Jang’s Satanic Comparison: A Threat To Democracy
“In
2009 I wrote and published the article below in my facebook page to counter
those who think that the country was better off with the military because of
their disappointment with the way the civilians were running the country. It
was written then to mark 10 years of democracy. With so many people lampooning
our democratic leaders and some even classifying Abacha as better than today’s
leaders as we mark 14 years of uninterrupted democracy, the article is still as
relevant as it was in 2009 when I first wrote it. Let us not forget the evil of
military dictatorship whose poster face are the Abachas of this world and
support our democratic institution. Enjoy! unedited”
Jang’s
Satanic Comparison: A Threat To Democracy
By Paul Uwadima
Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State made a certain comparison that needed a quick response in order that our nascent democracy may survive and flourish. His Satanic comparison was coming on the heels of the 10 years anniversary of democracy which was marked around the country on the 29th May, 2009 which was also the two years anniversary of public officers elected and sworn into office on May 29, 2007.
Asked to give a personal assessment of his two-year administration Jang allegedly blamed the bureaucracy inherent in democracy for his inability to perform. He said that he had achieved more in two years as the military administrator of old Gongola State, than he had done within the same period as the democratically elected governor of Plateau State. Jang appears uncomfortable with the checks and balances that made democracy admired worldwise.
In other words, Jang wants us to believe that development is quickly signed, sealed and delivered under a military administration than in a democracy. Nothing can be further from the truth.
Agreed that the military often took quick and hasty decisions while they ran the country, but see where they have led us into.
It has been estimated that Nigerian leaders have misappropriated $20 trillion development funds since independence. This colossal amount of money ended up in their various bank accounts at home and abroad.
Given the fact that the military ran the country longer than the civilians since independence, it is unarguable that they share greater blame for the misappropriation of the said funds. They are the reason why the culture of corruption, nepotism, cronyism, underdevelopment have been the bane of the country.
If the past military leaders were so quick in spreading development, how come that NEPA or is it PHCN, was destroyed under them? How come that the refineries at Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna, are in such a mess, that one of the world's leading exporter of crude oil does not have enough refined fuel for domestic consumption? Why is it that under them, our hospitals were mere 'consulting clinics'? How come they put the country into a debt overhang that democracy recently extricated us from?.
If the military were so fast in transforming the country, why is it that premier universities like Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, University of Nigeria Nsukka, UNN, University of Ibadan and Obafemi Awolowo University, established by the founding fathers of this nation who are civilians to serve as centres of excellence for the training of the needed manpower for the nation, are today a shadow of their glorious past? how come illiteracy blossomed under the military while unemployment was celebrated and accepted as a way of life?
Under the Abacha administration, the late Head of State who is the poster face of all that is wrong with the Nigerian military's misadventure into the political turf, there was perpetual embargo on employment that was never lifted until the goggled one joined his ancestors. As a matter of fact, while the embargo lasted, only family members of those in the military and their cronies were employed behind the scene.
If you take a look at the types of corruption we have in the country, they were sustained and even elevated by them. Political corruption, characterized by leadership imposition and rigging of elections, are some of the tactics used by the military to select leaders for the country during the many bungled transition to civilian government elections that they conducted, which the civilians have sadly copied.
In 1979, most people knew that Chief Obafemi Awolowo, with his progressive credentials was head and shoulder above Alhaji Shehu Shagari, the presidential candidate of the National Party of Nigeria, NPN and thus had a better vision of how to run Africa's most complex country. What did we have? The military manipulated the process and Shagari was declared the winner and got 'elected' as president of the country. Having learnt from the military how to manipulate the electoral process, when the NPN-led government conducted the following election in 1983, they massively rigged the election and achieved 'landslide' victory but which was derided as 'moonslide'. A fertile ground thus created for the military to stage a comeback and continue their destruction of the social and political fabrics of the country.
The military after chasing away the politicians of the Second Republic, began deceitful transitions to democracy characterized by impositions and manipulations, until their comeuppance came when they annulled the June 12, 1993 election won by Chief M.K.O. Abiola.
There was strong opposition against the Babangida administration that annulled the election and even when the Niger State-born General was forced to 'step aside', his military successor, Sani Abacha, inherited the disdain of the civil society and indeed the entire democratic world.
Hemmed in between the (Devil) and the deep blue sea, in a manner of saying, the military after the death of Abacha, carried out a transition to civilian rule in 1999 in which they also allegedly manipulated the process to impose Obasanjo, their preferred candidate. Obasanjo in turn made sure that the manipulated system bequeathed by the military was sustained and earned for himself and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) a victory in the 2003 election that was described as flawed by local and international observers.
Similarly, Obasanjo after his failed Third term bid, sustained the culture of imposition, by ensuring that only his preferred candidate emerged as his successor.
The other day a close friend who knew my unhidden disdain for the military's misadventure in the political turf, reminded me that they were the ones that united the country during the civil war. I replied quickly that they only took care of the mess they created in the first place. If they had not carried out the senseless coup of 1966, there would probably have been no civil war to fight between 1967 and 1970.
It is in the area of corruption, which I hear and read about everyday that I realize the great damage that the former military leaders had done on the psychic of the people. That was why I was greatly upset when the media was awash sometime ago that former military heads of state, General Ibrahim Babangida, General Abdulsalam Abubakar and General Muhammadu Buhari deflated the allegations of corruption leveled against the late General Abacha. I wondered whether they were just coming back from the moon, because Abacha's looting of public treasury was every where in the Nigerian media and on the internet. Reports of several millions of dollars and pound sterling of Abacha loot recovered from foreign banks were never hidden.
In fact, Ismail Gwarzo, Abacha's National Security Adviser, NSA, allegedly told the Special Investigation Panel, SIP, set up by the Obasanjo administration to recover stolen funds from Abacha family and his other associates, that Abacha sent him to Central Bank between June 1996 and October 1997 to collect a total sum of $456 million and £232 million, in cash. These amounts did not also include several kick-backs the military leader allegedly received from inflated contracts. For the details of the chronicle of Abacha's loot, please see Tell Magazine, October 7, 2002.
Abacha, as said earlier, was only the poster face of former military leaders in government and symbolized what happened in all facets of government when they are in power. Abacha's loot was exposed because of the circumstances of his leaving power.
As we celebrate 10 years of uninterrupted democracy, let us not forget too soon the damage the former military leaders and their apologists did to this country. There is no alternative to democracy. The media is recently awash with stories of corruption being alleged perpetrated by the present civilian leaders, but that was possible because of the freedom that the media presently enjoys. Such corruption were largely unreported under the military, but the mess they left behind attest to their role in the nation's under-development.
Military, whenever they ventured into public administration, left behind trails of malfeasance, instability and destruction of the fabric of that society.
Take a look at Pakistan and India. Pakistan became an independent nation in 1947 carved out of the 'parent country', India, for religious reasons. The civilians who together with Indian leaders got their freedom or independence from Britain, were never allowed by the military to make mistakes and learn from it in the course of running the country, they took power from the civilians.
Since 1947, Pakistan has had several military heads of state, thereby confirming that the military are harbingers of instability. As they control the country, corruption thrives and today Pakistan is almost like a failed state as the country battles the resilent Talibans determined to over-run the entire country. Probably, the only thing Pakistan military has to show the world as its accomplishment over several years of dominance of the leadership of the country was the acquisition of nuclear bomb, which was actually in response to India's earlier development of the same weapon.
India however presents a big contrast from their former 'countrymen' Pakistan. Indian military allowed the civilians to make mistakes and correct them. It has had tumultuous democracy, but there had never been an attempt by the military to near the corridors of power. Today without a doubt, India is the world's biggest democracy and only recently over 700 million Indians out of the country's 1.2 billion people participated in a free and fair election to select their leaders.
Every discernable mind could see what India has achieved through its several years of political stability; it is the world's largest democracy; world's power house of ICT and in fact has produced more .com billionaires in ICT than any other country in the world with the exception of the United States. As a matter of fact, software developers and programmers from India are hot cakes in America. Major Indian cities have grown economically as a result of earnings from the ICT through America's outsourcing; India is also the second fastest growing economy in the world after China and remained largely unscathed by the global economic meltdown; its automobile industry has produced the world's cheapest car. There is quite a lot to recommend India for, to other developing nations.
Let us therefore not give any hint that there is anything to celebrate in military's interventions in politics. We must work together to sustain our democracy as that remains the only option for the development of the country.
I understand that many Nigerians are upset about their inability to taste the dividends of democracy over the last ten years. Nigerians must learn the patience of the Indians who are today reaping the dividends of democracy.
A lot of blood was shed to lay the foundation of the present democracy and it is our collective responsibility to ensure its success despite the media headlines over all that is wrong with it. As we continue on the path of democracy, institutions that deepen this type of government like the judiciary would undoubtedly get better. See the role it has played in Anambra, Edo and Ondo States' governorship tussles and it becomes clear that things could only get better.
Politicians should also do away with anti-democratic habits they learnt from the military and play by the rule of democracy as practised in other functioning democracies in US, UK, India, Ghana, South Africa and elsewhere around the world. Politicians must also learn to see leadership as a call to service and not a call to loot public treasury. Media practitioners as gatekeepers of information outflow, across the country, who bare the brunt of military dictatorships, must not allow stories that in any shape or form would give hint that there is anything to celebrate or appreciate with, "army arrangement."
What the country needs now, are patriotic Nigerians with workable ideas on how to strengthen our democracy and ensure rapid development of the country. As ideas flow out of the fountain of knowledge of the 'wise men' that abound in the country, Yar'Adua and his administration should make use of them, whether from his preferred source or not. The interest of the nation's democracy must be paramount at all times, for in it lies the hope for a better and prosperous Nigeria.
Paul Uwadima can be reached on Facebook.com. pauluwadima@yahoo.com
Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State made a certain comparison that needed a quick response in order that our nascent democracy may survive and flourish. His Satanic comparison was coming on the heels of the 10 years anniversary of democracy which was marked around the country on the 29th May, 2009 which was also the two years anniversary of public officers elected and sworn into office on May 29, 2007.
Asked to give a personal assessment of his two-year administration Jang allegedly blamed the bureaucracy inherent in democracy for his inability to perform. He said that he had achieved more in two years as the military administrator of old Gongola State, than he had done within the same period as the democratically elected governor of Plateau State. Jang appears uncomfortable with the checks and balances that made democracy admired worldwise.
In other words, Jang wants us to believe that development is quickly signed, sealed and delivered under a military administration than in a democracy. Nothing can be further from the truth.
Agreed that the military often took quick and hasty decisions while they ran the country, but see where they have led us into.
It has been estimated that Nigerian leaders have misappropriated $20 trillion development funds since independence. This colossal amount of money ended up in their various bank accounts at home and abroad.
Given the fact that the military ran the country longer than the civilians since independence, it is unarguable that they share greater blame for the misappropriation of the said funds. They are the reason why the culture of corruption, nepotism, cronyism, underdevelopment have been the bane of the country.
If the past military leaders were so quick in spreading development, how come that NEPA or is it PHCN, was destroyed under them? How come that the refineries at Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna, are in such a mess, that one of the world's leading exporter of crude oil does not have enough refined fuel for domestic consumption? Why is it that under them, our hospitals were mere 'consulting clinics'? How come they put the country into a debt overhang that democracy recently extricated us from?.
If the military were so fast in transforming the country, why is it that premier universities like Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, University of Nigeria Nsukka, UNN, University of Ibadan and Obafemi Awolowo University, established by the founding fathers of this nation who are civilians to serve as centres of excellence for the training of the needed manpower for the nation, are today a shadow of their glorious past? how come illiteracy blossomed under the military while unemployment was celebrated and accepted as a way of life?
Under the Abacha administration, the late Head of State who is the poster face of all that is wrong with the Nigerian military's misadventure into the political turf, there was perpetual embargo on employment that was never lifted until the goggled one joined his ancestors. As a matter of fact, while the embargo lasted, only family members of those in the military and their cronies were employed behind the scene.
If you take a look at the types of corruption we have in the country, they were sustained and even elevated by them. Political corruption, characterized by leadership imposition and rigging of elections, are some of the tactics used by the military to select leaders for the country during the many bungled transition to civilian government elections that they conducted, which the civilians have sadly copied.
In 1979, most people knew that Chief Obafemi Awolowo, with his progressive credentials was head and shoulder above Alhaji Shehu Shagari, the presidential candidate of the National Party of Nigeria, NPN and thus had a better vision of how to run Africa's most complex country. What did we have? The military manipulated the process and Shagari was declared the winner and got 'elected' as president of the country. Having learnt from the military how to manipulate the electoral process, when the NPN-led government conducted the following election in 1983, they massively rigged the election and achieved 'landslide' victory but which was derided as 'moonslide'. A fertile ground thus created for the military to stage a comeback and continue their destruction of the social and political fabrics of the country.
The military after chasing away the politicians of the Second Republic, began deceitful transitions to democracy characterized by impositions and manipulations, until their comeuppance came when they annulled the June 12, 1993 election won by Chief M.K.O. Abiola.
There was strong opposition against the Babangida administration that annulled the election and even when the Niger State-born General was forced to 'step aside', his military successor, Sani Abacha, inherited the disdain of the civil society and indeed the entire democratic world.
Hemmed in between the (Devil) and the deep blue sea, in a manner of saying, the military after the death of Abacha, carried out a transition to civilian rule in 1999 in which they also allegedly manipulated the process to impose Obasanjo, their preferred candidate. Obasanjo in turn made sure that the manipulated system bequeathed by the military was sustained and earned for himself and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) a victory in the 2003 election that was described as flawed by local and international observers.
Similarly, Obasanjo after his failed Third term bid, sustained the culture of imposition, by ensuring that only his preferred candidate emerged as his successor.
The other day a close friend who knew my unhidden disdain for the military's misadventure in the political turf, reminded me that they were the ones that united the country during the civil war. I replied quickly that they only took care of the mess they created in the first place. If they had not carried out the senseless coup of 1966, there would probably have been no civil war to fight between 1967 and 1970.
It is in the area of corruption, which I hear and read about everyday that I realize the great damage that the former military leaders had done on the psychic of the people. That was why I was greatly upset when the media was awash sometime ago that former military heads of state, General Ibrahim Babangida, General Abdulsalam Abubakar and General Muhammadu Buhari deflated the allegations of corruption leveled against the late General Abacha. I wondered whether they were just coming back from the moon, because Abacha's looting of public treasury was every where in the Nigerian media and on the internet. Reports of several millions of dollars and pound sterling of Abacha loot recovered from foreign banks were never hidden.
In fact, Ismail Gwarzo, Abacha's National Security Adviser, NSA, allegedly told the Special Investigation Panel, SIP, set up by the Obasanjo administration to recover stolen funds from Abacha family and his other associates, that Abacha sent him to Central Bank between June 1996 and October 1997 to collect a total sum of $456 million and £232 million, in cash. These amounts did not also include several kick-backs the military leader allegedly received from inflated contracts. For the details of the chronicle of Abacha's loot, please see Tell Magazine, October 7, 2002.
Abacha, as said earlier, was only the poster face of former military leaders in government and symbolized what happened in all facets of government when they are in power. Abacha's loot was exposed because of the circumstances of his leaving power.
As we celebrate 10 years of uninterrupted democracy, let us not forget too soon the damage the former military leaders and their apologists did to this country. There is no alternative to democracy. The media is recently awash with stories of corruption being alleged perpetrated by the present civilian leaders, but that was possible because of the freedom that the media presently enjoys. Such corruption were largely unreported under the military, but the mess they left behind attest to their role in the nation's under-development.
Military, whenever they ventured into public administration, left behind trails of malfeasance, instability and destruction of the fabric of that society.
Take a look at Pakistan and India. Pakistan became an independent nation in 1947 carved out of the 'parent country', India, for religious reasons. The civilians who together with Indian leaders got their freedom or independence from Britain, were never allowed by the military to make mistakes and learn from it in the course of running the country, they took power from the civilians.
Since 1947, Pakistan has had several military heads of state, thereby confirming that the military are harbingers of instability. As they control the country, corruption thrives and today Pakistan is almost like a failed state as the country battles the resilent Talibans determined to over-run the entire country. Probably, the only thing Pakistan military has to show the world as its accomplishment over several years of dominance of the leadership of the country was the acquisition of nuclear bomb, which was actually in response to India's earlier development of the same weapon.
India however presents a big contrast from their former 'countrymen' Pakistan. Indian military allowed the civilians to make mistakes and correct them. It has had tumultuous democracy, but there had never been an attempt by the military to near the corridors of power. Today without a doubt, India is the world's biggest democracy and only recently over 700 million Indians out of the country's 1.2 billion people participated in a free and fair election to select their leaders.
Every discernable mind could see what India has achieved through its several years of political stability; it is the world's largest democracy; world's power house of ICT and in fact has produced more .com billionaires in ICT than any other country in the world with the exception of the United States. As a matter of fact, software developers and programmers from India are hot cakes in America. Major Indian cities have grown economically as a result of earnings from the ICT through America's outsourcing; India is also the second fastest growing economy in the world after China and remained largely unscathed by the global economic meltdown; its automobile industry has produced the world's cheapest car. There is quite a lot to recommend India for, to other developing nations.
Let us therefore not give any hint that there is anything to celebrate in military's interventions in politics. We must work together to sustain our democracy as that remains the only option for the development of the country.
I understand that many Nigerians are upset about their inability to taste the dividends of democracy over the last ten years. Nigerians must learn the patience of the Indians who are today reaping the dividends of democracy.
A lot of blood was shed to lay the foundation of the present democracy and it is our collective responsibility to ensure its success despite the media headlines over all that is wrong with it. As we continue on the path of democracy, institutions that deepen this type of government like the judiciary would undoubtedly get better. See the role it has played in Anambra, Edo and Ondo States' governorship tussles and it becomes clear that things could only get better.
Politicians should also do away with anti-democratic habits they learnt from the military and play by the rule of democracy as practised in other functioning democracies in US, UK, India, Ghana, South Africa and elsewhere around the world. Politicians must also learn to see leadership as a call to service and not a call to loot public treasury. Media practitioners as gatekeepers of information outflow, across the country, who bare the brunt of military dictatorships, must not allow stories that in any shape or form would give hint that there is anything to celebrate or appreciate with, "army arrangement."
What the country needs now, are patriotic Nigerians with workable ideas on how to strengthen our democracy and ensure rapid development of the country. As ideas flow out of the fountain of knowledge of the 'wise men' that abound in the country, Yar'Adua and his administration should make use of them, whether from his preferred source or not. The interest of the nation's democracy must be paramount at all times, for in it lies the hope for a better and prosperous Nigeria.
Paul Uwadima can be reached on Facebook.com. pauluwadima@yahoo.com
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