ECHOS IN NATION: Building Persistent Foolhardiness In A Political Process
A great thinker, Soren Kierkegaard once said: “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what is not true. The other is to refuse to accept what is true.”
Truth is truth. It means correctness, accuracy, and conformity to fact or reality. It speaks of the genuine depiction of a thing, an event, a personality or statements of reality.
In every situation, truth has its characteristics, clarity & (timeless) pattern that leads to fruition and progress. The opposite of the truth, Falsehood, also has its characteristics (some of which include doublespeak, ephemerality, and transiency), a shadowy pattern that leads nowhere but deterioration & putrefaction.
It is horrifying and ferociously mind-boggling to behold Nigerians, for the umpteenth time, sideline truth and joyously embrace falsehood.
A few days ago, about 14 or more political parties in Nigeria ended their special conventions where party delegates voted to elect their presidential candidates. And right before our eyes, tens of thousands of dollars exchanged hands and the aspirants with the highest bribes emerged as winners in each party. With pomp, party members jubilated widely, cheering up these party flagbearers while top government officials and party henchmen congratulated them.
Today, the atmosphere is drenched with the pervasive pretence that any of these party candidates would run a good or people-oriented government should he or she win, God forbid, the general election in 2023. How can that be?
How can a candidate who had spent hundreds of millions of naira to win a party primary election constitute and run a corruption-free government? Does it not amount to sheer foolhardiness and chronic self-delusion to expect a bucket of pure water from a self-polluted stream? This is where Soren Kierkegaard’s thought comes in handy, that – “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what is not true. The other is to refuse to accept what is true.”
The one who bribes his way to become party flagbearer is expected or mandated to appoint his/her Cabinet from the same delinquent, immoral and self-serving party members. It is a cyclical phenomenon and this is why Nigeria has remained in its epileptic state today. Since the nation returned to democracy in 1999 till date, maintenance projects on electricity supply had gulped over $40 billion yet, the country lives in darkness. Out of school children in Nigeria is about 15 million. Over 60 million adults cannot read or write in a country so blessed with abundant resources. The Party system is the chief culprit.
Not only is the political party system a pernicious, artificial and deceptive enterprise, but it is also an avoidable pollutant in the political process. It is needless to actualise the goals of democracy and people-oriented representative government.
The party system corrupts the soul, blinds the masses’ eyes, and supplants and corrodes their conscience and ensnares them with monetary inducements. The political party system is an “unindemnifiable” tragedy to democracy. It circulates the same set of few individuals around the corridors of power. It foists on the people Plutocracy dressed in the garb of democracy.
Professions in a country are veritable, most suitable and purifying platforms for constituting popular, people-oriented representative government. Professions are indubitable. They follow after the people’s needs by nature & as such guarantee both qualitative and quantitative representation in government. Any mould of democratic practice that, in conception, connotation and delivery, alienate the people from their needs, is merely cosmetic and delusive.
Since citizens surrender their sovereignty to the government to help meet their needs, it behoves democracy to take into cognisance and reckon the areas of need of the people vis-a-vis their representation in government. Every legitimate occupation in a nation evolves to meet the people’s desire for living and fulfilment. Occupations are largely natural to the environment and the people and in no small way transformative.
A Profession identifies potential, nourishes and trains and makes them geniuses suitable for effective management of human and material resources. Unlike Political parties, Professions operate and conduct themselves under the atmosphere of truthfulness, a high sense of morality, decorum, discipline and propriety.
Professions and Professionals are known for pragmatism, expertise, clear-cut focus, efficiency, prudence and accountability. Political parties are synonymous with deceit, intrigues, under-handedness, mediocrity, empty promises, reverie and extravagance.
When people represent Professions in government, ethnic fault lines would be erased because professions dissolve ethnic consciousness and unite people for common goals. Ethnic distrust, intolerance, hatred and violence had been recalcitrant challenges to political party democracy. It cannot resolve these issues because it lacks the tools and apparatuses necessary for national integration.
Substituting the political party system with Professions in the country as the dias of representation would eliminate the overbearing influence of moneybags in the polity. The profession is a leveller. It restricts everyone to his/her professional endeavour in choosing their representatives.
This new template of democracy that enthrones truth, sanity and kills Corruption is christened LIBERTOCRACY.
It gives room for key operators in the economy including manufacturers and dealers in all goods and services to be represented in the Legislature. This would end the age-long regime of padded budgets and over-bloated costs of projects by agencies of government.
The high cost of electoral Candidature, occasioned usually by The high tidal party’s high nomination fees and wide campaign programmes, is eradicated.
For more on the gains and suitability of LIBERTOCRACY, kindly visit the link below:
bit.ly/3Arb4gz
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