A Historical And Dilemmatic Call: A Broken Pence In The Face Of Constitutionalism By Richard Odusanya

In the natural scheme of life, the human nature tends towards corruption in the face of wealth and power; power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. To, therefore, curb the free for all system, every society must create ethics and strictly stick to the created ethics.

The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings to intentionally build a peaceful and sane society.However, human beings most times, allow the feelings of envy and hate born with them to navigate their steps towards crime and violence, thereby abandoning any sense of loyalty and good faith.

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly. Bad people, on the other hand, would not only abuse the laws set to guide them to sanity but also find a way around it.

The peace and development that have evaded our land for a very long time generate consistently from our self-centered constituted authorities that abuse and pervert the laws they are appointed or elected to protect,in the bid to find their ways around such laws.

In the hands of such constituted authorities, the constitution is a mere wax which they twist and shape into any form they please. Plunder has become a way of life for them over the course of time and they have created for themselves as legal systems that authorize and serve as moral codes to such ways of life.

Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. Our self-centred leaders, in Africa, are potential monsters that are dangerous to the society. 

They grow worse daily and have no intention to change for the good.Since they are not healthy to our society, it becomes very urgent and compulsory for us to out-monster the monsters in them before they quietly devour us all. There must be no peace for a leadership that has deprived its people of same peace!

Richard Odusanya

Loyalty to an unjust cause is a perversion of honour, which womb is sacrilege and despises any form of inhumane trait to humanity. As such, we must always serve as ambassadors of honour by consistently pushing for a honourable society where every voice must have a say in the process of governance and execution of laws.Even if there are times we are powerless to injustice , there must never be a time that we must fail to protest against such an injustice for the wounds of honour are self-inflicted.

The continent of Africa is nothing but a laughing stock in the face of the world because we have leaders that care less about words. In fact, they see their subjects as the “wailing wailers”. It is only ambition that drives them; the seeds of corruption are deeply rooted in their souls. It is our joint responsibility to uproot this spirit of “Baal” from our land without leaving any trait.

Loyalty to one’s country cannot be blueprinted. It cannot be produced on an assembly line neither can it be manufactured at all for its origin is the human heart- the centre of self-respect and human dignity. It is a force which leaps into being only when conditions are exactly right for it, and it is a force very sensitive to betrayal.

In Africa today, politics and governance are the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedy just to inflict excruciating pains and wretchedness on the voiceless and defenseless.

The abuse of power and misappropriation of funds in our developing nations of Africa are alarming and heart breaking. We run a system that promotes wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice and politics without principle.

Although virtually all countries had leadership and corruption challenges from the outset of the practice of a democratic system of government, it is irritating that Africans have refused to move on to the enviable stages of “democracy” when countries in the western world are already consolidating the feats democracy has helped them to achieve. 

Lots of the countries out there now have applaudable provisions on the rights of animals and environmental preservation when ,in Africa, our leaders are yet to understand what “human rights” is all about let alone applying such provisions. Omoyele Sowore a prisoner of conscience!

The 1927 Liberian presidential election shows how shameless and inconsiderate many African leaders have always been. The incumbent president at the time, King, received 243,000 votes against the 9, 000 of Faulkner ( his opponent) when actually the registered voters were less than 15,000- the worst and most rigged election ever in the history of human race.

Ninety-four (94) years later, the story has grown more detestable. Free and fair elections still have no place in the African clime.Worse still, vote buying and elimination of perceived opponents are the newly added menus to the political atrocities of our heartless leaders. 

On 12 January, 2006, the then Governor of Oyo State, Chief Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja, was impeached and removed from office by touts for refusing to rob the palms of his godfathers with the State’s resources.

The most disappointing part of the event was the role played by the sitting president then, General Olusegun Obasanjo.The worst of it all, is that, the unrepentant grand patron of the garrison boys, General Obasanjo has still not seen anything wrong in their plot to illegally remove a democratically elected governor from office; of recent in Ibadan, he once again gave a supportive nod to the evil perpetrated 14years ago by reiterating that Ladoja was impeached for being an ingrate to his godfathers, Chief Lamidi Adedibu (“Garrison commander” anointed by General Olusegun Obasanjo, a PDP Chieftain who wanted a share of 15m naira from the 65m naira security votes of the State at the time) and Chief Yekini Adeojo.

Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State was also impeached on November 2, 2006 for his refusal to inflate the annual budget of the State. The Chuba Okadigbo’s saga was an eye sore and unspeakable event in a democratic setting.

These are a few of the obnoxious scenarios we wake up to in Africa on daily basis.Our leaders continuously subject us to international ridicule by their display of “the apes obey” mentality the white invaders and supremacists imprinted on our land before we forcefully pushed them off.

November 3, 2020, was a significant day in the history of the world; a day Americans chose to undo their mistake of Emperor Trump.All hell has been let loose by President Trump,a typical example of the tyrants ruling in Africa, since  he lost to Senator Joe Biden. After all failed manipulations, January 6, 2020, was the best chance to upturn the will of the American people of their choice of Senator Biden by a despotic tyrant, Trump.

President Trump called on his ever loyal second-in-command, Vice-President Mark Pence, to block the formal confirmation of Joe Biden’s presidential win in the Joint Session of the Congress Pence was traditionally meant to preside over.

In his response to the order of President Trump, in the early hours of January 6,2021, Vice-President Mark Pence hinted on his stance: Four years ago, surrounded by family, I took an oath to support and defend the constitution, which ended with “so help me God”.

Today, I want to assure the American people that I will keep the oath I made to them and I will keep the oath I made to the Almighty God.

When the Joint Session of Congress convenes today, I will do my duty to see to it that we open the certificates of the electors of the several states, we have objections raised by senators and representatives, and we count the votes of the Electoral College for President and Vice-President in a manner consistent with our constitution, laws and history.” So help me God”.

It is my considered judgement that my oath to support and defend the constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.

David McIntosh, president of the conservative club for Growth and a friend of Vice-President Mark Pence, had this to say about Pence: Mr Pence would resist the pressure on Wednesday and perform his duties as required under the US constitution.

He is a constitutionalist at heart. He is going to look at this and say what is my role as vice-president?

Every rational human would love to stay put in a juicy post like that of Pence, who eventually allowed the United State of America(U.S.A) constitution have its way; a way which is tantamount to Vice-President Pence being taken out of office.

This would hardly happen in Africa, most especially Nigeria. Femi Fani Kayode, ‘FFK’ -a former Minister of Aviation under the inglorious regime of General Olusegun Obasanjo, a staunch supporter of President Trump boastfully declared that Trump would make it through on January 6, 2021, thinking that United States of America, was Nigeria or Africa where they practise their “Banana Republic Politics”.

A monumental failure we have had as our leader in the past five years; a man that has never proferred solutions to our problems in and out of power but compounded them by granting wings to our hard earned revenue to fly under his watch and borrowing and spending like a prodigal son.

We are not too blind to see the damage he has done to the psyche of Nigerians who have been made hopeless by his incompetence, maladministration and god forsaken policies. He is nothing but a calamity that has led Nigerians into the hall of infamy: Nigeria has become the “world capital for extreme poverty” under the cluelessness of a confused tyrant.

Yet, our highly revered second-in-command, Vice-President Yemi Osibanjo; one of the first best 100 lawyers in Nigeria (the most populous black nation and the giant of Africa) and a so-called man of God, has never stood with the constitution but instead with the cluelessness of his despotic boss. He has stooped so low to become the “trader moni” distributor-a-vote buying mechanism in disguise. If Vice-President Pence was Vice-President Yemi Osibanjo, by now, Emperor Trump would have been declared the 46th POTUS of America.

Patriots do not accept effluxion of time in taking decisions that will haunt their nation. Instead, they consistently take positions that are neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but ones that satisfy their conscience as right.

Nigerians are great people and should not allow a bunch of nuisance to continue to smear our prestigious name with mud.

The newly elected Democrat  of Georgia, Senator Jon Ossoff, thanked Nigerian-Americans for pushing him to victory in the just concluded US elections against the incumbent Republican Senator David Perdue. If our contributions as a people are felt in the world power United States of America, when would we deem it fit to deliver our very own nation Nigeria from the shackles of locust Buhari, his cohorts and other senseless politicians in the land?!

“A NATION WHICH ACCEPTS TO LIVE A THIRD-CLASS LIFE IS JUST A THIRD-CLASS NATION. IF A NATION WANTS TO BE CALLED HONOURABLE, IT MUST USE THE OPTION TO REFUSE ANY KIND OF POLICY WHICH IS AGAINST HUMAN DIGNITY. NO REFUSE , NO HONOUR! IF YOU DO NOT REFUSE A BAD GOVERNMENT, YOU DESERVE IT ALL THE WAY!”-Mehmet Murat iIdan.

Odusanya is the convener of AFRICA COVENANT RESCUE INITIATIVE ACRI

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