Nigeria Content Online

The recent resolution of the House of Representatives calling on
the Accountant General of the Federation to confiscate the monthly allocation
of the Ekiti State Government as well as those of two other states of the
federation has once again brought to the fore recklessness of our so called
honourable members.

The grouse of the House is the scraping of the leadership of
Local Government Council by the new governor of the state, Dr. Kayode Fayemi.
However, the resolution of the House on the issue has brought up a number of
fundamental issues in the affairs of the House in particular and the nation at
large.

For one, the speed with which the resolution of the House was
passed is rather curious bearing in mind that this is the same House that has
not been able to pass the Freedom of Information bill, which has been in its
custody for years.

One cannot but read political undertone to the whole issue
considering the fact that same House has not been able to react as swiftly as
it has done in the Ekiti case to the much more frightening situation in Ogun
State where a group of minority legislators has been holding the state to
ransom for quite some time How come our Honourable members could not attend to
the Ogun case with the same dispatch with which they handled the Ekiti issue?
How come the House has not shown same interest it displayed in the Ekiti case
in the power sector? If only it had come with such speedy resolutions on the
power sector, perhaps, we would have been celebrating one year of nonstop power
supply in the country by now.

The crux of the matter is that the House seriously erred in this
matter as it has displayed outright ignorance of the critical issues involved
in the Ekiti question. One, the disgraced administration of former governor
Segun Oni was nothing but an aberration as far as the Appeal Court judgment
that outlawed it is concerned. Consequently, the Ekiti State INEC as
constituted by Segun Oni was an illegality and as such the result of any
election it conducted remains null and void.

In same vein, those who benefited from the illegal election
constitute an illegality in their entirety as an illegal government swore them
in.

It is unfortunate that those who are supposed to safeguard our
democracy are the ones exhibiting acts that could jeopardize the system that
MKO Abiola, Kudirat Abiola, Alfred Rewane and numerous others laid down their
lives to bequeath to us. What a shame! Nigerians are sick and tired of politicians
whose stock in trade is to play politics with the lives and destinies of the
masses. One wonders why the same House could not pass a resolution on the sack
of Madam Ayoka Adebayo, the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in Ekiti
State, who was roundly indicted by the Court of Appeal in the verdict that
sacked the Segun Oni led government. Couldn’t that have been a greater service
to our democracy?

Is it not a shame that Madam Ayoka still retains at her present
job as INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in Ondo State despite being a
crucial factor in the disgraceful Ekiti State gubernatorial re-run of last
year? Is it not curious that members of the House of Representatives do not see
any need to pass a resolution on this matter? Is it not rather worrying that
the honourable House has not been able to apply the same ‘efficiency’ with
which it handled the Ekiti case to the all important questions of kidnapping,
unemployment, corruption, electoral fraud, armed robbery, infrastructural decay
among other numerous plagues that have held the country captive for so long? Is
it not rather disturbing that months after Labour and the Federal Government
have come to terms with a new salary structure for federal civil servants they
are yet to receive same and our honourables at the House have not deemed it fit
to pass a resolution on the issue?

The bottom line, of course, is that Nigerians know who their
true representatives are. They know those they can trust. They know those who
have stood by them through thick and thin. They know those who will shamelessly
move from one party to the other for the sake of their pockets. They know those
that fought, at the risk of their lives, to confront military dictatorships.
They know those who wined and dined with the enemies of democracy who today
parade themselves as lovers of democracy.

It is unfortunate that rather than learn from history our
honourable members are turning themselves to victims of history. While his
reigned as the last (?) Emperor of the Niger, OBJ assaulted the mentality of
Lagosians by seizing the revenue allocation of Local Council Areas in the
state. What became of this act of illegality, as they say, is now history:
Those whom history will destroy, never learn from it.

As 2011 approaches, Nigerians are more determined than ever to
ensure that their votes count, as they are tired of pretenders who have nothing
to offer them but a compounding of their woes.

(Ogunbiyi is of the Features Unit,
Ministry of Information and Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos)