This country has just witnessed three major events in the last 2 weeks which if care is not taken may lay the foundation for the disintegration of Nigeria, threaten the unity of the country and murder our democracy.
One was the unwarranted seige on Ekiti State government house and harassment of Governor Ayo Fayose on July 11, 2018, by 800 men of the Nigerian Police who claimed to be acting on an ‘order from the above’.
Secondly was the active collaboration of the security agencies, INEC and Federal Government in the manipulation of the Ekiti State governorship election result of July 14, 2018.
On July 24, 2018, Nigerians and the world woke up to witness, like Jack Bauer’s 24 hours movie, the unprecedented seige laid at the residences of the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki and his Deputy, Sen Ike Ekweremandu, by the Nigerian Police purportedly acting on another ‘order from the above.’
All these ugly developments put together are capable of derailing our hard-earned democracy. It’s a bad omen for a country with a history of coup de-tats. Nigeria cannot afford to go through avoidable and needless crises again that would encourage the military to stage a coup or disintegrate our nation.
Even though, the government in power today poses more not like a democratic one anyway but a government run by a syndicate that strongly believes in applying force to have its way and imposes itself on the nation with little or no regard for democratic culture is not different from but only better than military dictatorship in the sense that it has a time frame of only 4 years before it faces the people again. For how long can militocracy in democratic garb last. Time will tell.
My interest is not to castigate Mr President but to offer my advice as a brother from another mother. Mr President needs to know that Nigerians are not interested in any crisis in its least form nor are they passionate about military intervention. Nigerians can be extremely patient, however, it’s not advisable to put their patience to test.
Mr President needs to avoid all pitfalls that could endanger our democracy. He should stop forthwith the harassment of other arms of government. He should stop infringing on people’s right of association and right to belong to any political party of their choice after all, he was once a beneficiary of such.
He should desist from harassing past governors and political office holders who are in the opposition. He should stop manipulating electoral processes. Above all, he should allow the will of God to prevail as that is the only way for him to run a peaceful and purposeful government, otherwise, it will be tough for him and history will record him as a President who ruled with snakes and scorpions.
Adedeji Babington-Ashaye
Concerned Citizen of Nigeria
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