Democracy & Governance
The Nation in the Eyes of its Component Contents and its Contending Youths -By Jimi Bickersteth
The nation’s politics is filled with menacing hiccups and a constitution with gibberish verses for a generation with arguably the worst reading culture. A law that permitted economic and cultural hegemony and in spite of itself was causing internecine strifes and conflicts. I’m not fascinated by the way democracy is being handled as a thesis and governance as antithesis and could not synthesis both.
I sat down under the sun and ruminating on how and why that fragile thread that has been holding the reason for a united federation together was likely soon going to be jeered, jarred and snapped if the appropriate rules congruent to the situation are not deployed. The thread had been under one form of summation, jigging, rejigging and threats for some time, precisely, circa.1965. Now that everything in and around the nation was abruptly coming into focus, the southeast attempts to overrun the southwest, sooner than later, it was becoming clearer as day, and was certain to break and it’s going to be quite unfortunate. That was concluding the essay in its opening paragraph.
The nation has stopped paying attention to the vibes emanating from the Northeast, Northwest, the Southeast and its restive, junketing, youthful population and may begin to put into use all the military hardwares and gadgets that had legally and illegally strayed into the country using the land, air and sea borders. To find mitigating solutions to the myriad of problems bordering on the national questions, the nation needs instant reflexes, and it doesn’t have all the time in the world to make the necessary amends.
The nation is home to some Internationally known richest men of African descent, who had built their kingdoms from nothing, relying on brains, ruthlessness and a built-in instinct that had led them unerringly where big money was to be found, and have made that their Top Secret secret. With financial machinations spread like the tentacle of an octopus over the whole globe and a vast majority of their kinsmen and compatriots left on their own on their piting limited talent, the reason for the widespreadness of the tickling poverty all around.
The few nouveau-riches and retired military generals who could salvage the nation’s economics and financial misfortunes wield enormous power over Foreign Embassies, the Gnomes of Zurich and the New York and London stock markets, even if the nation’s own N$E has been in a state of coma and a bear hug for twenty-three years, a deadly spider, sitting in the middle of the financial web, snapping at every unwary fly that could add to wealth. The nation’s bourgeoisie exuded power, money and luxury living with the diamond of their stick pins and silk cravat enviable, but when you looked directly into the hooded, slate grey eyes the cold ruthlessness of their nature became startlingly apparent.
This Politicians politician, shrewd brain and soulless mind, their fat expressionless face wanted no trouble, their business, including the farmers amongst them, far too important to risk. In contrast and stark reality and a tremor of uneasiness were the youths with dark shadows under their eyes struggling in their skin-tight jeans and windcheaters, their hooded lids surveying the nation’s ruling class with a bleak searching stare for clues and solutions out of the nation’s present malaises and comatose existence.
I saw Asorock in my mind’s eye, floodlit and impressive in the big, deserted square where it stood. It made me aware of the nation’s bitter poverty and inequality and the government’s intimidation of the citizenry, as it could not decode the formula that would liberate the people, North and South. Nothing is impossible in life if you have a combination of brains, power and money. The nation has got it all, but were not useful to it, as it could not break the code, hence, the cycle of wretchedness continued for the majority.
A nation with an immense and intimidating well of black gold beneath its oceans and continental shelves and one of the staggering largest and most impressive in the world, yet, buys imported, finished products at a higher cost differential to the unverified quantity of crude sold, and dishonestly playing the subsidy politics, subsidising illegality and financing stupidity all of which have further compounded the level of poverty and impoverished the people, both old and young, and its taking its toil even on the rich. How sad! With a smirking grin on my face. The hurt and the horror caused the nation’s youths, nay, people were too appaling.
Now, the youths are clamouring that “they want their country back” and with their eyes desperately searching for leaders. Well, that was not surprising. If you have the misfortune of being led and mentored by ill-formed leaders, sooner or later, there had to be a blow-back. However, their minds appeared to be in too much of a turmoil for them to notice the booby traps and the system’s well-oiled and orchestrated machinations of the nation’s ruling class – soulless robots, quietly vicious and dangerous, at a time the world is advancing in age, breakthroughs in rocket science, agriculture, economy and what have you. It’s ridiculous!
In the stream of Lagos after-hour traffic gridlock with its ‘you can’t unscrabble egg’ reality – cars, buses, tricycles and in the crush, men were lounging lazily and ladies were drunk with romance under the balls of mistletoe, bright trimmed with evergreen ribbons as ornaments. You notice the quantity of condoms at the Lekki Tollgate during the #endSARS. You gerrit! ‘Vawulence’ coloured drinks laced with substances soaked in ethanol; boys now moist with perspiration after gulping with distate the ethanol drenched mixtures. I hit no great shakes.
My hooded eyes studying a group of girls in bikinis, disporting themselves on the beach. Still staring at the beach and the blue sea, glittering in the coastal sunshine, I thought the girl running across the Ilashe sands to the open sea in the far distance shouldn’t be wearing a bikini. Although her figure was acceptable her thighs were enormously fat, so fat, that she ran awkwardly. It reminds me of sore spectacles at the #LekkiTollgate of October 2020. Here I began to feel sudden terror, a paralysing wave of fear ran through me at the nation’s uncoordinated ‘youth project ‘ and or movements. A reservoir, I think, is useless without water.
Most of the nation’s youths were trying to escape from the boredom of childhood but were really not growing up but now were dramatising the intentions of remaining much longer as a general factotum. The parents must be present, let the young boys know that there is no propitiation for making money, the secrets to money and more money is hardwork, prayer and hardwork. The blood spilling and killings are disgusting things that must stop. While one cannot be hypocritical, the nation’s, nay, the world’s precarious status – political, social and economical had made an undercurrent to loose-living, brawling, drunkenness – in a nation where the cost of alcohol is highly correlated to overall cost of living. This expresses volumes of what the future portends for society, for its army of youths. The more I get older and the more I see of people in the present modes, the sorrier I get for everyone.
The nation’s politics is filled with menacing hiccups and a constitution with gibberish verses for a generation with arguably the worst reading culture. A law that permitted economic and cultural hegemony and in spite of itself was causing internecine strifes and conflicts. I’m not fascinated by the way democracy is being handled as a thesis and governance as antithesis and could not synthesis both. I am dazed as I have come to realise that the people, the very centrepiece of democracy, are not so much interested in how or who governs them. Sad!
The internal settings and dynamics were now causing the nation to have an attack of the collywobbies in a national worry. The political situation engendered have created new areas of instability, new situation of tension have developed and the people have all been caught in the web of asking and demanding instant response to the numerous questions about the national questions, the place of the nation’s youths in the national equations, identity, integration, and government’s inability to provide a judicious mingling of home-like peace with the gaiety of strong moral social intercourse, devoid of ethnic and or religious pollution.
The existence of vertical and horizontal hostilities across the nation are a combative combination of the effects of ethnically induced tensions, privation and deprivation. At the moment, the people have been driven out of that inward refuge where everything was supposedly, clear, and meaningful, and maintained the silence necessary when dealing with fear on the ruling class like a child with night-terrors.
The state has to step in. All the prevarication around as if the government is irrelevant is a blatant farce. One is of the opinion that in the teeth of everything, it would be left to the government to decide whether or no the damning inferences and facts about the tardiness, cluelessness all around constituted an overwhelming proof of its negligence. Nevertheless, under the prevailing circumstances, society was the most affected by the revolting disregard for and assault on human life.
The nation’s internal capacities and capabilities to sustain itself and its people; and its reliability to provide for the teeming mass of its people, prosperity and enduring peace is been called to question. Because, those were the basic expectations of any democracy. The nation face today very real dangers on many sides. One of the task facing the government was to put the economy on a sound footing, finance its debts, put the currency on a firmer basis as the country and its economy has become more complex, and the well-being of the people necessitate the creation of wealth generating enterprises as a pragmatic political philosophy and principle of government.
One thing is clear, it is the continuing job of the constitution and the government it had created to draw all these disparate interests together, to create a common ground and, at the same time, to protect the unity of the nation and the fundamental rights of all the people.
Evidences of the rot and rut all around were little short of sensational, may not be conclusive, it may be intangible, vague and unsatisfactory, but, certainly not a mares nest, and as sure as eggs is eggs! It shouldn’t puzzle Society any how. It should be examined – sifted all the same. The nation must progress to preserve decencies and sanity and must take all contingencies to mind. The perfect solution(s) must explain the outer facts and psychology of the inside in order to take the youths, nay, the nation to a Cape of good hope.
The government should by legislation ensure that children are brought up by the state in order to offer standardised discipline, Tax the rich if it must! To feel otherwise would be an awkward position and would be quite disgusting in its hypocrisy. If the fact will not fit the theory – let the theory go. Society has to deal with the double dilemma its own act has brought about, by using the correct words to solving the menaces loose-living has become, but has to have a nucleus on which to work, and with the coils of the law.
So the affairs stands… stalemate.
#JimiBickersteth.
Jimi Bickersteth is a public affairs commentator, super blogger and writer.
He’s on Twitter:
@alabaemanuel
@BickerstethJimi
Emails:
