Endangered

“A bridge is repaired only someone falls into the water”. African proverb.

A huge quantity of our political values, fortunes and assets are critically endangered. This does not mean they are irretrievably lost. It means they are on margins that require major efforts to retrieve them, or considerable incompetence or indifference to lose them. Human history is not the summation of success or failure to reverse what is endangered . It is, in fact, evidence of failure and success at critical turning points which collectively present as progress precisely because they reflect man’s strengths and weaknesses. When humanity, societies or communities are threatened, the quality of leadership, the degree to which values are shared and resilience which is itself product of many earlier struggles make the difference between survival and going under.

Take the world today as context and situate the US’s Trump’s adventure within them. The existence of a world order has been the most prominent fallacy in human history.The concept of order is the fallacy, because it is chaos shaped by interests of the powerful. Our world has always been shaped by actions of the powerful. The highest symbol of commitment of mankind to a world where humanity has places for the weak and the poor, which is the United Nations, is itself built on the most fraudulent foundations of respect for the human specie. Five countries sit on top a pile of all mankind, and any one of them can and does say no to wishes of the entire world without consequences. It is called veto power, that weapon of the select few which reminds the world that the strong will do as he wishes, and the weak will suffer as he must. Trump has upped the ante in a world of the weak, and even powerful nations now watch to see see how his antics can benefit them. Trump stands guard and supplier as the genocide in Gaza is relayed to a world in colour and graphic details. US will now work with Israel to re-design Israel’s permanent frontlines so that threats to it are reduced to the barest minimum. Victims of this scheme will be crowded and their bitterness elevated until the next time it explodes and the world watches.

Trump is emboldened by the weakness of a world where humanity merely looks on, and now plucks out neighbouring leaders to America to be tried. He takes over entire countries, installs new leaders on them and does what he wishes with their resources. He looks at neighbouring territories and decides he must have them to increase the US’s strategic assets. He sends bombs to Nigeria to punish people who are engaged in genocide against Nigerian Christians. He gambles with Ukraine and dares Europe to challenge his antics for relating equally with the friend and the enemy. He reminds a world thoroughly familiar with the damage of the powerful and the pains of the weak that now US knows boundaries and will respect no pacts or tolerate challenges. The concept of a world order has always been a fraud, but the Trump’s US has exposed its nakedness. There are endangered territories that had lived with threats of the powerful neighbours. Now they have to worry more as they look to see whether they will be protected or traded off by the US for its own interests. today the world looks more like a toy in the hands of Trump. A few more countries have the capacity to play his game. This is not a good time to be weak or poor.

Nearer home, those who worry over the prospects of a democratic system yielding to popular will in 2027 in Nigeria are increasing in numbers. Most do not blame President Tinubu’s party for putting premium on enticing the opposition to join it instead of improving its records in managing security, an economy that creates more poor by the day and the appearance of major cracks in the foundations of a country united around the idea of surviving its current challenges as a single entity. Having virtually all elected persons in the ranks of a ruling party, a combination of an electoral body notorious for conducting disputed elections and a judiciary that has grown fat from the tradition of being the key arbiter of vast a majority of disputed elections, there are genuine grounds for worry over the prospects of a credible election pitching all the rich and powerful politicians in one party against other parties whose assets have been stripped and are likely to suffer more damage from self-inflicted wounds. APC seems to be convinced that democracy is only about elections, and politicians have no obligations to the parties and voters who elected them. It is involved in a fascinating experiment to prove that it can win an election involving elected politicians with massive war-chests against angry and pauperised voters.

It will be unfair to blame APC alone for endangering Nigeria’s democratic traditions. Opposition politicians who, ordinarily, should be working to defeat a party that should be the easiest to defeat are weakening their frail chances even further by the manner they treat their own party purely as vehicles for actualising personal political ambitions. A handful of politicians are locked in a scheme to fly the flag of the ADC, and their successes or failures against each other will substantially decide the future of the party as the leading opposition. Tragically there are no arbiters in a party formed by formerly powerful politicians who seem bent only on getting power. A Convention, the traditional mechanism for deciding flag bearers, should settle the argument over who should be presidential candidate, but it looks more likely to become the final breach in a party of egos. Rumps of the PDP could benefit from the fall outs of the ADC, or the intimidating array of politicians still holding on to the PDP in the hope of a miracle could activate alliances and more defections to present a credible challenge to the APC.

The idea of popular democracy looks severely endangered in Nigeria. Between unspeakable levels of corruption produced by intimate linkages between political and public offices and personal wealth, the existence of voters that are routinely bought, intimidated or deceived, and corrupt and compromised state institutions which compound the foundations of democratic systems, those who worry about the prospects witnessing an improved election in 2027 should worry more.

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