Ongoing in the United States is an impeachment hearing. Why? The US President is charged with abuse of power as a result of an alleged attempt to pressure Ukraine into investigating a political rival. If I may add ‘in his political favour?’. Not good enough you may say. But what I don’t get or cannot fathom nor stomach is the extreme to which some political aspirants and/or parties go just to attain office.
No Divide between Good and Evil to Win an Election
Election-related violence is as old as Nigerian politics and elections. Politicians would go to any length to win an election. They will go as far as maiming, killing, kidnapping, sabotaging, and personality defamation. They go as far as exploiting the country’s diversity entrenched in its beliefs, tradition, tribe and ethnic groups to win an election. They do not mind sacrificing lives and the peace of the country just to satisfy and fulfil their selfish ambitions. At the desperate point of wanting to win elections at all costs and by all means, there is no divide between good and evil. How pathetic? And yet we wonder why we regress rather than progress if, in this age and time, a politician would take the life of a fellow human, wipe out an entire family in the name of winning an election. Heartlessly killing and murdering in cold blood a life you did not create! Politicians would even employ dubious means, constitute and instigate insurgent groups, take advantage of nomadic herdsmen and bandits all for elections to be in their favour. The list of evil is unending.
Riding on Deaths and Blood to Assume Political Offices
Nigeria, when? When shall we stop to aspire to our desired political offices or posts riding on the back of several deaths? Several thousand have been killed in election-related violence since the transition to democracy in pre-election, election and post-election killings. When Nigeria, shall we stop assuming political offices tainted with the blood and cries of individuals and families murdered in cold blood? You kill and yet tell your citizens you have their best interest at heart; you are vying for their best interest and to improve the standard of living. Whose interest oh ye murderers, destroyers of lives and killers of dreams. Enyin a pa ni l’ekun, j’aye. You leave wives as widows suffering under the still existing hurtful cultural practices against women in some parts of the country. Families zoom in like bees claiming the left behind properties by their son not caring how the surviving wife and children will survive. The children grow up not knowing either or both of their parents.
Recent research by the U.S Census Bureau has brought to light how the lack of father figure in a child’s life while growing up is associated with nearly all societal ills.
RyanNFIFatherAbsenceInfoGraphic051614
Yes. Did I hear you say ‘after all that is a statistics for the U.S’? Imagine if that is obtainable in an advanced country what do you think would be obtainable in Nigeria?
So, are you still wondering at whether we are making progress or regressing?
Incomprehensible for me is when some of the political violence is perpetrated by the country’s soldier and police, agencies with a mandate to protect and preserve the citizen’s life.
In Kogi, a state in the central region of Nigeria, it was reported how a former councillor and women leader of the People’s Democratic Party was set ablaze by political thugs during violence erupting after the result of Kogi State 2019 Governorship election was released. With deep sorrow, I read the re-telling of a 26 years old election commission worker whose brother was killed during an indiscriminate shooting. She found her hidden brother’s body where friends had kept it from military officials who were seizing the bodies of people their gunfire had killed. “He was only 23 years old, trying to gain admission into the university. Something inside me left the day he died… (Culled from Human Rights Watch)”. How many more can I recount? These examples are not even a minute of the several existing incidences.
It is about time we made meaningful progress in addressing the issue of election-related violence and killings. It is about time the politicians, their thugs and co-conspirators are held accountable for rights abused and lives killed. It is about time investigations are conclusive and perpetrators brought to book. It is about time the country’s judiciary system stops looking sold-out or controlled by the highest bidder. Just my thoughts though.
