Democracy – Our demonstrations of idiocy (3)

Aliyu Musa Aliyu

We all too often blame the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for audaciously orchestrating the abuse of democracy, but we don’t always realize that our politicians are nearly all the same – the same club, members, principles (and lack of it) and everything. But again, the PDP is the biggest culprit for now and focusing on it won’t be any serious sacrilege.

It has been in power for nearly a decade and a half and we have paid the costliest prices for putting it there. Did we actually elect its candidates in all cases? Well, it seems in some cases we did but I hesitate to agree with anyone that thinks we were not coaxed into doing it. We, our usual idiocy activated, simply acted like Chomsky’s bewildered herds and did the bidding of herders. So that has got where we are today.

PDP is such a sophisticated rigging machine that its arithmetic is always the other way round. When it adds two to two it equals any numbers but four. In its calculations 16 is greater than 19 and five is a much bigger number than 23. That is why even when it gets smaller numbers at elections it comes from behind to overtake whoever has more votes.

In the 2011 elections we saw how rigging was stylishly coordinated leaving international observers too bewildered to ever note what transpired. So who would blame them for unreservedly giving the whole charade a node of approval?

And when it came to unraveling the frauds that were cleverly hidden from the ordinary eye the man who should have helped undo them suddenly developed cold feet and made a big U-turn. Indeed, he is one of the biggest casualties of our democracy. Poor Professor! And the judiciary was bullied into accepting to play along. One man who continuously proved stubborn was butted out and peace reigned. So, in the end not even the biometric registration we spent millions of naira that were badly needed to make the lives of our people better was of any use either in stopping electoral frauds or in exposing the culprits in court.

In the just conducted Offa LG rerun elections the newly registered All Progressives Congress (APC) clearly towered over and above its archrival the PDP. But reminiscent of its usual fraudulent ‘coming from behind to overtake’ the PDP allegedly colluded with the returning officer to announce its candidates winners. But one of them has reportedly rejected the fruit of mischief, knowing full well it’s a Greek gift.

The melodrama in Jalingo is still an epicenter, with the PDP playing a central role to further trample on democracy. Ailing Governor Danbaba Suntai is too ill to run the state but no one will impeach him because it is a family affair. The most consensual way to resolve the impasse is to keep the acting governor in an acting capacity till eternity and make him take orders from the cabal that is holding the state hostage.

Now that the matter is dismissed as a family affair no one will cite the constitution and take to the streets chanting combat slogans. Rather the cabal is emboldened while the acting governor is deliberately cowed. This is how our democracy works – fiddle with numbers, tamper with facts or manufacture favourable ones, only refer to the constitution when it suits you and the merrier we all are. Oh, happy people!

Some of us still remember what happened a few years ago when the cabal around the late President Umar Musa Yar’adua insisted on running the country their own way in spite of the constitution of the country. Many of us turned later day democrats and eloquently spoke against the inglorious abuse the cabal subjected our democracy to, and before long they were forced to capitulate. Now we have all lost that ability to hear or see any evil. So much for democracy!

But like the proverbial booby trap that eventually traps its architect the PDP has finally floundered into a tight end, from which it is not certain to come out unscathed (humming the late Mamman Shata’s gargadi mai gina ramin mugunta under my breath). We now have two PDPs and may soon have two presidential flag bearers for the party that boasted it would rule for as long as it wished. Only God knows which of the two our bemused Professor would hand a certificate of authentication. So we expect maximum confusion as we get nearer 2015. But that is our democracy, one we have given unto ourselves.

Postscript

This article appears in the Blueprint newspaper of Friday September 6, 2013.