The colonial master when they were about leaving called for a referendum. They designed what government should be; we did not design the government system we are operating. It was handed over to us and we never questioned the content because the so called government was made to favour the center and the few fortunate ones. It is a government that allows greed and corruption to thrive. The clamour has remained: whosoever gets to the center controls the power, resources and the people. Because of this, the vast of African nations and the colonized worlds have not known rest, respite or progress. Ours has been a land for savages. The problem in the actual sense is not the people but the model of governance we are using.
Anyone who gets to the center would never be able to effect any meaningful change until we overhaul the present form of government. This will continue until we have strong leaders who would question such system of government and this will require sincere and selfless personalities.
When a government becomes too strong, it weakens its constituency. When much power is reposed in a government, it adapts most of its citizens into herds of communities; and everyone begins to think that his life depends on the central power. When much resources is taken to the center, it automatically create an unmatched grandeur and opulence for those who are fortunate to be at the center; thus making them assume the position of little gods to be worshiped. While those who are outside the corridor of power will go through any length of Machiavellian intrigues to be in power.
The name or type of government being practiced does not matter, what really matters is the content, fruit and dividend of governance. Most of the colonized world including Nigeria may adopt federalism, confederalism or democratic system but they have not been able to undo the subtle system beneath our government system. The strength of a structure is firmly attached to its foundation.
Until the foundation is visited and addressed, no change of worth can be achieved.
The Pot of Death
There is a stolen mandate that has taken away sleep from all of us and we are all awake by the same dilemma. The man in opulence could not sleep because of the marauder. The marauder in turn has no rest because he is hungry, for the man in opulence has taken over his inheritance. Sleep has been murdered, and to rest for both, there must be a middle ground for settlement!
To get the point home I will take a moment to tell us a very good story I heard when I was young. It is not about how true it was but the lesson it scored.
This is the story.
Once, there were three good friends. They had been together for years, no one ever heard of their quarrel, and if there was ever any quarrel, they amicably settled issues among themselves. Their status difference was nothing to them as they were all contented hunters and farmers. They took turn in one another home and had many things in common except their wives of course.
When they did not go to their respective farms they do go on hunting expedition together. In one of such hunting expedition, they had hardly gone far into the forest when a man ran past them like someone who was frightened as he kept shouting: Death! Death! Death!
Hunters in the olden days were trained to be bold and fearless; these three friends looked into one another eyes and agreed to move in the direction where the unknown man ran away from. They courageous inched forward and on the alert.
Almost the same time, they saw at a distance some brilliant bars beneath a tree. They gasped and prayed it should be real. They all rushed forward, felt the bars and smelled them. They lived in an age that used gold, so they agreed these must be real gold.
To be sure they are not being careless, they went ahead a little for more search but could not find anything that represented death or danger. They came back to the tree and were happy about their new prospect of riches.
As they gazed on the large bars of gold, each of them began to imagine how to take ownership of the gold all alone. One of them went to town to buy wine to celebrate their fortune and he had it poisoned along the way. When he came, the other two shot him dead, and they drank the wine only to die from the effect of the poison. They all died around the pot of gold.
Our system of government is the pot of gold that is leading to the death and destruction of countless numbers. Take the pot of gold away and we will begin to live together in peace, love and harmony. The pot of gold has divided us along the line of religion, social stratification, beliefs, ideologies, and ethnicity. Each constituent or group wants to poison or destroy the other to get things closer to its own side. This has led to death, poverty, corruption and conflicts. The negative impact is growing day by day.
Free or unearned riches are death, the more surplus the more adversarial such becomes.