The wisdom that comes from experience guides us to great heights. One of them says: No one learns how to use a left hand in old age. And a left-handed man cannot become efficient as a right-handed man in old age.” Nigeria lost many football matches when left players were featured on the right wing. That is, round pegs in square holes. Bakare’s interview comes to mind as a contradiction of wisdom even against his initial best judgement. An advocate of an ascetic and hard-line disciplinarian, he claims. Being an ascetic and deprived individual was virtuous in the eastern tradition, but it never eliminated discontent in those who practiced it because of the innermost inadequacy it engenders. Such an individual is driven to find fulfilment in a class revolt as an effort to find a new vista of fulfilment. This is the basis of social revolution fired by crisis of unequal access to economic resources.
The struggle for change or transformation of our political fortunes should come from the recognition of ideals that are foundations for development. One of these ideals is the practice of truth which must come from the realization of certain facts of life. Bakare, as a pastor, knows this. The paradigms in Bakare’s interview are inconsistent with his struggle for order.
The paradigm that he has found the anti-corruption magnet in his ally is faulty on moral grounds. The reason is simple: “You cannot fight corruption with corruption as your insignia”. Dictatorship is a corruption of democracy. A successful coup is the highest crime against democracy and it is a corrupt practice!!!!! Ruling with draconian force with no respect for civilian rights is corruption. Accepting to serve a dictatorship, not working to disengage the dictator and usher in democracy is corruption. All dictators have undemocratic traits. Dictators have a way of generating blind faith in them and can mobilize support undemocratically through surrogate manipulations of propaganda and subtle coercion.
Obasanjo was our first democrat with a history of dictatorship. He did not hide his background even when he chose to be addressed as a chief and not a military general. We survived his intrigue to be high-handed from time to time and to abort the third term agenda which could have perpetuated him in the Aso Villa. Obasanjo was a reluctant coupist, dragged into military rulership by the circumstances of his time, but he slightly vindicated himself by handing over to civilians and joining forces with pro-democracy compaigners during the era of Nigeria’s discomfiture in the grips of dictatorship. Obasanjo was in a grade of dictators less malignant than those that took over power, were hesitant about democratization and hobnobbed with avaricious dictators.
Nigeria must beware of dictators in democratic garbs with eloquent advocates. Dictatorship is a trait once learnt never ever cleans out. Like a recessive gene, it manifests in a homologous association which is guaranteed when power is tasted. We have not forgotten that “power corrupts” Those who have sought power corruptly know the corruption of power and have used power corruptly. I have given researched evidence of this. A lot of opinions are pointing that Bakare’s ally is capable of controlling politicians with “absolute power” in order to checkmate their excesses. There is a snag in this advocation. It is not about fear, but a caution that we may lose the political freedom that was hard won. Anyway, those who have their passports, multiple visas to privileged parts of the world and money in foreign accounts have no fears, since they are on notice to vacate the country before the ombudsman arrives. He may know how to stay long enough to repeat the Tunisian and Egyptian saga which he predicts.
Bode George left the prison and celebrated. Those who celebrated with him were vilified. Today, those who committed a successful crime against democracy, a crime punishable by a death sentence, have become heroes of our time. Where is the deterrent that will dissuade the young “academists” and young armed officers from engaging in this act against the state? We must have some reasonable abhorrence of anti-democratic events and persons in order to build a stable democracy in future. We need to understand the meaning of corruption. It is an illegality against the state infrastructure or process. If we intend to fight corruption, we must stand on a pedestal that can be morally trusted. Let’s dissociate with that past history.
The Bakare argument is weak and cannot win any case for the future of democracy in Nigeria.
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