STRIKER: For Democratic Hygiene In Osun And Everywhere

IN the immediate previous edition, Striker wondered why doing the apparent – simply doing the right things – has become rocket science for the political elites. In the course of the week, the President and the Presidency have further confounded that astonishment with controversial statements and actions that are outmoded, disuniting and are far from visionary and innovative. With the “progressive” All Progressives Congress, therefore, the national bewilderment on making right choices continues unmitigated.

A Presidential focus on reinventing grazing routes for cows in an age when nations have stations and satellites in space, their flags on the moon and their explorer spacecrafts already cruising beyond the solar system, is indeed extremely disconcerting. If you are a member of a family that produces one of the highest tonnes of cassava in the world but all they do is sell off all the cassava, collect cash and go around the world looking for where to buy gari, fufu and starch for the family (and complaining about the rising costs of those items, which have existential values for them), you must be abnormal to believe your family heads are normal!

If these aberrations were limited to the economy, there might be hope that someday a democratic and successful change in leadership will engender return to sanity; but when the abnormalities diffuse into the democratic system, there is cause for worry indeed because the final hope for dignified life is under democracy, which guarantees that government will always be constituted by the will of the majority, guaranteeing, in turn, the Rule of Law, freedom, equal rights and justice.

Distortion of the democratic system and resistance against democratic best practices and innovations is fast becoming modus operandi of many “progressive” state actors from whom it is least expected. It has manifested in Lagos State during recent Council primary elections, crept into Ekiti, shown up in Kwara and reared its ugly head in the State of Osun of all places! For Osun, the signs of wholesale misunderstanding of democracy and “continuity” government have become apparent since.

For one, during the APC Primaries campaigns and the Gubernatorial campaigns, one of Governor Gboyega Oyetola’s well-remembered statements as reasons for being the best man for the job is that there is none of the success stories of the outgoing Rauf Aregbesola administration that he was not directly associated with in conception and translation, every one passing through his table and scrutiny: that he is not only an In-Man but the engine room. In retrospect, and with today’s realities that are open secrets in the public domains, what should political observers make of that “continuity?”

For another, there is clearly a manifest misunderstanding of internal party democratic processes, always stated in party constitutions not only in APC but in all parties in democratic system worldwide. Be it on issues or candidacy, before the final choice of the party – through consensus or majority vote – differences in views and choices are permitted within the party; but when the choice is finally made, all must conform. If political parties always seek to woo and admit defectors from other parties that openly contested against them in general elections, how then would any party treat members with differing views – in the process leading to the party’s final choices – as rebels to be permanently alienated and persecuted, when they not only have proven records of acceptance of party choice but active work for its triumph?

Undemocratic methods and dispositions are danger to democracy within every political party and worse so in progressive political parties. Conservative or progressive, caucuses within are permitted and are permanent features of party politics from Russia to America. Democrats in Nigeria have to shed their oligarchic heritage and the hangover of military rule, and embrace democracy as a culture. Democracy is a number-game in order to be in majority – and the numbers are made up, for successes in contests, through discussions, debates, consultations, lobby, concessions, accommodation, generousity and outreach; not alienation, vindictiveness, persecution, manipulations, strong-hand tactics, self-centredness, impositions and meanness. For the survival of democracy in these delicately-tense times, time is now for democratic hygiene; here, there and everywhere.