The year’s general elections are over but the scarsare like ever, glaring. And as we wait for the start of another term of office
for the new and renewed leaders at various levels, our hope and expectationsfrom them are challenged by the gory aftermaths of the campaign and elections.But how much of successes of failures did the 2019elections record, in terms of improvement, consolidation?
Well, we are pessimists much of the time, especiallywhen it is the system we are talking about. I have followed much of theaccusations against the umpire, INEC, largely from the opposition and losers.
But we have also heard from the spectra of observers– local, national and international – whose verdict is more likely to be moresincere than that of our typical.
By the benefit of history if we can remember it, theelections were much better, a huge improvement in the system of conduct and thewill of officials at the various posts of duty.
There were challenges, fundamental of which waslogistics, admitted by INEC themselves. And the allegations and the rumourswere no reasons for any fair account.
It is goodbut, that we are humbled to the fact that the better is always ahead, next, nothere. What remains the saddest of all our regrets in our conduct of election isthe refusal of politicians, their stooges and the electorate to change.
We have wasted your years earlier challenging thechange agenda of our leadership, refusing to touch our fixated minds and heartsabout national or public issues.
But suddenly woke to ask for and expect a magicalelection to be conducted in marvellous ways but without submission of ouralmighty SELF as subject of the system that needs change of heart and mind tobe better.
So not much improvement, really. Yes. Not much willchange. We will live the next hundred years still expecting the better but willnever come the way we are.
It is obvious nothing can improve until everyoneacts in positives ways, sideways, topbottom and is ready to submit everything aboutour SELF to the system.
We can only keep idling in the national dream thatthings will be better with prayers and with the power of God. Yes. Possible.But is it going to be without individuals involved in dutyposts to do one thingor the other?
That brings us to the point that INDIVIDUALISM – ourconsciousness about persons which places the individual above the system invirtually every key issues that concerns the public interests – has deepenedall through the campaign and much more with the result of the elections. Itfinally dawned that it has become a terrible part of us.
How did we improve in decision making? What were theoptions and what do we make out of them?
After we installed the app of change, did we have toconsolidate on the change or we needed to change the change or parts of thechange elements, at the least, and why was that necessary?
How do we keep achieving more by changing every fouryears with fresh start? Are those who make the Constitution sensible? Crazy,but.
I have always seen democracy with inherentshortcomings. One of them is the term of office limit. It is impracticable toconsolidate leadership and build economies within the terms. Not for us,anyway. Those who borrowed us the idea knew we would go no miles to achieveanything.
Anything opposite to the term limit is, according todemocracy, dictatorship. But we can see how one leader has changed the fate ofa nation singlehandedly by the help of his ‘overstay’ in office beyond four,five, six or so years. We are denied that.
And no one cares to listen during the campaign, asif the limits of term were meant to be a handy tool used by the opposition tomake impossible assessment of the incumbent. It was so unholy.
It was by the mercy of God that we got a second termfor continuity and buildup for the serious leader. The unserious can bereturned many times and nothing changes because the years alone cannot help youdeliver on promises. But not for a leader like Baba.
The denial was scary. It got to a point when menlost all honour and glory to lie the impossible just to make a second termimpossible for one person, even if it is going to be a bounty for everybody.
From nowhere I found myself standing in an ovationof national cacophony that the elections were going to be too close to call.What? How? When? What happened? Who said so. The social/mass media was full ofit but no one cared to answer me.
I dropped by pen and devices and left the campaignstage, resorting to prayers, telling God, “this will be difficult a place tolive again if PMB’s bid is stopped. The worst place to be a human can even bebetter. Please, God. Do not let it happen.
Even with the assurances of the pouring results infavour, and with the relative credibility and peace, I was not up to myselfagain. I remained dump, until Baba was announced winner. Instead of using wordson the media, I did it in even more solemn prayers. God is merciful. It wasonly His mercy. Nothing else. The devils outnumber evil but with God, it wasjust over.
Hearing my depressed voice on the phone, a frienddismissed my submission to the electricshocks of the presidential election aftermaths.
He handed over some sympathy and said, “your own haswon, that is ok.?” Yes. PMB has won. But we must not drop the fact that heneeded men around him to work with in genuine hearts.
We have had a bitter experience with the President’sfellow party members who used their institution offices to set the nation backa number of times for the interest of the fifth columnist and for the sameindividualism values they worship.
There were serious moments when the nation bled but never was there a time when the nation shook inunison, warning the two or three individuals over their excesses in holding us back.
Thank God the election discarded them in deservedpunishment to the wicked, which is not enough, for me, until the law pursuestheir pasts and made them take more lessons to their afterlife, in respect tothe life of the generations that they will leave behind.
But the President will still be alone in fightingtheir type, except the few that can only write but hardly help. Those who canwrite to help have sold their pens.
The few that survived to return to the chambers arenegligible. They are negligible minority and too insignificant because therewill be no even a number ten citizen among them.
When we are strong on issues on the right term, theywill always shape in. But that remains to be seen.
Will God save us from the penchance of the wickedfrom the ‘other side’ to politicise every national issue just to please thepatrons of the impugn and the corrupt?So be it.
It is the evil of individualism that won’t allow ussystemise the system, to pput it first above every consideration, so we canconsolidate and help rebuild the institutions along the visions of the nationalleader.
Consolidation will them make the bad, notorious,cruel elements in the house change and follow suit in a second time. But wealways changed the individuals for selfish, personal grievances and hatefulenvy we take too personal because we are sworn enemies of ourselves.
How else can we explain individuals buying in theirways through the media with all the lies against the leadership, for reasonsthat are supposed to be offensive to the whole public?
Those lies made things look likely because, yes,there were weakness, failure, but not enough reasons to throw the baby with thebath water.
When a family member rebels and offends, you don’t disownthem. You keep them in renewed hope and in punishment that they will adapt toprogress and change things in the second chance. But we hurried like inpersonal fights to punch, tackle, pull the opponent down and laugh at them onthe ground. Immature.
The new persons in new parties may be good, may be evenbetter that the departing. But they are strangers to the family. They will notsit to attend the community meeting at the highest level.
And what is discussed there will not be a privilegeto our own household which is not represented.
Except, perhaps, they will change family and jointhe larger house, may be. It is possible, owing to trends of local politics inrecent times. But that doesn’t change the badness in the frequency of changingbatons. Consolidation is necessary.
So in all the campaign and the elections we have putindividual and personal considerations above the system, the entity or thepublic. And that is our most dangerous predicament.
A campaign or election in which ‘I’ didn’tparticipate is always most likely going to be a failure. Or a campaign of, orelection conducted by the most credible government ever is dismissed asfailure. All because the individual is in stark state of denial, bias andstereotype.
We have heard lies that shook the mountains from thelips of ‘elders’ – lies for which kids are beaten and punished for at home. Wehave glorified individuals and ascribed certain statui on them such that theyare exempted from the abominations of society and the law.
And in the name of the bastard minefield thatpolitics has become their exclusive domain of doing anything anyhow they wantit done,
Those who destroyed our values to this point arestill hanging. They will never relent in making sure that we don’t liberateourselves from this inhumanity, abnormal society that crazes over the right andwrong.
They wait for every opportunity to grab to turn usback. In this election, we have given them additional windows. May be thewindows be too tiny for them to pass through PMB’s locks and keys.
The elections left us with the smudges on keydemocratic disciplines demonstrated by the national leadership and by keyofficials at some lower levels.
We used thecampaigns to deny the demonstrated principles of integrity, honesty, sincerity,tolerance and rule of law as exemplified by the President and some of hissubjects in ministries, parastatals and in some states..
We have used the campaign to belie the righteous, todeny the good, to wrong rights, to abuse state apparatui, officials and todestroy life and property in some places.
We have said anything taboo as in the past, toldmany wrongs to persons we shouldn’t and we got to the nerves of the innocent.We shirked duty and responsibility to the public in gross disrespect andcontempt.
So how do we look into the face of the future andask for it, with all that we have done in the name of campaign and election?How do we work again with those we abused for no reason to achieve organisationand public objectives?
How do we expect the better from leaders we onlyascribe good or bad on them only bypersonal reasons, bias and sentiments?
A leader is an individual in position of collectiveinterest of all. They are for all and they work to serve the interest of all.Remove your interest from public funds and resources, talk more aboutoverriding the public interest.
There is no way you can pocket both the leader and the public interest to get them serve our parochials and expect development to glare around you.
More than that you should support and rally others’support to get this understanding down the public courts of knowledge. But whenyou refused to and continue to demand for yourself only, do not use theleader’s inability to perform as reason to get them out next campaign. Findsome other reasons.
May PMB live to term, live longer to take enoughcustody of our trust, and do the real and the dream that we prayed God makepossible for the correction of the ills and the devils of this impossiblesociety.
Meanwhile, my heart bleeds for the misfortune myconstituency recorded this election. That professors who rig election areactually at the front to punish students for exams malpractice.
I just remembered that they were actually silent when those lies were told about a government and a leader that was different. And silence is approval. It is a scar that will last. Sad.
Hassan Alhaji Hassan is of the Department of Mass Communication, Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi. 08050551220 (text only with full names and address) [email protected]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect WikkiTimes’ editorial stance.
