Maria street in Bacolod City.

On 19 October 1986, one of our own very finest investigative journalists in Nigeria, Dele Giwa, was murdered by a mail bomb in his Lagos home. His assassination took place just two days after he was interviewed by State Security Service (SSS) officials; a death the Nigerian government remains complicity in till date.

It is an endless list that reminds us of dedicated fallen heroes of democracy, human rights and a free and fair society. The list keeps getting updated every second across the globe. One thing, just one major thing, connects those whose names appear on this list; a voice against the world order that have chosen to enslave the human race through political mechanism.

They were all activists in words and deeds; the voice of the voiceless and fearless souls in the face of humiliation, persecutions and life threatening situations. They were the dim light making ways for humanity in the thick darkness created by political rascals that took them all away from us.

Politics is a work of political philosophy by Aristotle, a 4th-century B C Greek philosopher and one of the greatest men that have ever lived ; one of the most influential thinkers in the history of human race.

Aristotle, till date, remains “The Father of Political Science” because he was one of the first personalities to give a working definition of political science.

In his words, politics is a “practical science” for it deals with making citizens happy. His philosophy was to find the supreme purpose of life, virtue as he put it.

However, a mechanism or machinery set in place to make people happy and discover their purpose in life has now become their greatest nightmare; a weapon of mass destruction that brews hatred and enmity. Politics is now tagged a dirty game; it is nasty; it sucks; it is cliche. A concept that is meant to run all our affairs now seems dangerous to us all, regardless of race or colour.

We are now kept away from our own affairs and leave them in the hands of hilly billies and intellectual liabilities , forgetting that politics is the solution to most of our problems.

As it stands now, we are not dealing with a scientific problem or any other problem other than political problems. If politics is sick, every other thing becomes sick!

Since the intelligentsias have decided to go to sleep politically, having concluded that politics is dirty and leaving it in the hands of a group of nuisance, statism has now become a system of institutionalized violence and perpetual civil war.

The only tactics employed in governance, by the dullards we have left with the affairs of our states, is fight to seize political power; to rob or be robbed; to kill or be killed. And survival is now by nothing but looting.

The founding father of politics failed to see that power corrupts ,and absolute power corrupts absolutely because they were never blinded or intoxicated by power; they loved humanity too much to be polluted by the demons that reside in power. They never considered that the greatest mechanism they laboured to create for the benefit of mankind could be one day hijacked and messmerized the way it is today.

Compounded violence continuously get created by the vagabonds in power, who have established themselves into the class of the political elites.They politicize every state apparatus for them and their accomplices ,in this evil against humanity, to unquestionably and endlessly enjoy extra privileges at the expense of the poor masses.

Political rascals are always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority is superadded; this is who they are and will always be.

They instigate senseless violence in pursuit of their personal political agenda. They are wrong hands whose politics in their hands is a plot to enslave every man, woman and child. Worse still, they negatively influence the generation the society tends to rely on as their future into this political stench.

The world politics evolve separately from the north to south and the east to west. In the scheme of the evolvement of politics lies the advanced nations. They gradually move away from the political rascality that has eroded man’s tool of organised social order from time immemorial.

Missing in action is Africa in this whole world political evolvement process; we have refused to move away from the past political practices for a new order of political sanity that reckons more with the dignity of human nature.

The political rascals form themselves into the classes of the political godfathers and godsons in Africa, maiming and killing, at will, any voice that threatens their existence.

They encourage so much violence because their rascality protects them from giving public account to those who they regulary steal their mandates to ascend the position of leadership.

The types of leadership and government that emerge from the continent of Africa are mainly populated by persons with inordinate ambitions; greedy mindsets; self-centerdness, arrogance and empty pride. It is not the kind of leadership and persons that can think out of the box and proffer solutions and sound logic.

It is the kind of leadership that would unhesitatingly turn the face of guns against its youths for demanding for good governance and accountability; a leadership that promotes corrupt practices and unremorsefully parades unrepentant rogues as the best hands-our very own Ganduje “Gandollar” and Ize-Iyamu as candidates in 2019 and 2020 gubernatorial elections in Kano and Edo States respectively, to mention a few, shows how shamelessly and fantastically corrupt African leaders are.

We glorify a leadership that seeks to eliminate every voice that speaks against political rascality and carelessness in the line of service to the masses; a leadership that makes political prisoner out of any opposition, a spent-thrift, a borrowing machine, a RUGA champion, promoter of phildophiles, terrorism, banditry, chaos and cultural and moral decadence in the society.

The infiltration of the endsars protest by the Buhari led government sponsored political thugs is a perfect description of the kind of madness we are forced to live with day in day out in Africa.

The Yoweri of Uganda life threatening and public persecution of a vibrant and resilient Bobi Wine, that required the latter to persistently where bullet proof vests around for the fear of assassination, in the build up to their 2021 election is an indisputable signal that the political leadership of Africa lacks the visions and capabilities of making Africa great again. The continuous harassment of Omoyele Sowore (a human right activist, publisher and a presidential candidate in the 2019 Nigeria’s general election), by the Buhari led government exposes an attitudinal disorder of African political leadership-brainless dictators running the affairs of politically unconscious Nigerians!

The political assassinations of Chief Bola Ige, Chief Funso Williams, Ken Sarowiwa, President MKO Abiola, Chief Rewane, Chuba Okadigbo, Harry Marshall, Dikkibo, and the rest tells of how volatile our political atmosphere, which is supposed to be a haven, is.

Political rascality is political terrorism. However, it is unfortunate that we hardly consider political rascality; a machinery that deprives humanity of any respect from their leaders, as a core element of domestic terrorism.

Political rascals forgo all respect for humanity in proportion as they are sunk beneath it. They see themselves as different and superior species to those they lord themselves over.They eventually become so, lose their participation with their kind, and in mimicking the god dwindle into the brute; assassins; murderers; ritualists, or whatever description of a beast that runs in one’s mind.

We have been boxed into the worst system of governance ever in any part of the world by the mediocres we have in power; a system of “they who do the most have the least”; a system where “honesty wears rags”, and “rascality a robe”; a system where “the loving, the tender, eat a crust while the infamous sit at banquets”.

These are the hurricane sinking the ship of humanity in Africa. We look up to a system in the advanced nations of the world in our bid to secure a perfect solution for our “Mother Africa”. The problem seemed very difficult to do away with as political rascality disguised to be deeply embedded in the mind of an average Blackman and peculiar to the Africa continent alone until January 6, 2021.

The insurrection at the US Capitol on this day reminded every soul of the fact that every man is a political animal and reserves the tendency to misbehave and be irrational in his pursuit for selfish or personal interest. It is now very glaring that every country is plagued by the menace of political insanity and rascality. However, some are kept in check because the political machineries in the system have evolved and remain automated in curbing democratic abuse by elective officers.

A mad and self-centered Trump, the 45th POTUS, activated the political rascality in the “Great America” in the build up to the presidential election with his “stand back and stand by order”. He eventually launched the madness by instigating Americans into invading the Capitol building in the bid to stop the confirmation of the victory of Joe Biden as the 46th POTUS. The hours of violence set in motion by President Donald Trump claimed five (6) lives including that of two (2) policemen.

If it had been Africa, there would be no consequences. Via Getty, one of the the US Capitol building invaders who stole the Podium of the US Speaker, has been arrested and charged for federal crimes while the Omo-Agege political touts that invaded the Nigerian Red Chambers and stole the mace of the House of Senate, on February 14, 2018 are still being paraded as heroes of democracy.

President Trump has been impeached by the House for his role in the insurrection, while Omo-Agege was rewarded with the Deputy-Senate President of the Red Chambers; a body that is meant for responsible, intellectually sound and vision driven personalities. What a system!

The US soldiers, in their numbers, sleep on the bare floor of the Capitol building to prevent the House from any further external attack. The case has always been the opposite in Nigeria and Africa at large; on 7 August, 2018, in the bid to induce impeachment of Senate President of the 8th NASS: Senator Bukola Saraki, masked operatives of the Department of State Services (a body established to defend the constitution and pride of the nation in terms of intelligence gathering and security) threw caution into the air by barricading the gates to the National Assembly to shut out the lawmakers.It is an abomination to call what we practise in Africa democracy.

It is now very obvious that the anti-dote to political rascality; the ancient nightmare of any political atmosphere in the world, could only be checkmated by a working system and sane leadership.The US armed forces swiftly moved into action to protect their country;they defended the constitution instead of the government. All political stakeholders kept their differences on hold and rigorously rose against a perceived attack on the system that guarantees them life and freedom.

Rascality; stupidity militant, is the activity of a clouded intellect. If we succeed in taking out the intellectual liabilities in our system, Africa and her sons and daughters would rise to greatness again.

That we do not take interest in politics does not mean that politics will not take interest in us. Before we are all quietly devoured by the nuisance among us, we must rise to rescue our sinking boat of our social cradle.

“THOSE WHO ARE TOO SMART TO ENGAGE IN POLITICS ARE PUNISHED BY BEING GOVERNED BY THOSE WHO ARE DUMBER!”

Odusanya is the convener of AFRICA COVENANT RESCUE INITIATIVE ACRI.