Chasing shadows
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- Category: Philosofaith
- Written by M. U. Ndagi
- Hits: 3313
The Chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mrs. Farida Waziri, recently recommended that all Nigerians seeking public offices (by election or appointment) should be made to undergo psychiatric tests before being allowed to contest for such. She came under severe criticisms especially from politicians across the country soon after making this declaration.
Farida Waziri may, perhaps, be right if we take time to critically examine the situation at hand. Of course, some of the behavioral manifestations by many of our legislators today do not in essence portray them better than people with psychological disorders. Our Senators are used to slapping themselves over trivial issues. We have watched members of the House of Representatives on television screen exchanging blows as if they were motor park thugs! They screen candidates who have questionable characters and endorse them as ministers and ambassadors. The recent rejection of Professor Tunde Adeniran (a former Minister of Education under President Obasanjo) by the United States of America as Ambassador Designate is a case in point. The rejection, according to reports, is because of the criminal charges for which his son is standing trial. We seem today in Nigeria to have a National Assembly that endorses people who do not merit endorsement for any position of responsibility; who approve supplementary budget for the executive even when the implementation of the main budget falls below expectation; and who abandon reports of probe committees after expending huge resources on public hearings. What would you say of legislators who in a period of two legislative years cannot present a bill or move a motion in any matter that affects the Nigerian people they claim to represent? The cumulative effects of this unbecoming attitude of our lawmakers may have informed Farida’s position on the mental state of our public officers.
However, it is the opinion of this column that Mrs. Farida’s statement is only meant to chase shadows instead of the real issues at stake. If the EFCC boss, like many Nigerians do, believes that public officers in Nigeria behave like people with mental ill-health, it is important she realises that the problem does not actually lie with the mental well-being of our leaders and those in positions of authority but with the corrupt and fraudulent electoral process which allows and gives such few “insane” people unchecked access to power to the detriment of the sane who are in the majority.
No one can stop those whom Allah (SWT) has destined to be insane at a point in their lifetime from becoming so. However, we can use credible electoral processes to preclude those that are “insane” from becoming leaders over those that are mentally sound. We expected Farida Waziri to call on government to effect electoral reforms as recommended by the Justice Uwais-led Electoral Reform Committee. The EFCC boss should be bold enough to let government know that worse people are likely to emerge as executives and legislators so long as it fails to carry out the desired reforms in the country’s electoral process, which Umaru Musa Yar’adua himself acknowledged to be defective during his inauguration as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on May 29 2009.
Yaradua’s failure to objectively implement the recommendations of the Electoral Reform Committee simply implies that himself and members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) appear to want ‘to eat their cake and’ at the same time ‘have it”, which is just a trait of hypocrisy or indecision or both. One cannot claim to be desirous of credible elections and yet would not want to break his “marriage” with the fraudulent electoral process that has bedeviled Nigeria’s political system for a long time. Yar’adua and his team of ministers and advisers must choose between genuine electoral reforms that will guarantee the empowerment of credible candidates through credible elections and quasi reforms that will empower fraudsters as leaders through fraudulent elections. But from all observable indications, neither the executive nor the legislative arm of the government is ready for any realistic electoral reforms. The bill on Electoral Offences Commission (EOC) narrowly escaped death on the floor of the senate last week as those who supposedly should support it as lawmakers wanted it dead. We applaud the contributions of Senators Teslim Folarin and Kabiru Gaya who emphasized to their colleagues on the need to have such a bill passed. Senator kabiru Gaya cannot be more frank when he argued that “those opposing the bill are those who commit electoral offences”.
If Mrs. farida Waziri believes that she accepted her present appointment in order to serve the interest of Nigeria as a nation where true democracy thrives, we encourage her to stop chasing shadows and appeal to the conscience of President Yaradua to effect genuine reforms in the existing electoral processes before the next general elections in 2011. It should not matter whose egoistic interest would be affected by the reform. After all, Allah (SWT) enjoins us in Qur’an 4:135 saying, ‘O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for justice as witnesses to God, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or kin, and whether it is (against) rich or poor: For Allah can best protect both. Follow not the lust (of your hearts); lest ye swerve and if ye distort (justice) or decline to do justice, verily Allah is well acquainted with all that ye do”. There might be no need subjecting anybody to a psychiatric test if the right mode of reform would sincerely be carried out. We pray that those in whose hands Allah (SWT) has put the reins of power in Nigeria today would be inspired by the above verse of the holy Qur’an to put the interest of 140million people above theirs, amin.
Articles
Chasing shadows
Category: Philosofaith Written by M. U. Ndagi Hits: 3313
The Chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mrs. Farida Waziri, recently recommended that all Nigerians seeking public offices (by election or appointment) should be made to undergo psychiatric tests before being allowed to contest for such. She came under severe criticisms especially from politicians across the country soon after making this declaration.
Farida Waziri may, perhaps, be right if we take time to critically examine the situation at hand. Of course, some of the behavioral manifestations by many of our legislators today do not in essence portray them better than people with psychological disorders. Our Senators are used to slapping themselves over trivial issues. We have watched members of the House of Representatives on television screen exchanging blows as if they were motor park thugs! They screen candidates who have questionable characters and endorse them as ministers and ambassadors. The recent rejection of Professor Tunde Adeniran (a former Minister of Education under President Obasanjo) by the United States of America as Ambassador Designate is a case in point. The rejection, according to reports, is because of the criminal charges for which his son is standing trial. We seem today in Nigeria to have a National Assembly that endorses people who do not merit endorsement for any position of responsibility; who approve supplementary budget for the executive even when the implementation of the main budget falls below expectation; and who abandon reports of probe committees after expending huge resources on public hearings. What would you say of legislators who in a period of two legislative years cannot present a bill or move a motion in any matter that affects the Nigerian people they claim to represent? The cumulative effects of this unbecoming attitude of our lawmakers may have informed Farida’s position on the mental state of our public officers.
However, it is the opinion of this column that Mrs. Farida’s statement is only meant to chase shadows instead of the real issues at stake. If the EFCC boss, like many Nigerians do, believes that public officers in Nigeria behave like people with mental ill-health, it is important she realises that the problem does not actually lie with the mental well-being of our leaders and those in positions of authority but with the corrupt and fraudulent electoral process which allows and gives such few “insane” people unchecked access to power to the detriment of the sane who are in the majority.
No one can stop those whom Allah (SWT) has destined to be insane at a point in their lifetime from becoming so. However, we can use credible electoral processes to preclude those that are “insane” from becoming leaders over those that are mentally sound. We expected Farida Waziri to call on government to effect electoral reforms as recommended by the Justice Uwais-led Electoral Reform Committee. The EFCC boss should be bold enough to let government know that worse people are likely to emerge as executives and legislators so long as it fails to carry out the desired reforms in the country’s electoral process, which Umaru Musa Yar’adua himself acknowledged to be defective during his inauguration as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on May 29 2009.
Yaradua’s failure to objectively implement the recommendations of the Electoral Reform Committee simply implies that himself and members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) appear to want ‘to eat their cake and’ at the same time ‘have it”, which is just a trait of hypocrisy or indecision or both. One cannot claim to be desirous of credible elections and yet would not want to break his “marriage” with the fraudulent electoral process that has bedeviled Nigeria’s political system for a long time. Yar’adua and his team of ministers and advisers must choose between genuine electoral reforms that will guarantee the empowerment of credible candidates through credible elections and quasi reforms that will empower fraudsters as leaders through fraudulent elections. But from all observable indications, neither the executive nor the legislative arm of the government is ready for any realistic electoral reforms. The bill on Electoral Offences Commission (EOC) narrowly escaped death on the floor of the senate last week as those who supposedly should support it as lawmakers wanted it dead. We applaud the contributions of Senators Teslim Folarin and Kabiru Gaya who emphasized to their colleagues on the need to have such a bill passed. Senator kabiru Gaya cannot be more frank when he argued that “those opposing the bill are those who commit electoral offences”.
If Mrs. farida Waziri believes that she accepted her present appointment in order to serve the interest of Nigeria as a nation where true democracy thrives, we encourage her to stop chasing shadows and appeal to the conscience of President Yaradua to effect genuine reforms in the existing electoral processes before the next general elections in 2011. It should not matter whose egoistic interest would be affected by the reform. After all, Allah (SWT) enjoins us in Qur’an 4:135 saying, ‘O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for justice as witnesses to God, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or kin, and whether it is (against) rich or poor: For Allah can best protect both. Follow not the lust (of your hearts); lest ye swerve and if ye distort (justice) or decline to do justice, verily Allah is well acquainted with all that ye do”. There might be no need subjecting anybody to a psychiatric test if the right mode of reform would sincerely be carried out. We pray that those in whose hands Allah (SWT) has put the reins of power in Nigeria today would be inspired by the above verse of the holy Qur’an to put the interest of 140million people above theirs, amin.