DEMOCRACY AT ITS BEST

    The deed has been done, the long awaited elections have come and gone , and the handover successful despite the hitches. Before the elections and all that transpired, Nigerians were likened to a man whose wife was in the Labour room, his heart knows no peace, only anxiety, fear and worries, those wicked triplets that sure know how to deal with anyone no matter your status, age, religion or tribe.
    Agitations here and there, accompanied by political propaganda; the norm of our niche. The campaigns were nothing to write home about and I kept wondering to myself "why have we refused to be pulled out of this murky waters that get deeper and dirtier by every election year". Therefore, I ask; shall we continue to exist in this plane of electoral stupidity?
    This day and age, our politicians still go about with vote buying, thuggery and all what not. They don't even know how to sell their votes to the teeming populace. The few that even know how to won't even get half a chance to get to the seat of leadership. Every now and then, we hear of rigging!!! Why won't there be? We refuse to grant Justice to all.
   Some of the incidents reported during that period made me want to puke. That's how appalling the acts were to me. Kenya at the same time had elections but nothing of such was reported. Our politicians should cover their faces in shame. More so, INEC as a body deserves a slap because as the electoral body they have shown great incompetence, a returning officer stated that the results declared in a given state was done under duress. Politics of do or die.
    The truth be told, I am not surprised, that is why they never deliver on their electoral mandates, they are gods in their own paradise and the people have no right to question them, the members of NASS and House of Representatives are no better. They prefer to make laws that will further trample under feet the masses. I am yet to really see our legislators do their jobs, they only play to the gallery. They come up with constituency projects of drilling borehole water for the poor, put their pictures, names and write " Donated by Honourable ..,...."  How degrading and insulting, as if they are doing us a favour.
I hate the fact that none of our Journalists has come up to write extensively on such. You go to certain places and see patched roads that barely last two weeks and when asked how much spent, you hear outrageous sums of money. The police is underfunded, can you blame the poor officers when you see some of them collecting hundred Naira from motorists? That doesn't justify them either.
Our hospitals are a skeleton of itself, understaffed, under equipped, these people can only seek solace in foreign lands. So tell me; what kind of health practitioners will our institutions produce?  Hence, the saying "you only give what you have" . we have all along been walking on marshes, however, it's time to take a deeper walk into the murkiness with a closer look at our dying education and decayed research.
Show me a nation which claims to have good education without a research division and I will show you a day dreamer who will never wake up. The sleeping " GIANT" Nigeria falls in this category. As much as I hate to insult these leaders, the level of their intelligence is called to question.  Sometimes when I sit to watch their plenary I shake my head in disgust.
   People complain that they send their kids out to foreign lands for education, lol , why won't they? Do you think they will empower you? Know ye not that knowledge is power? I am of the opinion that our people are certified not educated, only when we merge study with research can we truly say we are educated. The level of harassment on youth is really going off the hook, especially by uniformed men who are meant to protect lives and property. Everyone is now a "yahoo boy", what happened to innocent until proven otherwise? Where is freedom of movement? Even when you identify yourself they will look for something to implicate you. No wonder the late FELA hated them so much. Poverty has driven families to things unimaginable, electricity is a matter for another year.
  In conclusion, i simply ask what are the tenets of democracy? Where is our productivity? Where are the industries, the farms, our creativity? We have suddenly become trend followers, like a cult. One person starts one thing the rest follow sheepishly. When will we have leaders and not rulers? We need to think outside the box.
Nigeria is not so difficult. Give us a better life, grant justice, let democracy thrive, eschew ethnicity and see if this nation won't grow. Let people get positions by merit not affiliation. Stop the suffering.
God bless Nigeria!!!