Protocols
Please, may we observe a minute silence as in condolence to my boss- Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and his family over the transition of his wife- Mrs. Clara Oshiomhole who passed on a few days ago. Season greetings to organizers of this great program; and guests present at this divine assembly; it gives me great pleasure to be tasked to address our youths on the challenges of the forth coming elections, not only because I am a youth, but because of the vulnerabilities or social vices that are associates with election climate in Nigeria.
Few weeks ago, I was tasked by the Minister-in-charge of my Church, Christ Apostolic Church (Deliverance Centre) Prophet J.O. Odigie to contextualize and elucidate on the topic “2011 elections; Why Nigerian Youth should Pray to avoid being a Prey”; by the grace of God almighty, I eventually delivered the paper on the 21st of November 2010, during our Sunday Service, and it is available in various internet platforms. In the same vein, as an elected guest Lecturer by the World Assembly of Youth (W.A.Y.) to deliver a paper at a recent annual conference held in Malaysia, I was tasked to present a paper on “the role of National Youth Councils at meeting global security challenges”, in the seven page paper that was presented on my behalf, (owing to my inability to be there) I urged the United Nations to demand 1 per cent from the G8 nations (USA, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, China and France) of their annual military budgets and remit same for global youth developments, because, youths underdevelopment is the bane of insecurity the world over; and more so, the military build-ups of these countries especially nuclear-power development remain a potential threat to global peace and security. Take it or leave it, I have spoken my mind. Again, the paper is available in Google and the Wikipedia.
In a nutshell, the challenge before me will be to draw some inferences from my previous papers in the consolidation of this presentation; therefore, this paper will attempt to define some of the social concepts associated with this topic- Election, Youth, and the rule of law. Suffice it to say that defining rule of law is an attempt to give sufficient background and analysis to the so called “One man, One Vote” maxim which has been popularized by the Comrade Governor of Edo State, Mr. Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole.
Election as we all know refers to the process by which persons are selected to represent a given constituency, by ballot. Election is participatory in nature, to the extent that you do not vote for someone else’s, but yourself alone. So if you seek to vote, you have to be at the polling unit were you are assigned to vote. For the purpose of intellectual elucidation, it is critical to declare that to have an election, the ballot box must be sacrosanct; the electorates must freely find their ways to the election, and vote unhindered or unmolested; and the process of counting the results from one voting poll to another must be open and fair. In Nigeria, we see election period as going to a battle ground, it no wonder therefore that fallouts of elections in Nigeria provoked Chief Nosakhare Isekhure- the Isekhure of Benin Kingdom to title his latest book thus “when election becomes war”. As election approaches in Nigeria, we often read in the newspaper- screaming headlines like “arms and ammunition secretly moved by PDP and AC members to undo each other” even recently, security report has indicated that the recent Iranian vessel seized in Lagos, which was said to be containing large chunk of arms and ammunitions were meant for 2011 election. There was this joke by a comedian, he said that three nationals of three countries were pondering on what happens in their countries after election “the Chinese citizen concluded that they know the winner of an election, at most two days after voting; the American said, with powerful technology and effective infrastructure, they know the winner of an election at most five hours after voting; the Nigerian said, because of hypocrisy and do-or-die tendencies in government- we know the winner of an election two weeks before the election itself”. The version by the Nigerian is an indictment on the political class; it reflects the disjointed orientation of the ruling class who believe in diabolic means of getting and sustaining themselves in power.
The Webster’s Comprehensive Dictionary of the English Language defined Youth as “the state or condition of being young; or the period when one is young, that part of life between childhood and manhood; adolescence”. It is common knowledge that defining youth has assumed a metaphysical dimension, because, we find some very old men whom by God’s privilege of physical fitness will say that they are youths. I have seen young men wrestling or fighting very old men in their community development associations for collecting and pocketing the money meant for the youths of the communities; after they (elders) have pocketed their own; one of the old men (seventy three years old) said “er igbama ma’ hia khin?” (Are all of us not youths?). Suffice to say that youths are the armies of every well-meaning nation; they are also the most endangered set of humans because of youthful exuberance. As a result of dis-service on the part of our political leaders over the years, a vast proportion of Nigeria youths are under-trained, ill-equipped, unemployed and un-empowered; so they are ready-made thugs for political warfare for selfish and gruesome politicians who maintain their own children abroad at the expense of the poverty-stricken masses. They are the ones who are not willing to tolerate poverty and economic depression, sometimes; they are not willing to take patriotic steps to transform their country. This is partly responsible for their desperate mass-exodus from Nigeria through the deadly-deserts or what is commonly referred to as “see Morocco, see Spain”. However, it is a known fact that pro-Independence activists were youths with a dedicated spirit to transform their regions. At any slightest misunderstanding, our youths will take to killing themselves and innocent people in the name cultism, political crisis, even communal quarrels, and precious lives are lost, what a jungle!
The concept of Rule of Law dictates that no person or group is above the law. It is a maxim in Law, but freely used everyone especially when the issue of justice or injustice is being discussed. According to the Wikipedia, the rule of law “is a legal maxim according to which no one has immunity from the law”. By the rule of law, Nigerians irrespective of class were expected to respect and comply with the electoral Act. For the purpose of clarity, it must be stated pointedly that the Electoral Act is a set of rules made and passed into law by the two chambers of the National Assembly to regulate or guide the conduct of a particular set of election, in an election year; Electoral Act is an indispensable part of the rule of law, it must be respected and followed strictly. So, you may have head of the 1999 Electoral Act, the 2003 Electoral Act, as well as the 2007 Electoral Act. On the one-man-one-vote, it was popularized by our Comrade Governor- Comrade Adams Oshiomhole shortly after resumption of office through the Court of Law. Ordinarily, election by its dictionary meaning comes with the presumption that there is sanctity of the ballot box and papers. It assumes that people will conduct themselves in a normal order devoid of crude violence like using battle-axe to attack perceived political enemies on Election Day. Let it be known that one man, one vote campaign being waged by the Governor is aimed at entrenching free and fair election. Before now, we hear that in some parts of Nigeria, some traditional rulers disagreed with the notion that they have equal vote with an Amajiri or area boy.
Talking about the participatory role of the youth before, during and after election, Edo youth must see himself or herself as a stakeholder who has many things to lose and gain if election is derailed or successful. Therefore, he/she must submit to the rules of engagements with a view to behavioral expectations or conducts. We must stop singing political hallelujah in favor of discredited aspirants who have nothing to offer us, the electorates, apart from allocating 25% of the nation’ recurrent overheads to themselves at the detriment of our dilapidated infrastructures and under developed human capital. Our ruling elites have resorted to training their children in Ghanaian schools because of the rising wave of kidnapping and poor educational structures in our country. This is why, I have vowed that when I hold elective position at the local, state or federal in future, I will ensure that the officer in charge of education have all children in Nigeria or the constituency of my political office. Until we imbibe this policy, we will continue to find lopsidedness in the structure and school curricula of the education sector. Again, our youths must constructively engage our political leaders, the emphasis of their demands should be centered on what they will benefit in the future and not the peanuts that they stand to get by “take-away”, but what the aspirant will do with the prospective public office; when the aspirant is failing, they should constructively canvass for his or her removal to serve as deterrent to others. Youth groups can set up cooperative societies to invest in farming related businesses; this will make every right-thinking government to support them.
The way to go in 2011 election is for us all to be vigilant and ensure that we are not employed as political thugs to derail the process of installing a good leader; if we reflect on how long it took Comrade Oshiomhole to become Governor, then we will appreciate how much we have lost if he was declared Governor in 2007, shortly after the April 2007 election. Yes it is very good to pray at all times, in addition to prayers, we must conduct ourselves rightly to effect good leadership.
It is a great pleasure to be invited to this program as guest speaker, I thank you for the audience, and God bless you all.