“If it isn’t broke, don't fix it' is the slogan of the complacent, the arrogant or the scared. It's an excuse for inaction, a call to non-arms. Collin Powel, former U.S. Secretary of Defense.
But why should anyone try to fix what isn’t broke? Anyone who does has noticed some bit of inefficiency with the current machine and wants an improvement or like one writer said, the person must be trying to louse things up. Whichever case, this system needs an urgent fixing and that fixing time is now.
Just what is broke here that needs fixing? One needs not be a stargazer to see that the four year tenure has brought nothing but a system of perpetuating incompetent persons and parties in power and returning their cronies soon afterward, leaving the people worse off than they could ever hope for. Imagine a scenario where a governor gets elected and begins to receive felicitations for a period of no less than two months and then proceeds to read newspaper congratulatory messages for another full month before embarking on statewide visits that lasts another full month. He then returns to the office after three to four months of fraternizing and announces to any who would listen that the coffers are empty and that they need filling. He then spends some four months shopping for commissioners and when he finds the ‘loyal’ ones he must also proceed to the state assembly where he convinces the members therein to consider and quickly approve them. He persuades them, not by their ability to serve but by promises of sums certain in money.
And then ‘the study’ begins if this governor does not intend to proceed to Germany to get an injection for a tooth ache. The doctors there are usually civilized and mannered and there is no power failure for that matter. The medical trip lasts nearly a month after all, the tax payer is very happy with his hardworking ‘popularly elected’ governor. Upon his return, he attends a number of functions, visits certain parts of the state for parties as special guest of honour and promises yes promises to make life better in his tenure. A few years later though, there are 18 months to the general elections and the governor calls in his wonderful campaign team. They paint a sorry picture of his performance. The governor must now find the black goats before night time. In no small haste, our governor acts like Super Eagles in search of a much needed equalizer, for time is running out. An ample presence of men with camera and microphones are scurried to the state to cover the construction of Babel. The hardworking governor must not go unnoticed. The news can be bought before it is printed or afterward. Good governor is shown in helmet and with scissors cutting off here and laying a block there all in an attempt to prove that eye service is now acceptable. Some people like sheep in Manor Farm begin to bray as instructed. “Governor good; opposition bad.”
The opposition upon hearing the braying sheep is roused from such a deep slumber wondering what is amiss only to find last months’ papers full of a working governor and some happy people. But they too must find some black goat before night. So they begins to shout all at once but all too late and most times in gibberish that the pictures were made using Photoshop or made in Holly Wood.
The people do not really decide. When they do, they consider the roundness of a peg and decide that its roundness is best fit into a square hole. The governor himself shows remarkable courage and generosity by inviting the umpires for a handshake where a script is written and certain numbers allocated making child splay of match fixing. We all line up before the camera helping to sustain a system that lets some group prosper by a protection of the law.
Results trickle in like drops from a decaying pipe. The tension looks real while the governor and his cronies get the reception venue ready for the night’s party. A popular prophet had prophesied earlier the result. When the opposition gets the parboiled numbers, they are shocked like men who saw a fish swallow a crocodile. They do not however, fail to turn up at the victory party where they are surprised yet again at the speed of such a celebration. Suspecting foul play he goes to a place where he thinks he can come to with hands unwashed. Equity though does not aid the indolent but should it let another prosper by his greater wrong?
Needless to say, our reelected governor stays in office another four years repeating the first cycle all over again. Why change a proven tactic? At the end of his tenure full of ‘achievements’, he shows us his Joshua, the anointed successor who is not only God chosen but the most trusted one capable of taking us to Canaan. The opposition starts all too late again to speak a new form of gibberish. The people on learning EFGH have forgotten ABCD too quickly. They scramble to get a few gifts, and resolve like Boxer that our governor is always right so therefore, we must vote for his successor.
Waiting four years to correct one day’s mistake is a horrible wait! The present system is even worse than this at Federal Level where presidents do not only have a lack of grasp of the issues but live in total disconnect from the governed. This guaranteed four year tenure aids an indolent regime to do far too little in a rather highly challenging society called Nigeria.
We need midterm referendums where Nigerians by an Electoral College of no more than fifty thousand persons will decide on behalf of the majority, to recall an incompetent/underperforming government or retain a competent or over-performing one. This midterm referendum should be in the second year of office of the executive. The Electoral College system offers us a cost effective way of avoiding general elections with its obvious cost implication. The opposition does not become complacent or indolent but is constantly awake with its shadow cabinet waiting for its opportunity to enter the match and probably save the day.
Where the present regime is recalled, they shall be led quickly to a court where their deeds and misdeeds are brought to the open such that where found guilty or culpable will be sent to occupy a prison for at least four years. The Senate shall lead the country for a period of no more than two months during which screening of the shadow cabinets shall take place speedily and where a cabinet is successful at the Electoral College assumes office to finish the present tenure and not live beyond it.
This new proposed system for all intents and purposes proposes to cure the indolence of sleeping governors/presidents who do nothing for two and half years only to rush so fast when it is time for reelections. It also curbs by implication election wastes because rigging an election now only to be kicked out by Electoral College followed by an immediate prosecution by the courts would be a poorly thought piece of business. What’s more, only competent politicians with willingness to work very hard from day two would be willing to vie for public offices in Nigeria.
This system like all other man made solutions is not an absolute cure all, nor does it promise to be impregnable by the very corrupt Nigerian politician who will go great lengths to louse it up. With a careful and diligent management of the Electoral College however, this system would bring a true home grown solution to mis-governance to Africa’s most populous nation and by God’s grace probably lead it to Promised Land.
We must continually look to improve systems and make it better where necessary. The guaranteed four year tenure might be great in America but has failed here in Nigeria and needs fine tuning to ensure performance by the political class. Abraham Lincoln himself might have perceived the need for this day when he asserted that: “any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.” We must therefore rise up; shake off this existing system that guarantees a place and impunity for mediocre politicians.
But why should anyone try to fix what isn’t broke? Anyone who does has noticed some bit of inefficiency with the current machine and wants an improvement or like one writer said, the person must be trying to louse things up. Whichever case, this system needs an urgent fixing and that fixing time is now.
Just what is broke here that needs fixing? One needs not be a stargazer to see that the four year tenure has brought nothing but a system of perpetuating incompetent persons and parties in power and returning their cronies soon afterward, leaving the people worse off than they could ever hope for. Imagine a scenario where a governor gets elected and begins to receive felicitations for a period of no less than two months and then proceeds to read newspaper congratulatory messages for another full month before embarking on statewide visits that lasts another full month. He then returns to the office after three to four months of fraternizing and announces to any who would listen that the coffers are empty and that they need filling. He then spends some four months shopping for commissioners and when he finds the ‘loyal’ ones he must also proceed to the state assembly where he convinces the members therein to consider and quickly approve them. He persuades them, not by their ability to serve but by promises of sums certain in money.
And then ‘the study’ begins if this governor does not intend to proceed to Germany to get an injection for a tooth ache. The doctors there are usually civilized and mannered and there is no power failure for that matter. The medical trip lasts nearly a month after all, the tax payer is very happy with his hardworking ‘popularly elected’ governor. Upon his return, he attends a number of functions, visits certain parts of the state for parties as special guest of honour and promises yes promises to make life better in his tenure. A few years later though, there are 18 months to the general elections and the governor calls in his wonderful campaign team. They paint a sorry picture of his performance. The governor must now find the black goats before night time. In no small haste, our governor acts like Super Eagles in search of a much needed equalizer, for time is running out. An ample presence of men with camera and microphones are scurried to the state to cover the construction of Babel. The hardworking governor must not go unnoticed. The news can be bought before it is printed or afterward. Good governor is shown in helmet and with scissors cutting off here and laying a block there all in an attempt to prove that eye service is now acceptable. Some people like sheep in Manor Farm begin to bray as instructed. “Governor good; opposition bad.”
The opposition upon hearing the braying sheep is roused from such a deep slumber wondering what is amiss only to find last months’ papers full of a working governor and some happy people. But they too must find some black goat before night. So they begins to shout all at once but all too late and most times in gibberish that the pictures were made using Photoshop or made in Holly Wood.
The people do not really decide. When they do, they consider the roundness of a peg and decide that its roundness is best fit into a square hole. The governor himself shows remarkable courage and generosity by inviting the umpires for a handshake where a script is written and certain numbers allocated making child splay of match fixing. We all line up before the camera helping to sustain a system that lets some group prosper by a protection of the law.
Results trickle in like drops from a decaying pipe. The tension looks real while the governor and his cronies get the reception venue ready for the night’s party. A popular prophet had prophesied earlier the result. When the opposition gets the parboiled numbers, they are shocked like men who saw a fish swallow a crocodile. They do not however, fail to turn up at the victory party where they are surprised yet again at the speed of such a celebration. Suspecting foul play he goes to a place where he thinks he can come to with hands unwashed. Equity though does not aid the indolent but should it let another prosper by his greater wrong?
Needless to say, our reelected governor stays in office another four years repeating the first cycle all over again. Why change a proven tactic? At the end of his tenure full of ‘achievements’, he shows us his Joshua, the anointed successor who is not only God chosen but the most trusted one capable of taking us to Canaan. The opposition starts all too late again to speak a new form of gibberish. The people on learning EFGH have forgotten ABCD too quickly. They scramble to get a few gifts, and resolve like Boxer that our governor is always right so therefore, we must vote for his successor.
Waiting four years to correct one day’s mistake is a horrible wait! The present system is even worse than this at Federal Level where presidents do not only have a lack of grasp of the issues but live in total disconnect from the governed. This guaranteed four year tenure aids an indolent regime to do far too little in a rather highly challenging society called Nigeria.
We need midterm referendums where Nigerians by an Electoral College of no more than fifty thousand persons will decide on behalf of the majority, to recall an incompetent/underperforming government or retain a competent or over-performing one. This midterm referendum should be in the second year of office of the executive. The Electoral College system offers us a cost effective way of avoiding general elections with its obvious cost implication. The opposition does not become complacent or indolent but is constantly awake with its shadow cabinet waiting for its opportunity to enter the match and probably save the day.
Where the present regime is recalled, they shall be led quickly to a court where their deeds and misdeeds are brought to the open such that where found guilty or culpable will be sent to occupy a prison for at least four years. The Senate shall lead the country for a period of no more than two months during which screening of the shadow cabinets shall take place speedily and where a cabinet is successful at the Electoral College assumes office to finish the present tenure and not live beyond it.
This new proposed system for all intents and purposes proposes to cure the indolence of sleeping governors/presidents who do nothing for two and half years only to rush so fast when it is time for reelections. It also curbs by implication election wastes because rigging an election now only to be kicked out by Electoral College followed by an immediate prosecution by the courts would be a poorly thought piece of business. What’s more, only competent politicians with willingness to work very hard from day two would be willing to vie for public offices in Nigeria.
This system like all other man made solutions is not an absolute cure all, nor does it promise to be impregnable by the very corrupt Nigerian politician who will go great lengths to louse it up. With a careful and diligent management of the Electoral College however, this system would bring a true home grown solution to mis-governance to Africa’s most populous nation and by God’s grace probably lead it to Promised Land.
We must continually look to improve systems and make it better where necessary. The guaranteed four year tenure might be great in America but has failed here in Nigeria and needs fine tuning to ensure performance by the political class. Abraham Lincoln himself might have perceived the need for this day when he asserted that: “any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.” We must therefore rise up; shake off this existing system that guarantees a place and impunity for mediocre politicians.
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