By MekAbasi Akpabio
I am an APC member, however, please let anyone, no matter how highly placed, who does not have anything sensible to say in defence of the president as we approach the coming elections keep his or her mouth shut.
What is the meaning of, “The President did not start this insecurity. Why does insecurity increase whenever we are about to have elections?” This is nothing but an insult to our collective intelligence.
The logical question to ask is, if you are in government and you know that the approach to elections always comes with spike in insecurity, what proactive initiatives did you take to forestall that ugly possibility?
Did we hear for once that a meeting of the President or Vice President with all the governors who are almost all in the APC now and all the local government Chairmen and even certain categories of traditional rulers in the country was ever called where the participants were emphatically alerted to the ugly pattern or cycle of election season-related security challenges? I doubt there was any. Yet from the way some of our leaders are talking, they are suggesting they already knew what this season usually brings but deliberately decided to treat it as a routine and yet return to insult our sensibilities when the worst has already happened so that the President will sit somewhere and admire such characters who claim to be defending him.
Our big men should desist from treating us to this absurd theatre of asinine talks. After all, there is a saying that a stone that someone sees being thrown should never blind his eyes. If such a meeting had been held and the governments at all levels specifically alerted and mobilised in readiness for any eventuality and a governor or a local government Chairman or even a royal father still fell short in his responsibility, honestly, I would have been the first to be calling for severe sanctions by the President against such an errant leader.
Apparently, this type of initiative was never considered despite the well discernible ugly pattern of this evil occurrence. And yet, those who should have made this simple suggestion to the President but failed because many of them were perhaps too immersed in their own politics of office retention and survival to ever stop to consider such a possibility are the ones coming to insult the rest of us with deafening bland and diversionary talk.
Elections are fast approaching, summon a nationwide security meeting, issue stern warnings to leaders at every level to mobilise every human and material resources at their disposal to keep their jurisdictions safe. Even if you have to issue threats, issue them and make sure they comply.
If anyone of them defaults, use him to set an example then the next time everyone would have learnt his lessons. And until the President begins to hold certain people, however highly placed, personally responsible for their actions and inactions that directly or indirectly subvert our collective security, the road to our individual and collective peace will continue to remain very far.
Me, I am APC, yet I blame the President for all this. He is the one who has allowed himself to be tossed about. We have been in this mess for 17 years now, so, there is no novelty again to warrant this type of embarrassment. Let me end on, ironically, a rather jovial note. Chief Zebrudaya used to say in his sitcom and I quote, ” first of fall are not fall, but second of fall are pro, pro calamity. ”
Interpretation:
Falling a first time can be excused as no fall, however, to fall a second time is a proper calamity.
As a country, our falling has been countless. Therefore, what we have in our hands is more than a calamity. With this, our leaders who have mostly been a letdown should not return to slap our faces with further insults.
Akpabio, a senior journalist, lives in UK
