What faces Nigeria in the wake of apparent refusal of her leadership to restructure peacefully before the 2019 elections is another bad election effort and the heightening of the possibility of anarchy. The closer we get to 2019,the more alternative resolution strategies become unworkable and dialogue insufficient to bring peace. So let us be open to dialogue now just as the Middle belt and Southern leaders did in a Yenagoa Bayelsa rally in support of a restructuring before the elections.
The Nigerian impasse is still very simple to resolve. All it takes is for strategic legislative bills to create hope in the polity. To devolve power to the units. Decentralise critical activities to the units you created if you do not wish to return to the ideal 1963 structure at one step; at least we can move two or three steps to achieve the same. You can let the States operate in Zones or Regions and let them have the freedom to own their resources and compete for necessities with other state groups.
The present political structure has failed to sustain collective or individual growth and harmony. It has proved indeed to be anti Nigeria and therefore cannot be the basis to effect the great changes that is coming on mankind not to talk of Nigeria because it cannot throw up such necessary unmortgaged leadership. We fail as leaders if we allow Nigeria to degenerate into violence when we can make sacrifices and adjustments.
Let it begin today with the ambition of political office seekers justling for positions. If you are seeking an elective position under this system, you are not being as patriotic as you think but you have only endorsed what in your best thinking is wrong. If you are a legislator and you are comfortable with this system that pays you 3.5 million naira monthly while your constituents feed from the waste bin,then you are not the leader they think they have. You need to redeem yourself before 2019 by sponsoring individual bills to restructure Nigeria before the elections or of course you are creating a fire that may be difficult to put off.
Democratic succession is not cast on stone. There many ways to achieve the desirable. If the usual way fails then we still have the Namibia or South Africa models. Peaceful and functional. But whatever way must give hope to the coming generation from whence it receives legitimacy. It does not take retired Generals to remind us that the present constitution of our security forces cannot secure us all. If a country cannot secure its citizens but even become complicit in harming them,even if you don’t call it ethnic cleansing,then the essence of Commonwealth diminishes. Then you begin to encourage self defence a la Libya or Sudan. But Nigeria should be too advanced to be pulled into such cul de sac.
Now is the time for us all to use our positions to make adjustments and sacrifices to achieve restructuring so that we can bring back hope to the younger generation and earn their respect as leaders. Failure to make personal sacrifices starting from the President,the Ruling party,the opposition, the aspirants,the voting public,the media and all Nigerians may see us all culpable to the next phase of our national experiencing and no body should complain when it comes to be. After all with our eyes open we are already flying into the meshes of our loathe. Sustaining unwittingly, the very evil we so much complain about today by staying aloof at crucial moments of the nations journey.
So in conclusion let us moderate our own rush for “gains” for no gain can come out of a system that stands against the idea of Nigeria itself as a nation. Any one that is “successful” in this system has unwittingly contributed to the present mass unemployment of youths. So better not flaunt it.After all the money politicians make is often invested outside these shores in real estate or there about and even when they invest here it is to arm thugs preparatory to the next election. So it benefits neither the looter nor the country nor the youths. This system can only benefit the deviant in society ,the social miscreant,the thug who indeed is not harmonious with normal society.
Henceforth,I want to see conscious efforts on the parts of our politicians to sponsor mass democratic movements for change,for dialogue, for solution as the governor of Bayelsa State has just done in promoting national dialogue over the issue of Restructuring. It makes more sense than getting elected and swearing to uphold a political system you can no longer change while in power. In so doing you only enslave your people and yourselves for another span while risking anarchy in society.
* Nworisara aspired to be President of Nigeria under the defunct SDP in 1991-92
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