Tuesday 17 March 2009

Re: Nigerians Betrayed Me

By Bankole A. Okuwa
Rejoinder

Dear Mrs. Adebayo,

I am sorry about your situation in Ekiti as the Resident Electoral Commissioner. Nigerians are no cowards. The history of revolutions will teach you the peculiar spontenuity of rebellion in societies which are victims of oppressive regimes or dictatorships such as ours.

Your expectation of instant revolt is not misplaced but the Ekiti election manipulation may not be enough to put Nigeria on fire. The Judiciary had dispensed justice in some states gubernatorial disputes. Our plural socio-political setting continues to militate against a national peoples' rebellion in the rot that is called Nigeria.

The Igbos will think twice before joining any national revolution. The Hausa-Fulani have and enjoy their narrow perception of Nigeria as a semi-democracy. Sharia to them is more relevant to socio-political development than the Nigerian constitution. In reality, Nigeria is not a simple political embodiment as you seem to describe it in your write-up.

You have started a course which will gather some rebelious momentum as time goes on and Nigerians in general will learn the need to relate the fate of one Nigerian to that of another, regardless of region, ethnicity, religion and other natural or artificial differences. The time will soon come but not with the Ekiti incident which is purely a Yoruba problem in a Yoruba state.

The political struggle in the South-west; that is, in Yoruba part of Nigeria is a consequence of some obnoxious attempt to impose an unjustified, inept, false, undisciplined and unprogressive political order on a people whose political advancement was generally ahead of that of other parts of Nigeria, even before Nigeria's political independence.

People of the Action Group, UPN and AD political orietation are being forced by political manipulation against their choice of leaders in an age of re-surgent and popular democratic order in Africa. Late Uncle Bola Ige was murdered in order to put the Yoruba people in this difficulty.

The people of the old West are resilient enough to reject the yoke of corruption, election rigging, political stagnation, political ineptitude and retrogression. All the governorship election disputes in Yoruba part of Nigeria owe their legal challenges to the unfortunate ambitions of those who want to impose themselves on an un-willing people.

Election rigging in Nigeria is undoubtedly Olusegun Obasanjo's political legacy. Did he see election rigging or a semblance of it in South Africa's general election to which he was invited as an observer, last April? Nigerians know that their imposed political leaders are crooks from the top to bottom.

I shall look forward to reading your memoirs when published. Revolutions don't start by mere expectations of the action or reaction of a people. It starts when you least expect it. Nigeria's revolution will come but I pray the Nigerian army and the police have no role to play in it, otherwise all purposes of revolutions will be defeated in Nigeria again.

People's revolution in Nigeria will be led by the Intelligentia and students of tertiary institutions before others groups join. Do not despair Mrs Adebayo, you have done your bit.Bankole

Bankole A. Okuwa USA. May 17,2009.