Okenyi Kenechi
We are living in dangerous times. Dangerous I say because life seems almost unimportant to those seeking political relevance. There has never been a time that I am more scared of the future than I am now. People die every day but we all carry on like nothing happened. It has become normalized in our consciousness, not to mourn the loss of lives or demand for the killers to be arrested and prosecuted. We don’t care until it knocks on our doors and gifts us the same sorrow that others experienced.
Throughout the country, it is blood on top of blood. There is war at every corner of the country. People get murdered in their sleep, communities get raided, politicians arms street boys to cause mayhem and police shoot them down before they could wake up.
What is going in?
It is simple, yet complex but not the kind of thing that we cannot take care. We have Paramount rulers with ‘Paramountly’ poor subjects, whose only duty is to submit whatever, even life, to the preservation of the Paramount ruler’s source of wealth.
I mean, if that is not the case, why has there been no enquiry into the murder of young men who went to protest at the secretariat of the All Progressives Congress on the 4th day of May 2018? Why have the people who sent them to protest not been arrested? What of those who were killed at Okporowo Ogbakiri or those who lost their live at Kula during the PDP primaries? Have we, just like every other deaths, carried on like nothing really happened?
What does this actually say about the democracy that we claim to be practicing? Is this democracy or our own version of it? Why must people die so as to elect those who will lead them?
All these point to the principles of Paramount rulership and the ‘Paramountly’ poor subjects who are activated when need be to carry out mayhem on those perceived as enemies of the Paramount ruler.
As the elections approach, people should be able to resist being used by the politicians as harbingers of violence while they do everything to resist playing by the principles of both internal and external democracy. It happened during the PDP councillorship primaries and it happened during the APC ward Congresses.
The struggle or do I say the fight between the minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and the Senator representing Rivers South-East Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Magnus Abe is nothing but a fight for personal interests. That is where the people have failed to draw the line. They think that it is a fight for justice or equity, so they get involved in it and die on the process. But we will never shy away from saying things the way they are.
Magnus Abe wants to be Governor. It is an honest ambition and he has the right to. He believes that he has what it takes to be the governor. Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi on the other hand says he will not support Magnus. So they fight for the soul of the party and the control of it. They are very smart people. Don’t underestimate them. Do that at your own peril. They appeal to our sentiments, they tell you that they are fighting so as to serve you but why must people die because they want to serve the people? If all of us are dead, who will they serve?
The Minister of Transportation says he is fighting for equity. He wants his protégé and former minister of state for Education and current governor out of power because he is Ikwerre and Ikwerre cannot rule for 16 years. All these are legitimate on the surface but one cannot resort to injustice while fighting for justice. Politics is a game of numbers. Make it transparent, make it open and let the most popular win and become the flag bearer.
But that is not the case. It is either my way or the highway so they fight in the open and make statements that cause commotion and incite their pool of supporters into action while their families are safe, protected by guns and bullets.
Before you fight on behalf of a politician, make sure his family is at the forefront but we are not even thinking that far.
They are Paramount rulers who became rich and influential on the strength of our back. We need to tell them that they either play by the rules or leave us. We are tired of being their Paramount slave.
