Doctrine of Domination

Considering the current crisis situation plaguing the political climate as we head towards the 2015 general election, it is necessary to recall certain significant episodes in the past, which almost miraculously diffused tension and provided a systematic solution, in place of the debacle of deadlocked diatribes that threatened our unity and stability. There can be no denying that the supposedly democratic contest for the Presidency of Nigeria in 2015 has instigated a despotic desperation to literally confiscate the tenure of the incumbent among those who never genuinely recognised his right, nor that of a “minority” for that matter, to rule. Yet, even the most virulent vector of “Jonathanian” jaundice cannot justifiably declare that any Nigerian should be hounded out of an entitlement, purely on the basis of his tribe and tongue.

Our nationhood has always been tethered on the doctrine of unity in diversity and the notion of the nation belonging to us all. If these principles had been dutifully upheld as they should have, our country would have been the more strengthened to prevent and withstand the ethno-religious quakes that have instead remained permanent perils on the path to our collective development and progress. Arguably, the initial emergence of Goodluck Jonathan as acting President exposed the sinister underbelly of the patriotic posturing of our political leadership elite, in spite of the oaths they swear . In fact even the established statutes of the Nigerian Constitution which unambiguously stipulated the order of succession in a vacated Presidency had to be vigorously backed up with a hurriedly harnessed consensus on “doctrine of necessity”!

All these issues highlight the vulnerability of our nationhood when confronted by the recurring reticence of the political leadership elite who have no qualms about putting their selfish/clannish interests above all else. It is a pity to observe that barely four years after securing the strategic consensus to conceive a doctrine of necessity with which to uphold constitutional provisions and retrieve our nationhood from naked nepotism, here we are again faced with the same uncompromising threats from dominant ethnic groups intent on imposing a supremacist stranglehold on an incumbent minority President.

In analysing the current crisis of leadership which has overwhelmed the routine of general election, we cannot shy away from the regrettable reality of an unholy alliance between the core-north (again!) and the south-west to wrest the settled entitlement of two-term presidency from the incumbent south-south minority President with such reckless abandon. The ulterior motives of the so-called opposition parties are glaringly paraded in the opportunistic gathering of strange bedfellows and allied incompatibles united in a rabid scramble for power at all costs.

It does not augur well for democracy or nationhood that the inherent weaknesses of a marginalised minority in the long-standing lop-sided competition for power are seized upon by the hawkish heroes of majority rule to victimise and demonise the very first Nigerian President from the south-south to the extremist extent of portraying the providential emergence of an Ijaw President as abomination of treasonable proportions. Even the unprecedented undeniable landmark achievements of a humble and comparatively hard-working President are buried under the barrage of blanket condemnation orchestrated with the deceptive cruelty of the Goebbels.

Without dwelling too much on the unfairness and overzealousness of those currently campaigning so viciously against the merited and settled right of President Goodluck Jonathan to a second term of four years, suffice it to emphasise that, as far as the fanning of ethnic embers for political leverage is concerned, there will be no end to it even if the core-Hausa/ Yoruba tribal champions hoodwink their way to power in 2015.

Published in the Daily Times newspaper dated: Monday, January 26, 2015