In the sixties leading up to the seventies, a businessman called Takon migrated from his place in Ikom LGA in the Central Senatorial District of CRS to live in a small village called Akpakpa in the present Bekwarra LGA of the Northern Senatorial District of the state. He settled here with his family to engage in the prosperous palm oil and palm kernel business. Takon prospered greatly and became very influential. But one day, his three tone lorry knocked down and killed a pedestrian.
It was not established who was at fault in the accident whether it was the driver of Takon’s lorry or the pedestrian who died. But in those good old days, human life was held as precious and sacred. If anyone died an unnatural death, as was the case here, government, represented by the police, will have to say or do something even if the deceased was a known mad person. But in this particular case, government did not say or do anything about it. The police did not even say it was investigating the cause of death as is their wont.
I said earlier that Takon was a very influential person because of his wealth and affluence. He must have influenced the police not to prosecute his driver. What was worse, he himself and his driver did not pay any condolence visit to the family of the accident victim or contribute a part to the burial obsequies of the deceased. In the eyes of the horrified and thoroughly incensed ordinary Bekwarra people, both government and Takon behaved as if a dead dog not worth mourning had just died. They were, therefore, lamenting the unfeeling, conspiratorial attitude of unconcern of government and Takon.
This incident provoked or rather inspired a folk song entitled Imoto iTakon in the Bekwarra language of my Bekwarra people, a very popular and cynical song which the people sang mournfully and mockingly in burials and group farming engagements. It went as follows: imoto ITakon a gu uni ngin, Okaro akang ibang? It translates as follows: Takon’s lorry has just killed a man but what has government said about it?
I am reminded of this hit folk song from my background which as a young man some fifty years or so ago I used to join others in singing enthusiastically although I did not quite understand the substance of the one-line lyrics in the face of the African Union’s unfeeling concern by so-call democrats in power in Africa when democracy is murdered in broad daylight. And when a military coup takes place it is this same AU that will be mouthing some inanities about respecting democracy and the rule of law. When civilians elected into offices are truncating democracy in broad daylight, the AU sits so far in Addis Ababa and neither say nor do anything about it.
We in Nigeria are yet to see all the LG elections in the 36 states of the federation but we all know the outcomes of the remaining states that are going to do theirs in February next year- the ruling party in any of the states will sweep all the chairmanship and councillorship positions. Where you see one chance ‘slipping’ away to another party it is because some people in one of the constituencies disagreed very strongly with the choice of a candidate by the governor and insisted that they will vote for a candidate of their choice on another party platform and the governor cannot do anything about such a feisty, determined insistence or risk a violent outbreak.
From what has become clear, all the 36 ‘democratically elected governors’ who number among them a Catholic priest, are crooked, dishonest, insincere and undemocratic elements no better than the military. None of them appears to have a conscience. And President Tinubu who is touted as a democratic evangelist who resisted military rule cannot call his colleagues to order. He knew what will happen at the LG elections and if he were a genuine democrat as touted, would have called the governors to a tea breakfast in Aso Rock and told them not to repeat what has been taking place in our country in recent years so that we can actually begin to nurture democracy to become an established form of rule in our country. But he did no such thing. He even appears to have collaborated through feined ignorance with one of the parties that participated in the travesty of democracy that took place in one of our states-Rivers- in its LG election.
AU, please hear me. The local elections are dearer to the people than the presidential, gubernatorial and National Assembly elections. When some people make a mess of it, it pains the people so much. It is things like the sham LG elections that make Africans to enthusiastically welcome military coups even when the people have realized that the soldiers are no better than the politicians they have overthrown.
When next a coup takes place anywhere in Africa, let the AU keep mum rather than defend the indefensible in the name of decency and order. African fake politicians need to be humiliated once in a while so that they can learn to do the right things for the sake of their suffering people. When you say you are running a democracy and the process of choosing leaders is so undemocratic, why don’t we just support military rule? What is the difference between a coup organized by bloody civilians in long robes and the military in starched, smart khaki?
