|
Politics Without The People
By
Pat Utomi
culled from
GUARDIAN, November 27, 2006
Many
years ago Frank Olizeh threaded the path of legend when as television
panorama show host he set out in search for the Common Man. It was not
exactly similar track I sought when months ago I began to traverse the
length and breathe of the vast terrain of the blessed spread of Nigeria
from the coast line, and its forest belt, through the Savannah
heartlands, and to the edge of the Sahara Desert. My mission was simple.
It was to find the Nigerian people, ask them about how they see the
Nigerian condition and share with them ideas on how to make Nigeria a
mirror of their dreams.
Gusau in Zamfara State
was a classic stop on the tour. In ways it was special stop. It was
here that most of the ideas that drive me till this day were honed.
In entering Gusau my team headed straight to my place of nurture,
Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church. Even though my visits to my
place of birth, Kaduna, and the city I first registered to go to
school, and witnessed Nigeria become independent, Kano, have been
quite frequent over the years, I was arriving the true city of my
early formation, Gusau, for the first time in 40 years. I cannot
tell if is because I have grown bigger but the church looked awfully
small now. In 1964 and 1965 when I rode my bicycle almost every
morning at 5.30 to this church to do my duty as Alter boy the church
looked like a cathedral. Now it seemed just like a small chapel. But
it was around its grounds that Domican Priests of America descent
made me read everything they could lay their hands on that then
President John F. Kennedy said or did. Here the man I would become
was shaped. What used to be my school now housed Youth Corp members.
It was with them I first engaged on the Nigerian condition here.
Those youth corpers
of Gusau were typical of the victims of Nigeria's failed
promise. The young Nigerian Domican Priest I met had the same
earthy disposition of the American heroes of my childhood but I
wondered if he could inspire these young people, with the rot
they see all around them, as I was inspired by his American
predecessors, to believe that I had it in me to change the
world. To be sure, Gusau has developed much in the last four
decades. The farmland across from the Post Office and Sports
Club I could see from the church was now all real estate. I used
to do my early morning bike ride to the church on a track that
cut diagonally across that field. But there was much gloom and
less hope in the future in the air now than in those years of my
childhood.
If there was any
recurring sentiment as I journeyed from the creeks of the
Niger Delta, be it to Prof. Kimse Okoko's village outside
Yenegoa, or Warri town, to the streets of Sabon Gari, Kano,
where I met a 39 year old man who lived in the same one room
face me I face you he was born into. His English was good
enough to suggest he had more than secondary school
education. Despair as common currency, I thought had no
place in a land gifted with the abundance of human talent,
natural resources and strategic location. Why is progress so
slow in this land. Why have less endowed countries that I
have spent much time traveling through in Asia overtaken us
by so much in terms of the quality of life of the people.
It was in
Birnin Kebbi, where you could visibly see effort by the
government to make some difference that it became so
obvious to me. Nigeria lies prostrate because in
Nigerian politics people do not really matter. Just look
at the things we assume about Nigerian politics. They
all seem to discount the Nigerian people. Look at the
undemocratic nature of the processes of our political
parties; the assumption by most Nigerians that voting is
pointless because elections are rigged by a political
class that think nothing of the weight of the voice of
the people; the mindless corruption that leaves the
state treasury empty even as the Governors pour the
fortune of the common wealth into their private quests
for political bounty as aspirants for the presidency.
How did we get it so wrong.
In my
visit to General Muhammadu Buhari admiration of
whose values I have never made a secret, and my
calls on Alhaji Maitama Sule, the question of how we
came to get it so wrong have been the basis of quite
some discussion. We have never managed to hit the
nail squarely on the head. It is about how leaders,
in integrity, serve the people. But the wholesale
discounting of the people, so palpable in what is
wrong in Anambra State and the wholesale shredding
of our constitution in the quest for control of some
states, never assumed the central place they should
in why anarchy looms. Indeed when I first read
Robert Kaplan's book - The Coming Anarchy - and
encouraged some friends to join in founding NUTRA
(Nigerians United to Resist Anarchy), I never
believed contempt for the people could ever run so
deep that some of the people I have met on the road
like to pretend that we live in a country without a
government.
Why
does Nigerian politics not recognise that
politics or public choice that discounts the
people is not sustainable. In the end the
conditions lead to cleavages that provoke social
collapse. I have been amazed how my vision of a
new Nigeria as a country of people of industry
and integrity who live in harmony and prosperity
with one another, inspiring an African
renaissance in which the dignity of the human
person is at the centre of all public choice,
resonates with many thinking men. It seemed so
simple when I thought it up.
I
am persuaded that the only reason a country
with the talent pool we have can attract the
kind of revenue flows we have had since 2000
and the roads are universally immotorable,
with 71 per cent of the population living
below poverty line. Traveling across many
parts of the country looks like adventure
through wasteland. This is because people do
not matter, or at least do not take centre
stage when policies are made and
implemented. This is in spite of the fact
that our much maligned constitution demand
this of who govern. My relief is that many
men and women I respect agree that people
matter and that Nigeria is far from its goal
because policies have ignored the people.
This is why I have to accept that I enjoy
being seen as voice of the voiceless.
For Chief Gani Fawehinmi who has been
generous in endorsing my running for
President it is about my consistent
focus on the people. Chief Fawehinmi has
always cared about people. I had taken
it for granted as the only purpose for a
place in public life. For such others as
Dr. Onaolapo Soleye, Prof Wole Soyinka
whose kindness towards my involvement
may come from their intellectual
disposition, life indeed must be about
service to the people. But there are
conservative businessmen and politicians
who have been kind to me, whether they
be Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, Dr. Alex
Ekwueme in terms of disposition to
public service and my aspiring to
national leadership. The blessing and
counsel of Dim Odimegwu Ojukwu even
speaks more loudly. The verdict for me
is that our statesmen recognise that it
is all about people. People matter. But
the people I have encountered across the
land feel they do not count. Extant
policy tells them so.
A duty in public life must be to
restore the people to the heart of
politics. To do differently will be
to court anarchy. So what do the
people want? From North Central to
South East and North East I hear
them saying the same things. It
shows how the same we are even if
many politicians try to divide us.
The people want jobs for their
children, education for their
offspring, security of life and
property and their dignity assured
by the rule of law. I cannot thank
enough the royal courts whose voices
joined ordinary people in assuring
me of how it is the same things we
desire; from the Oba of Benin to the
Sultan of Sokoto, the Obuzor of
Ibusa to the Emir of Gwandu; and the
Oba of Lagos to the Asagba of Asaba.
So I say with a loud holler, the
voice of the people must count in
2007.
 |
Prof. Utomi is a
Presidential Aspirant
contesting the 2007
elections. |
|
