Would The Beautiful Ones Ever Be Born?
Our societies are in a big mess.
Men of means and role models are going into extinction.
All we have are desperate individuals, professionals of diverse background who would rather get things done, no matter how crooked the procedure precedent.
The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born is the debut novel by the Ghanian Novelist, Ayi Kwei Amah.
The book was first published in 1968.
Unfortunately, up until now, Nigeria is still in search of the beautiful ones.
By all some standard, the likes of Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and a few of the followers of the politicians of the first Republic could be considered as a flash of Nigeria’s beautiful ones.
There is no how you will compare those men with some of what we have in our public sectors nowadays.
The love for the acquisitions of material wealth in those days were minimal.
Integrity and personal principles worth a lot.
Unfortunately, after those brilliant and principled men of yesterday’s, Nigeria is yet to move away from measuring good governance by the standards set by them over sixty years ago.
How exactly did we get to this point?
It is not difficult to decipher.
Men of good conscience are fading from the face of the Nigerian soil by the day.
Integrity and records no longer counts.
You now have situations where otherwise renown University Vice Chancellors, professors for that matter now found simple additions difficult when computing election results!
When Professor Attairu Jega, erstwhile Chairman of INEC came with the idea of appointing University Vice Chancellors as returning officers for gubernatorial elections, almost everyone applauded because of the perceived and expected integrity of the University Dons.
Alas! Experience since then have since corroborated the fact that even, the men of great intellect are not imuned from the rot in our society.
We have had situations where the politicians will rig election with the support of the security Agencies, the Don will announce such results despite the anomalies and the judiciary will cap it up by validating the results as announced.
When Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo state announced the appointment of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria as the Chairman of the Oyo state Independent Electoral Commission, ( OYSIEC), some citizens of the state who still thought and believed in trump up ” integrity” applauded the Governor.
Some of us, who though, have not lost faith in the Nigerian project but would rather wait to assess situations by being cautious decided to give the senior Lawyer the benefits of some doubts.
Unfortunately, from his first major assignment, it was obvious that our initial fears were not misplaced.
The bad and the ugly took place in Ido and Ibarapa East.
Ido was isolated and completely overrun by thugs to give room for the PDP, the party of the Governor who appointed the Senior Advocate to win an election where the PDP alone participated, the opposition candidates having ran for cover for fear of their lives.
Ibarapa East was worse hit.
The army of thugs of the PDP led by a now estranged ally of Governor Makinde, Mukaila Auxillary ended up sending four innocent people to the great beyond in Eruwa.
Despite the fact that the Chairman of OYSIEC was made aware of the ugly incident which brought the Local Government Election in Ibarapa East to an abrupt end at about 10 “0” clock in the morning, the Senior Advocate Chairman of OYSIEC still manufactured results from the killing field in Ibarapa East where the PDP candidates miraculously swept the polls.
Local Government Election in Oyo state was supposed to be held in Oyo state on April 27, 2024 but what the same Senior Advocate dished out to the opposition and the public was nothing but a show of shame.
He deliberately collaborated with the PDP and Governor Makinde to write election results even in places where no Electoral officer and materials were sighted.
The brazen acts of illegalities have since received the blessings of another Senior Advocate of Nigeria who went on Radio to applaud the sham of Saturday 27th April, 2024.
The Commissioner of police in Oyo state have also allegedly called the election ” free and fair” even though, there are series of assaults in several Local Governments as monitored by his officers!
When Kwei Amah wrote the book, ” The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born” in 1968, I bet if he would ever have imagined that the beautiful ones of his dream would take this long in coming.
With the way we have been running our societies without shame and dignity, will the beautiful ones ever be born?
Elections are capital intensive.
It is equally time consuming.
The processes of nominations of candidates by parties, conduct of party primaries and campaigns are not only expensive, they are time consuming.
Only God knows the Budget that was approved for the Senior Advocate and his Commission to organize the Local Government Election on both occassions.
To now imagine that someone, a Senior Lawyer for that matter will allow himself to be used in a process that not only wasted humongous amounts of public funds but also to inflict pains and losses on tax payers surely leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
People have continued to take advantage of the rot in our system to perpetuate evils.
When some unscrupulous individuals engage in outright illegalities and abuse of trusts and offices, no one cares about bringing them to accounts.
If our societies have prioritized bringing those who breached the Laws to book, we will definitely record a decrease in illegalities.
Wasting the resources of the state on a deliberately compromised election is an evil crime which must not be allowed to pass.
We need to begin advocacy for the punishment of erring election riggers.
Our societies are bedeviled with poor Education and health facilities.
The monies wasted on compromised elections would have done so much in making our Education and health facilities better.
There is nothing wrong in having elections. It is a statutory requirement.
However, there is absolutely nothing good and glorious in wasting public funds to organize a deliberately compromised election.
Some of us will definitely test the Laws on the just concluded Local Government Election in Oyo state.
Not only on the Tribunal but also to see how we can ensure that people are brought to book for mismanaging public funds.
SOLA ABEGUNDE.
