This piece is for THE PEOPLE, who have been the victims of a SCAVENGING & BUCCANEERING POLITICAL CLASS IN DELTA STATE!!!
It is the season of elections and the quintessential poliTRICKCIANS in Delta State have taken over our tabloid headlines and cyberspace.
In their usual character, they are “decamping and ‘recamping’” from their traditionally known political parties to new homes and making it seem they have the interest of Delta State at heart.
To the undecided voters and the enlightened middle class, I plead with you to shine your eyes and apply “nwayo nwayo”.
Politics in developed societies have always been driven by aggregated INTEREST.
Political parties and politicians therefore are known by the ideology-cum-philosophy of their political parties. The political parties in these climes have an unspoken rule of recruiting the best candidates, nurturing and grooming them from their undergraduate days or the lower rungs of the workers unions.
However, in Nigeria, perhaps owing to the unbridled intervention of the Military in our political affairs since 1966-1979 and 1983-1999, the culture of ideological political parties was completely eroded.
In those years of yore,bad as it seemed, the political parties in Nigeria were modestly ideological along the lines of the Conservatism,Progressivism and Liberalism.
It was therefore not out of place to find an ordinarily “poor man” in today’s Nigeria winning the election to be Governor of a State or in fact the Prime Minister or President (Tafawa Balewa/Shagari).
Adekunle Ajasin, Ambrose Alli and a host of others became Governors of their respective states without being known moneybags.
However, the intervention of the Military simply eroded the ideological foundation of political parties in Nigeria and subsequently created a “new breed”(IBB) of entities and political parties whose only goal was to grab power by all means and for their own ends(a little to the left and a little to the right).
By 1998 when the Militicians finally decided to return to their barracks and rolled out its TRANSITION PROGRAMME, not very many credible Nigerians believed them. This led to the birth of MONEYBAG POLITICIANS, either directly or through their proxies, taking over the public space in most parts of the country with the exception of the South West where NADECO elements and AFINIFERE called the shots(I remember a senior Lawyer who was offered the Gubernatorial ticket of Ekiti State under the AD but declined on grounds of principle only to later seek the office in 2003 but lost).
These moneybags or proxies came into public office with no intention to serve the public good. Their main preoccupation was to loot the common wealth while offering tokenism as the “dividends of democracy”. To achieve this goal, they raised men of questionable character and integrity, raising most from abject penury into stupendous wealth thus creating a generation of an ENTITLED POLITICAL CLASS.
The Electoral umpires after Justice Akpata(JSC) who conducted the 1998/1999 elections didn’t help matters either. Rather than being Independent as their name(INEC) supposed, they were tied to the apron strings of Aso Villa and these political scavengers.
The 1999 Constitution forced through our throats by the Military also did not help matters as it had made decamping(an absurd variant of cross carpeting) a fiat accompli for the scrupulous politician.
Section 68 (1g) of the 1999 Constitution(as altered) provides that;
“a member of the Senate or the House of Representatives shall vacate his seat in the House of which he is a member … if being a person whose election to the House was sponsored by a political party, he becomes a member of another political party before the expiration of the period for which that House was elected: provided that his membership of the latter political party is not as a result of a division in the political party of which he was previously a member or of a merger of two or more political parties or faction by one of which he was previously a member.”
With the verbose and ambiguous provision above, it became easy for unprincipled politicians to ride on the back of a Political Party into Public Office, create a real or imaginary crisis within that Party and subsequently “DECAMP” to another Political Party(usually the one where his ambition to loot is best served).
I have gone through this long(but actually brief) narrative in order to lay a foundation before bringing to your OPEN MINDS the TRUE REASONS behind the so called “gale of decamping and ‘recamping’” you are all witnessing in our dear State today.
For the avoidance of any doubts, when I set out to write this piece, I made it clear that it was meant for the NON POLITICAL PARTY MEMBERS ON MY LIST since those of us that are members of political parties have already dug our trenches awaiting the 18TH of March 2023.
My dear non-partisan and voting Deltans, take this from me as sure as you are of your names , there is not a single person amongst all those decamping and “recamping” who gives a hoot about your welfare or the public good.*
Their Politics have NEVER been driven by any known Ideology or the PUBLIC GOOD. It has always been about their EGO/political relevance and their access to our common wealth.
Forget the rhetorics they spurn in their resignation letters.It is simply meant to hoodwink the gullible. All of them have been beneficiaries of a system that rewarded and promoted them from obscurity into public consciousness while they fed fat on our common resources.
When they held sway, all was well with our dear State and the Party/Government could never do no wrong. Now that things are different and they have been replaced at the epicentre by new serfs(as is often the case with the dynamics of politics) within their respective domains and the treasury tap no longer runs at their whims and caprices, they have suddenly become “SAINTS OF THE LATTER DAYS”.
Make una nor mind dem ooo!!!
All na wash.
They are simply after their personal EGOS and ECONOMIC INTERESTS and NOT, I repeat NOT after your growth or the growth and development of our dear Delta State.
Pray, if truly they care about our dear State, when they held sway in our public affairs,what was their enduring legacy?
They are simply on a revenge mission and have decided to cut their noses in order to spite their faces in the “SCORCHED EARTH” manner.
Do NOT follow them to a land where they can be economically/politically secured while you the people remain irrelevant to them immediately after the elections until another election season.
Most Nigerians, albeit Delta State politicians simply have no honour,character or integrity.They can decamp and “recamp” at will provided they stay politically relevant and have access to our common wealth!!!
Shine your eyes well well and use your sense wella as you vote for our next GOVERNOR on SATURDAY the 18TH OF MARCH 2023.
As for me and my people, WE SIT,STAND, DANCE and REJOICE with;
The Rt.Honoourable OBOREVWORI Sheriff Francis Orowhoedor.
*PDP is our Party!!!*
*Please kindly cast your votes for us on Saturday 18th of March,2023!!!*
We are not saints,but by GOD’s grace we believe ultimately in Public Office as a tool for service to HUMANITY!!!
LET’S USE OUR VOTES TO OWN AND MAKE DELTA STATE MORE SAFE,UNITED,EQUITABLE,PEACEFUL and BETTER!!!
Signed:
Comrade Izeze Rume Yakubu Reuben.
(Your friend and fellow talakawa),