In a normal democratic environment, it is the government that should be afraid of the people. But in most African countries, the people are always afraid of government. That is still part of the travails of democracy in the continent where most leaders are also afraid of life after the presidential palace. So, they keep winning election, they keep amending tenure laws to remain in power forever. Africa! It is not clear whether in Nigeria now, the president’s men have been telling him that the people are afraid of Buhari’s government. As it is portrayed in Alan Paton’s Cry, The beloved Country, anxiety over the change advertised to us has turned to sorrow and sorrow has turned to fear… But according to Paton on the oppressive South Africa then, sorrow is better than fear because while sorrow has a destination, an arrival hall, fear is a long, terrible journey…
But there are grave implications when people fear the government. According to John Basil Barnhill in 1914 : where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty. It is from this background you get the rationale for people in some jurisdictions asking for the right to keep and bear arms. It has been said that the strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
It may not be possible for the people cocooned in power in Abuja and the 36 state capitals to know that people fear this government. But at the moment, there is no Lai Mohammed on the side of the people to tell our leaders that at the moment, the people fear government. And when the people fear the government, tyranny is said to have found victory. So, when change came knocking in May 2015, government was expected to be the servant of the people, not the master.
Specifically, let’s navigate some ‘landmines’ that have to be filtered and cleared for the governments at all levels to be able to listen to what the people are saying that they are currently going through. In our own kind of (winner-takes-all) presidential system, only one person is in charge. And so President Muhammed Buhari is the one who should be told the truth about the ‘landmines’ not just in Sambisa Forest, the landmines are everywhere now. He should take responsibility for his actions and inactions. There are five critical issues that he should wake up to address now or never.
And the people fear that if these issues are neglected, privileges of the office will be withdrawn in their minds and punishment will be inevitable even before 2019. I heard long ago from one of my teachers in a Secondary Modern School that, “Privilege entails responsibility and when the responsibility is neglected, the privilege is withdrawn and punishment becomes inevitable. Behold, the people have some powers to punish in a democracy. Just as the representatives of the people in Brazil did on Wednesday this week when they impeached President Dilma Rousseff “for budget padding” alleged to have aided her election.
Leaders should note that even if it is not possible to impeach or even recall our ‘padders’ in power here, there is a sense in which people impeach leaders in their hearts. When this happens, everywhere you go, you find people shrugging shoulders, hissing and cursing in their hearts for leaders whose rules have been oppressive.
Below are the five issues, therefore, that Nigeria’s leader should pay attention to immediately, lest the fear factor will continue.
Economic Recession & Poverty Addition:
Most news media organs have been specific about inflationary spirals in the market place and there are pieces of evidence about nexus between unemployment, absence of poverty reduction and increase in criminal activities. More small and medium scale enterprises have closed shops than we have reported. It
