Issa Aremu : 25 April 2011
Mni — In place of post election development agenda (which ordinarily is inclusive of security of lives and properties), Nigerian voters are being weighed down with post election violence of an unprecedented scale and proportions.
As many as 200 had been reportedly killed with hundreds of thousands displaced! With specific reference to Kaduna, in place of clear cut all inclusive electoral campaign issues such water, light and food, urban renewal, revival of collapsed factories prior to rescheduled gubernatorial election next Thursday, we have taken a decade plunge backward to the dark days of mutually destructive primordial issues of ethnicity and "religion" amidst feverish curfew.
Pray, what has election in particular and democracy in general got to do with killings and curfews? Within the two days of seemingly orchestrated violence on all sides of the partisan divides, the gains of reconciliation and conflict resolutions of the last ten years in Kaduna had been brutally eroded as peoples hitherto peacefully coexisting are being thrown to violent identity crisis. In the orgy of violence from Kaduna to Katsina, Kano to Bauchi, poor voters had turned on poor voters leaving in their trails mass destruction of lives and lives. And of course, properties that were never there in the first instance.
Whatever the causes (and obviously election related), the motivation for the latest crisis and mayhem especially in the Northern part of the country, the emerging pattern is that of voters (read; masses) on voters' violence. It was reminiscent of black on black violence of the discredited apartheid South Africa. We are again back to Nigeria's persistent crisis of governance in which the poorest of the poor have become cannon folders in the game of the political elite for political power. It is unfortunate that a decade after the sectarian crisis after which enormous resources had been deployed in peace building and conflict resolution, Kaduna could degenerate to the blind abyss of mutually assured crisis of destruction we have just witnessed. Every aspect of the latest crisis points to a national crisis of governance such that that if care is not taken this singular uncontrolled crisis may engulf the whole nation. Kaduna and indeed the Northern crisis should be seen as a metaphor for deep national crisis. It is commendable the crisis is being put under control. But why should it have been allowed to happen and made to be out of control in the first place? Security challenges have been identified as part of the critical success factors of 2011 serial elections. The buzz word before the election was "crowd control". We were impressed with "show of force" which turned out not be show of security! Why then should the chief security officers of the states be caught napping in the wake of spontaneous reactions to elections results that were expected to legitimately generate so much legitimate passion? The point cannot be over stated; most incumbent governors are too deep in partisanship either seeking for re-election or looking for refuge in the senate. The post election deaths and mayhems are manifestations of the singular fact that many governors are no more on duty to protect lives and properties. On the contrary, what we have witnessed in recent weeks are gross distortions of governance on the altar of excessive executive partisanship. In recent weeks, we have not seen authoritative allocation of resources for the protection, uplift and advancement of the citizens but misapplication of state scarce resources (money and time) on part of most incumbent governors. But all said assuming the governors had been on duty to proactively protect the citizens, what are the fundamentals that led to the mass uprising of the electorate against the electorate? What could make the citizens who had hitherto two days before diligently joined the queues to break all rules of engagement in mass bloody protests? Why would a promising democracy destination turned to dens of deaths on account of elections? Recent crisis points to the fact that Nigeria has serious deterioration of human development index caused mainly by unemployment, factory closures and mass poverty and the growing gap between the rich and the poor. The rich certainly cry and fight. It is also a truism that the poor also fight and cry as we have seen the poor of the Arab countries confronting their ancient unaccountable sit-tight regimes. But only the poorest of the poor can serially engage in self destructions as we are seeing in Nigeria. In fact in Egypt, despite the desperation of Mubarak dictatorship, both Christians and Muslim protesters of Cairo in solidarity confronted injustices.
They did mutually engage in wars of attrition as in Nigeria. Therefore beyond the post election violence and its proactive and reactive management, we must urgent move to uplift our people and economy more than empty growth figures. We must create mass decent employment for our unemployed. There must be minimum social floor below which people must not fall before they appreciate the sanctity of lives. It must task our imagination that thousands could be readily mobilized on working days for mass protests of destructive proportions. Most cities in protests were once functioning industrial cities. We must get these huge potential productive forces engaged otherwise they all become destructive forces as we have witnessed in recent. We must say farewell to poverty and bring back development agenda in Nigeria. Paradoxically elections are supposed to be about development and poverty eradication.
Sadly in the ongoing contestations, it is more about persons rather than programmes. It is a sad commentary that spate of factory closures had not formed the basis of electoral contestation. Voters hardly know what they are voting for. In fact there are no electoral issues as such! It is never late to put development issues on the political agenda otherwise we will all be consumed with personal primordial issues which in turn will push us deeper into underdevelopment. There cannot be sustainable democracy without sustainable development just as there cannot be sustainable development without sustainable democracy.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201104250572.html
Mni — In place of post election development agenda (which ordinarily is inclusive of security of lives and properties), Nigerian voters are being weighed down with post election violence of an unprecedented scale and proportions.
As many as 200 had been reportedly killed with hundreds of thousands displaced! With specific reference to Kaduna, in place of clear cut all inclusive electoral campaign issues such water, light and food, urban renewal, revival of collapsed factories prior to rescheduled gubernatorial election next Thursday, we have taken a decade plunge backward to the dark days of mutually destructive primordial issues of ethnicity and "religion" amidst feverish curfew.
Pray, what has election in particular and democracy in general got to do with killings and curfews? Within the two days of seemingly orchestrated violence on all sides of the partisan divides, the gains of reconciliation and conflict resolutions of the last ten years in Kaduna had been brutally eroded as peoples hitherto peacefully coexisting are being thrown to violent identity crisis. In the orgy of violence from Kaduna to Katsina, Kano to Bauchi, poor voters had turned on poor voters leaving in their trails mass destruction of lives and lives. And of course, properties that were never there in the first instance.
Whatever the causes (and obviously election related), the motivation for the latest crisis and mayhem especially in the Northern part of the country, the emerging pattern is that of voters (read; masses) on voters' violence. It was reminiscent of black on black violence of the discredited apartheid South Africa. We are again back to Nigeria's persistent crisis of governance in which the poorest of the poor have become cannon folders in the game of the political elite for political power. It is unfortunate that a decade after the sectarian crisis after which enormous resources had been deployed in peace building and conflict resolution, Kaduna could degenerate to the blind abyss of mutually assured crisis of destruction we have just witnessed. Every aspect of the latest crisis points to a national crisis of governance such that that if care is not taken this singular uncontrolled crisis may engulf the whole nation. Kaduna and indeed the Northern crisis should be seen as a metaphor for deep national crisis. It is commendable the crisis is being put under control. But why should it have been allowed to happen and made to be out of control in the first place? Security challenges have been identified as part of the critical success factors of 2011 serial elections. The buzz word before the election was "crowd control". We were impressed with "show of force" which turned out not be show of security! Why then should the chief security officers of the states be caught napping in the wake of spontaneous reactions to elections results that were expected to legitimately generate so much legitimate passion? The point cannot be over stated; most incumbent governors are too deep in partisanship either seeking for re-election or looking for refuge in the senate. The post election deaths and mayhems are manifestations of the singular fact that many governors are no more on duty to protect lives and properties. On the contrary, what we have witnessed in recent weeks are gross distortions of governance on the altar of excessive executive partisanship. In recent weeks, we have not seen authoritative allocation of resources for the protection, uplift and advancement of the citizens but misapplication of state scarce resources (money and time) on part of most incumbent governors. But all said assuming the governors had been on duty to proactively protect the citizens, what are the fundamentals that led to the mass uprising of the electorate against the electorate? What could make the citizens who had hitherto two days before diligently joined the queues to break all rules of engagement in mass bloody protests? Why would a promising democracy destination turned to dens of deaths on account of elections? Recent crisis points to the fact that Nigeria has serious deterioration of human development index caused mainly by unemployment, factory closures and mass poverty and the growing gap between the rich and the poor. The rich certainly cry and fight. It is also a truism that the poor also fight and cry as we have seen the poor of the Arab countries confronting their ancient unaccountable sit-tight regimes. But only the poorest of the poor can serially engage in self destructions as we are seeing in Nigeria. In fact in Egypt, despite the desperation of Mubarak dictatorship, both Christians and Muslim protesters of Cairo in solidarity confronted injustices.
They did mutually engage in wars of attrition as in Nigeria. Therefore beyond the post election violence and its proactive and reactive management, we must urgent move to uplift our people and economy more than empty growth figures. We must create mass decent employment for our unemployed. There must be minimum social floor below which people must not fall before they appreciate the sanctity of lives. It must task our imagination that thousands could be readily mobilized on working days for mass protests of destructive proportions. Most cities in protests were once functioning industrial cities. We must get these huge potential productive forces engaged otherwise they all become destructive forces as we have witnessed in recent. We must say farewell to poverty and bring back development agenda in Nigeria. Paradoxically elections are supposed to be about development and poverty eradication.
Sadly in the ongoing contestations, it is more about persons rather than programmes. It is a sad commentary that spate of factory closures had not formed the basis of electoral contestation. Voters hardly know what they are voting for. In fact there are no electoral issues as such! It is never late to put development issues on the political agenda otherwise we will all be consumed with personal primordial issues which in turn will push us deeper into underdevelopment. There cannot be sustainable democracy without sustainable development just as there cannot be sustainable development without sustainable democracy.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201104250572.html
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