The Devil and the Deep Sea: Is Abstention a Choice in Politics?

I wonder now if it really matters anyway, after all it's just a single vote and majority will always carry the day in a normal democratic setting. But it just happened that I was left with two bad choices leaving me to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea, a situation where I rather be on the fence. That was my dilemma. GEJ is said to be a weakling and an under-performer and his opponent Buhari is also tainted as a coupist, tyrant and a religious fundamentalist. What separate both of them in my opinion are mainly tribe and party. As for who amongst them is better, read my lips - 'n***.'

I don't believe that out of 160m Nigerians, the opposition cannot throw up a more vibrant aspirant. For GEJ, he used his power of incumbency to win the party ticket. Since I have been given no option but these two aberrations, the fence provides more solace. This is my personal opinion and if you don't like it, too bad, because, there is nothing anyone can do about it.

Well, maybe if someone can give me good reasons why I should climb down, I just might.

Some people have said sitting on the fence will not help us or our country Nigeria, that we know our problems in Nigeria, so we should be able to know which of the two can best address the nation's problems as it were. They believe if we can reduce corruption a little bit, the nation's funds can be used to create jobs for our ever increasing jobless youths. As for thee, they rather chose one that's most likely to make than go with a clueless government that has brought us to this point in 6 years.

They believe that if we all seat on the fence, who will bell the cat? We will continue to complain of any eventual bad government and leadership. It is known across the world that Nigeria ' problems arose from bad leadership. Hence we followers can't afford to sit on the fence and allow things go bad again for another 4 years. Note that you didn't disappoint me. Our leaders have frustrated you and many others like you, but the only weapon we have is our votes (if they allow it to count). I still want to encourage us all to vote our conscience among the two of them.

Other argue that a bad choice is better than doing nothing. If you align your values with your expectations probably making a choice could be a lot easier.

Abstention is a legal democratic choice which is acceptable and practiced worldwide. There are times where ballot papers are marked {Yes, No or Abstain} as choices for the voter to choose from. Abstention does not always mean not voting at all, but sometimes a voter may print on both the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ option to invalidate the vote as a form abstention. In the 1970s the Speaker of the House of Commons, George Thomas warned MPs considering a stroll through both the "aye" and the "no" lobbies. There was a real threat of abstention by the Commons at the time.

It's not a crime to decide to abstain from participating in an election that has been compromised from the primaries by the two major parties. You reserve the choice to starve if you are offered between a rotten egg and a smelly chicken as meal, even in a precinct.

“Abstention is a useful political situation to being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Typically, you don't want to choose between two really bad situations or, for OpenElections?, you don't want to offend either camp. So, instead you choose to make no choice.  
 
Believe me, you will be held responsible for your vote if it is successful. Ask the Iraqis or the Serbs.
 
By voting for some political group you accept responsibility for the actions of that group. If the system chooses to remove a person’s right to be represented by never representing their views, then to vote within that system is to endorse it. Democracy is about representation, not a charade of votes for essentially the same group of power-elite. I would welcome a RON entry or a 'no confidence' entry on a ballot.
 
This does not serve the system, however, and so is very rarely seen. Better to pretend people are too lazy or too stupid, rather than admit maybe people cannot respect a government which represents only itself and its sponsors. You are 'de facto' responsible for the consequences of your actions. Most criminal law is predicated on this.”  http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?YesNoAbstainVoting
 
Our standards are very low here and so are our expectations. We use the poor performance of our past leaders as criteria to select new leaders. I am exercising my right to resist bad leadership and sending a message that you don't just throw bad choices with empty promises at me and get my vote. You have to earn it or you get the BOOT. And as for belling a cat, I don’t bell wild cats, I simply dispose them.

MEMO TO UNCLE JONA

President Goodluck Jonathan

OUR PROBLEMS (Part I)

Is fifty years in the life of a nation not sufficient time to make all the mistakes ever possible? At what time and age are we going to be pained enough to start tackling all our problems head-on?

Take a look at the faces of the common man on the streets, all you see is hardship, poverty, disease, desperation, frustration, abuse, neglect, hunger, anger, insecurity, violence and you can go on endlessly, because we all know what our problems are. We have been abused and de-humanized to the extent that we now have very low self-esteem. Our moral values have been compromised. We have lost pride, virtuousness, dignity and respect for human lives.

Fraud, corruption, embezzlement, robbery, slander, murder and all forms of crimes have now become a part of our lifestyle, and it has made us lose all our natural resistance, decorum, self-discipline and up-rightness.

Hasn’t the time come yet for those in government to be vexed enough to start addressing these issues with determination and commitment? What exactly are the problems we are even talking about? Water, light, food, house, which the legendary singer, Fela Kuti, sang in 1982 in his Original Suffer Head album, and this remains true even today. Water, light, food and house are physical, there are now in addition, morality and psychological dimensions, which is even more worrisome.  

We have everything that is required to resolve these challenges. We have human, material and financial resources to take on these problems head-on. Our universities may not be top-notch when comparing them globally, but we have what it takes to start a robust developmental programme. With our mineral resources harnessed and prudently administered, we can generate sufficient financial resources to fund this project without seeking international assistance or taking any foreign loan.

The universities will look at the best scientific applications of knowledge within their confines to proffer indigent solutions to these problems.

These plagues, so to speak, threatening the entire fabric of our existence has reached a climax now that we are supposed to be seeing the urgent need to start thinking of radical changes to the way we perceive, and even react to our conditions. It is time to put on our thinking cap and start finding ways to address each of these problems. We can do this by introducing science as a bedrock of our new policy approach. That is the essence of involving the universities in our developmental agenda.

Looking back at our checkered past, apparently, you would but conclude that we are still basking in some kind of victory celebration fifty long years after independence. We need to snap out of this victory dance. We have experienced a number of rare interruptions that seemingly brought us together as a people, and the independence struggle is one that presented us with one of the greatest national challenge, forcing everyone and all sections of the country to come together as one, and attacking and destroying the obnoxious colonial slave masters.

The Nigerian civil war again brought another phase of nationalism whereby the greater Nigeria people came together to fight and maintained one united and indivisible entity against the Odumegwu Ojukwu led Biafran forces in a civil crisis that lasted from July 6, 1967 to 15 January 1970.

In 1993, the failed election of the IBB-Abacha regime culminating into the Moshood Abiola June 12 saga, yet again demonstrated how resilient we can be when our common destiny is threatened.

Occasions such as these have always brought us together to counter any apparent threat on our national unity. The Nigerian people have always shown resistance and had fought back and defeated our common enemies.

After each of these interruptions and national rejuvenation, we seemingly relapse into a continuum of wastefulness and recklessness. From the president, national assembly, governors, ministers and head of the various agencies, down to the local government chairmen, evidently, there is systemic lack of control and tendency of blatant abuse of public office and mismanagement of our common wealth.

Do we have to wait for another interruption for us to realize that we have to do the needful? The cost of such interruptions on the nation is very heavy, therefore, we do not have to wait for another civil disruption, which by the way, the Boko Haram insurgency is gradually leading us to.

As Nigerians, there are just enough problems already, we are tired Mr. President. List all the aspects of human development and score each indices using third world criteria, every single item, from water, light, food, house, education, health, employment, security, roads and transport etc., will score very poorly. And it just all reminds me of a student who do not spend time studying and expect to do well in an examination.

There is something fundamentally wrong with our approach to problem solving. We know what the problems are, and our lack-luster effects at mitigation always leads to failure. We keep repeating our mistakes without learning any meaningful lessons. What amazes me is that we keep going in circles, trying to solve the same problems repeatedly, year and again, one administration after another.

The time has come to stop this spinet. The era of motion without movement has to end. Let us take solace in science, using our universities to research on how best we can adapt indigenous technological approaches to proffer solutions to our various challenges.

THE NEW APPROACH (Part II)

Let us take for example, desertification in part of the North and flooding in the Niger Delta region. Already we have establishments such as the River Basin Development Authority and the Ministry of Niger Delta mandated to manage the development of these areas.

There are countless number of agencies and parastatals that have been established by government to address various national concerns. These structure were setup with good intention, but shabby implementation and gross mis-management has been their bane.

The new direction is to rejuvenate our university research structures and the funding of research institutes, creating new research bin where all government policies henceforth shall derive guidance and direction. For example, the ministry of Power will fund researches into cheaper alternative energy and development of a work plan on a short-term and long-term basis.

All other ministries and parastaltals will have similar research bodies pivoting the new science-based policy drive that will energize the new national development plan, berthing alongside the existing vision 20-20-20.

We have to walk-the-walk and talk-the-talk. Let us again remind ourselves that it is not going to be business as usual. We must stop being the big blind country which Fela also sang about, and start taking responsibility and mean every action we take. It is time to earn our title, “giant of Africa.” You don’t win a contest by word of mouth but by commitment and perseverance to the objectives and goals.

There must be a new regime of penalties for dishonesty and mal-administration of public office and funds. Starting from the universities down to the local council, and to put an end the ways of the past were monies provided to universities for research work are shared amongst professors. These research results should henceforth be confirmed by international monitoring bodies, and sanctions will be imposed if found culpable.

The fight against corruption, protection of human rights and enforcement of law and order must take a  new dimension and must be one that truly seek to re-invigorate the pursuit of justice and fairness in the administration and management of our common resources.

We must now take into our own hands our destiny and common growth. We must apply science in finding solutions to our problems and we must take these challenges head-on. We must put the ‘sorry days’ behind us and look forward to a brighter side of life and expect a rewarding future that will guaranty a good life to our teaming vibrant youth population. And therefore, repositioning Nigeria as a true giant of Africa.

History will not forgive this generation of any guilt, if we fail to do what is right now to re-align our checkered past, and bring us back on track in the global arena.

Childlessness: The Endless Search

Andrew and Titi Edet have both been married for more than six years without a child .Titi  would cry her heart out each time  she sees her menstrual  period. “I have missed my period again,”  she muttered sorrowfully.

Uche and Biodun sat on the same table with me, and as always the lunch time is a time to discuss and share information about current national issue and matters concerning our general well-being.

On this particular occasion, uche narrated the harrowing experience of a family that has undergone various forms of medical, traditional and herbal experimentation, just for them to try and have a child.

They have travelled to India, United State, South Africa making over sixteen round trips. The cost of the treatment and hospitality in monetary terms when put together on a global scale amounts to several hundred of millions in hard currency which leaves the Nigeria's shore.

Any mistake whereby large amount of monies leaves the shores of the country, calls for public concern because of it coming from our hard earned internal revenue. Given that background, I argued that the Nigeria government should show more concern on causes of infertility amougst young married couples. The frequency of this occurrence calls for the government to look into the causes of this very disturbing health condition.

This can be done by funding the universities to carry out research and make their findings known to the government with the intention of implementing the recommendation of such research findings. Implementation of such research findings will not only save the country high medical cost and bring about a healthy and happy society.

We have come to a point in our national life, where government should become more pragmatic in dealing and handling issues concerning the health, social welfare and economic well being of the generality of the population. The focus always has been on infrastructural development, which despite all is still lacking, to the detriment of our social well-being, health and education.

That is the same way, our citizens languish in jail in various foreign countries for offences that are sometimes cooked up and are suspect, and the federal government does nothing about it, thereby encouraging even more countries to treat our nationals in disrespectful manners.

In Nigeria, the government appears not to be aware that multi-national companies are exploiting our porous labour laws to take advantage of her citizens. Denigrating contract employment with dehumanizing labour condition and enumeration and wages that puts their workers more into poverty rather than elevate them from it.  

The bottom line, is that government should stop being an abstract entity, and begin to see herself and a true father of it's citizens and cater for their needs passionately just as we see in other advanced societies.

A Nation on Aging Limbs

Timinipere Akpo, a mathematics graduate from the Niger Delta university, cloaked in a rented over-size convocation gown, stood still and pondering after she took the last shot of photographs with her family members at the convocation ground. “free at last,” she muttered to herself.  

But truly, is she really free? The truth of the matter is that another young graduate has just been thrown into the over-saturated unemployment market.  She is indeed only free from the confinement known as the four walls of the university for four or fives years and thrown into what Fela tagged the “outside world” where the authorities threat the citizens in manners worse than those in the prisons.

After our independence in the 60s up until the early 70s just after the civil war young graduates across the country find it very easy to get placement into the civil service. The newly emerging private sector at the time also was looking for fresh brains to drive their businesses and was also absorbing a large number of young school leavers and university graduates. At the time, companies pay a visit to the universities to scout for bright young chaps.

It was fun to go to school at the time, because you are sure of employment immediately after graduation. Parent too share in that joy as the are relieved almost instantaneously of further supporting that child, but instead look to their children for support. Both child and parent breath a sigh of relief availed by the favourable employment environment. That was the period we now sometimes refer to as the ‘good old days.’

At the time, the government was rebuilding the country after just coming out of the bloody and devastating civil war. As part of the rebuilding process, government needed young educated men and women to fill up positions in the Federal and States civil service. The economy experienced a boom and a new middle class emerged from senior service and peace was restored to the land, allowing the military government to fasten the reconstruction process which led to the rapid infrastructural development across the country.

The 80s heralded series of draconian military administrations that placed embargo on wholesale employment, thereby ending a period of prosperity for the teaming youth population of university graduates.

Those who took up jobs at that time form a majority of the present senior and top ranking civil servants and politicians ruling the country today. These groups of people are the ones who placed and perpetuate the embargo on employment. An embargo that affects the teaming population but favours only those top government officials who secretly embark on recruitment exercises to employ their siblings and friends. These same people are doing everything to continue to remain in government. They continually extend their retirement, and even when age finally catches up with them and they have tp eventually retire, they quickly come back through the back door to the federal service by hijacking political positions through elections or appointments.

The old unrelenting civil servants and politicians are the reason why the embargo on employment remains un-lifted and our youth population can not find job placements into the federal civil service. There can’t be jobs for the teaming young graduates when the present civil service is occupied by over-aged persons who have remained in service for more than three generations.

These are the people in the federal and state civil service and in elective positions in government which critics often tag as ‘dead woods.’ The government has become a hugh trash can continually recycling  over-aged and ineffective people generation after generation, instead of recruiting energetic young men and women with fresh ideas abound every part of the country.

Have you ever asked yourself what a 65 year old teacher has to offer to a class of hyper-active SSII students who are full of excitement and are loaded with knowledge about new trends in science and technology, and are new media platform freaks. Of course they would be bored and uninterested in whatever “grandma” has to offer, according to Uche, an SSII student of Queens College describes one of her teacher.

The progress of the nation is hinged on these old recycled weaklings. They are the reason why the every pragmatic and revolutionary ideas are frustrated and discredited, never allowing them to sees the light of day. What happened to the reports of all the ‘high powered’ panels and committees set up by the Federal and State governments in the past and present? Why has commercializing the PHCN met stiff opposition from those in the service? What is responsible for the repeated stalling of the PIB bill? Why has the electronic voting system faced stiff opposition? I can to on and on. You and I know the answers to these and other related questions.

It is time this nation considers the younger generation in the scheme of things. We must now start to create a place for our children in the present which they are part of, and not leave them to the faith of a future they may never be part of, just as many in my generation where left out in the present scheme of things.

For the young generation to have a place in the civil service and in government the retirement age must be reduced to 50 years and strict enforcement of the policies on retirement age must be enforced with strictness. Part of the measures to be introduced to ensure strict compliance is to use data from birth registries instead of falsified affidavits from employees. I believe 50 years is ideal because if a young graduate is gainfully employed immediately after leaving the university at age 23, and has their first child at age 25. And in another 25 years, all three of the children from this family would have graduated from the university when their parents would just be clocking 50 years.

That is just the right time for ‘daddy and mommy’ to retire from active service. This is a sacrifice the aging population must be able accept for the good of their own children and the younger population in general.

Changing the Nigerian Spyche

Emeka, a close friend of mine, who once attended a foreign training where participants from different countries also attended. During the cause of the programme, as they were having lunch one particular day, a co-participant from India called Rajev, knowing Emeka is a Nigerian, asked him if he had noticed that the loudest in the class are Nigerians. "They ask more questions, comment the most on issues, but obiously understand very little about the subject under discussion because they spend most of their time talking, and during test, they make the lowest grades," Rajev said. 

Haven't you ever thought of why we are so loud and noisy, and always in a hurry, rushing to nowhere? We are always looking for short cuts and like cutting corners. We always aspire to be the one that gets that job opportunity by all means, even when we are the least qualified for the job, and always wanting to be on top, but never taking the pain to go through  the mills to achieve excellence. We want to win every contest even if we have to cheat to do so. That is the reason why we often field over-aged players in our youths tournaments yet we never perform well. Parents often rush their children through school, skipping classes and changing school just to be ahead and graduate early enough to move on to higher education.

Despite all the rush and hurry, we always find ourselve performing disappointingly in almost every aspect of our lives. Take our traffic situation for instance. You find car driving recklessly and driving on walk ways, taking one way, climbing culvets, break all speed limits just to beat the traffic and at the end, they end up crashing their cars or get arrested by the traffic offices, therefore loosing even more time and encurring cost of repairs both of their own vehicles and the other car, and even paying fines for traffic offences.

We need to stop this mad rush to nowhere. We have to retrace our steps because, we are getting everything wrong. Our educational system is wrong, our health care system is terrible, the security agencies are under-performing and the political structures are in shamble. The trader in the market is not left out of this embarrasing social degeneration. Traders often stock fake and substandard products and sell for the price of geniune ones.

Our artisans and apprenticeship training structure which used to be reliable and strong in the past, has degenerated. Half baked drop-outs are all over the place. From hairstylist, vulcernizers, mechanics to tailors can hardly provide quality services to the public. These quacks are now the ones training our young apprentices, thereby passing half-baked knowledge to these set of young Nigerians. Things are so bad that, many employers of labour look outside Nigeria to recruit technicians and labour workers.

Our own people, apart from lacking the pre-requisite skills, also are not trust-worthy. As they have been found to be involved in un-wholesome practices in the workplace.

I am still wondering why we like to shunt, yet always getting late. There is something fundamentally wrong that we need to address. We are all looking up to the government for this social re-engineering. But the sad thing is that the government too is neck-deep in this quicksand of shame and are themselves also struggling to remain relevant in the national polity. How could a government engrossed with so much problems and confussion have the time to notice these social vices grinding the nation into a halt, while other countries are making rapid growth and are progressing.

The power to change our situation lies in our hands. We most endeavour to always select the right candidates to represent us in political offices, starting from the primaries to the actual elections. We must always vote only tested and trusted contestants because there lies our hope for a better future and a strong and united Nigeria.

The Street Soldiers

After a whole day in the traffic, racing and shunting with a poly bag packed full of assorted soft drinks weighing over 50 litres, Chike reclined at the roadside kerb, one hand over his packed drinks, and his chin resting on the other, exhausted from the heat of the sun and the weight and exertion from chasing moving vehicles in traffic back and forth, trying to sell his products.

"Another bad day", Chike sat there, pondering. Sales had been very poor again today, after a long week. On a Friday and the day, far spent, Chike is worried about how he will provide for his family back home.

This is reminiscent of the life of a hawker on every street all around the country. There are hundreds of thousands of them clustering the corners of our streets and in traffic on highways trying to heck out a living selling items ranging from groundnuts, handkerchief to cheap immitation electronic gadgets.

The very sight of such large numbers of grown adult in traffic hawking just to make a living fills me with fear. I am afraid because I imagine how much profit can come out of selling oranges in a day. Maybe a few hundreds of Naira, for all that work in the hot scourging sun.

We hear stories of car owners being robbed of their valuables in traffic, and the unfortunate onces dispossessed of their cars, beaten up or sometimes murdered. Security reports have often times, warned road users of crimes perpetuated by hawkers in designated black spots around the country.

They are hawkers during the day and at night they turn to street orchins. The verocity and brutal manner they go about dispossessing car owners and pedestrians of their belongings, shows that they are a very big threat to society.

Armed with cutlasses and guns, these hudlums are not afraid of even armed security personnels. In some notorious areas, the Police take extra caution when confronting them. They are more or less street soldiers.

Sometimes, I look at the faces of these hawkers in traffic, and all you see is anger, and they are not hesitant to vent their anger on unsuspecting road users. I wonder how easy it would be for men of the underworld to recruit these guys. Giving the large number of strong young men lurking around the streets ready to do anything to make a living. I am therefore not surprised how criminal gangs are able to assemble large groups of young men of up to fifty or more in number during a single robbery operation.

These elements pose a big threat to lives and property in our towns and cities, and are indeed a serious security risk to the nation. If things are left the way they are presently, the security situation will get worse and there will be more violent crimes carried out in our towns and cities.

Urgent redress is inevitable. The immediate introduction of a systematic method of taking these young men and women off the streets should commence. Firstly, the Labour department should take a censors of unemployed youths to ascertain the number of unemployed persons in the country, before progressing to actual creation of jobs to remove them from the streets.

To make urgent and meaningful impact, a massive recruitment exercise must be carried out by the federal and state governments, in areas such as agriculture, construction and manufacturing. Other employment channels in the ministries and government parastatals should be opened to graduates, particularly from the NYSC scheme.

We are Better of United, Than Break Up

There are very many people who feel strongly that there will not be peace until the country disintegrate. While some are pushing for the creation of more States, believing that it will bring about peace, economic independence and development, other extremists are agitating for secession. On both side of the divide, the considerations are very strong. Some want greater autonomy of the federating States while others want outright self determination.

In theory, it may appear justifiable and possible to implement, but in practice, it will lead to anachy and division. The same imbalance experenced by the different tribes and sections in the society today will continue and will mutate into small cells conflicts amongst disgruntled and dissatisfied communities in these new autonomous nation States.

It is paramount that even if the country is divided into 36 different entities, it will never bring about stability, rather there will be strife and agitations of the minorities ethnic groups within these new independent States.

We do not want to visit the past and start recounting the ugly experiences that occured as a result of some parts of the country attempting to secced. The civil war, of course is still fresh in our minds. The castigation and extermination, by the federal government, of the Ogoni freedom fighters, lead by Ken Saro Wiwa can not be easily forgotten. Why do we have to spill more innocent blood agitating, when self-determination on its own, does not profer a solution.

The solution to Nigeria unity is not in secession, self-determination nor division, rather, all these will only result in the multiplication of the problems currently plaquing the country, and this will lead to a broader regional insecurity. Apparently, the solution lies in good governance, justice, fare and equitable distribution of our national wealth, which will in turn bring about peace, reintegration and development.

Early in the 18th century, the American society experienced many brutal conflicts. First between the American settlers and native Indians. Later came the slave trade, a bitter period of crime against the black race. Even as efforts were made to end this inhuman trade of persons, several groups kicked against ending the lucrative trade at the time, leading to the emergence of white supremacy groups such as the notorious Clu-Clux-Clan that went around executing and burning black families and setting fire on their homes and farm lands.

Today, America is united and stronger because of the introduction of the rule of law, which discouraged racism, sectionalsim and propagated peace, justice and equality of all men before the law.

The solution to Nigeria's unity is therefore by introducing the rule of law and de-emphazing tribalism, sectionalsim and separating religion from the State. Rule of law will foster peace and justice, equality and verile society. The country will be  stronger and united as one indivisible entity.