MY RIGHT IS THE STOOL………..

MY RIGHT IS THE STOOL………..

The honey moon of African Independence was short but wonderful. It begins the era of riding crest of popularity, enthusiasm in the midst of an economic boom. In short! The terms of trade were favorably good.

African on the wind of independence became so difficult to be free totally from external interference, the west and the east were like ants on our honey, so good to them they can’t afford to lose us even when all ears have been filled, all books have been littered of our independence. Freedom, Freedom we had by the end of the 1900's.

Memories are short and appetites for power and glory are insatiable. Old tyrants depart, new ones take their places. Old differences are composed, new differences arise. Old allies become the foe. The recent enemy becomes the friend. It is very baffling and trying…………

What makes the poet ‘Umeh Onuorah’ refers to them as an ‘Ambassadors of Poverty’, African leaders of no years after independence?

So early in the life of independence, power brought out the real reactionaries that hold that government policies should be designed for the special benefit of small groups of people who occupy positions of wealth and influence negating the posit of freedom we all fought for as Africans.

In recent years our enemies have clearly demonstrated the disaster which follows when freedom of thought is no longer tolerated. Honest minds cannot long be regimented without protest, the press spoke of the politics of bickering, mudslinging… lies, deceit, vindictiveness, strife and intolerance that are again creeping back in to the country.  Politics becomes warfare, a matter of life and death according to Claude Ake when addressing the annual conference of the Nigerian Political Science Association in 1981 forgetting that remains of the society is being dumped at home for the mothers who is breeding generations daily. What more can be done to a generation long been corrupted before birth do to sustain its own era.

We don’t propose, like some people to meet today’s problem by saying that they don’t exist and tomorrow’s problem by wishing that tomorrow wouldn’t come. No! Let’s face it; what brings about today’s kidnapping, thuggery, robbery, prostitution and all other vices if not for the early intoxicated political leaders. They are the one, the Nigeria Novelist, Chinua Achebe, in 1983 defines as the Nigerian problem. To him the Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmark of true leadership has he submitted.

There is strength in federation of any sort, we speak of a ‘helping hand’ but a hand just by itself can’t help anyone. It is dependent upon muscles, nerves, blood stream and brain, a federation of services mutually helpful. This is where my topic ‘My right is the stool’ lies. A lot of individuals from different homes had from time immemorial been jostling for that stool of leadership, some are chose with no outcome but an alarm ever after, it comes to a time a bell ‘ stop footing blame is rang’ ‘those have tried comes from a home; the posited. Isn’t it time for all mother’s of home to come out with a child they can all vouch for? Not minding the gender of the children helps us fight our inferiority complex as the black monkeys we really are not.

A politician is a man who understands government. Usually, if he understands it well enough and has made reputation as he should have, he will wind up – when he is dead by being called a Statesman. Should this nobility be restricted a lone to the men who have found it easier to die together on a battle field than it is for them to live together at home in peace or women who Harry S. Truman submitted that they are deeply responsive to the fundamental human values ?

Women care more for people than for dollars, more for healthy children than fat dividends. Women want a society in which schools are being built instead of prisons. Women want a world which the seeds of good are being sow and harvest of a good life instead of the seed of war. You have to have your own definition of what you call things political, it depends altogether what your view point is, if you are for it, it is statesman like. If you are against it, it is purely low politics.

What we can do and what we must do is to equip them to meet these problems, do their parts in the total effort and to build up those inner resources of character which are the strength of we as Africans.