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Thursday, March 28, 2024

#SoundOff: INEC Decision On Kogi Poll Shows Our Addiction To Idiocy, By @FavourAfolabi

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[dropcap]G[/dropcap]enerally, I have come to notice that Nigerians show a stark level of below-the-average intelligence; and as a people – educated and unschooled, the average Nigerian loves to intentionally subject himself a rather barbaric level of reasoning simply for the sake of being politically correct; there was:

1. Doctrine of Necessity v late Yar’Adua: because our constitution refused to acknowledge the possibility of a President dying in office; and then:

2. There was Taraba: the governor suffered a plane crash and was incapacitated – and the next thing “some educated nimcompoops” began to sell the line of “A Christian must remain governor” trying to forbid the Muslim deputy from becoming governor” – the guy remains in office for a long time though – and I don’t even know how that ended; do you? In this instance as well, the constitution had provided a lacuna for this rubbish.

3. Today, INEC has announced that “the results for the late Audu can be transferred to another candidate from the party!” What the hell does that mean? Shouldn’t it have naturally been expected that the deputy to the late Audu be allowed to continue to hold the ticket while his party finds another deputy to replace him on the same ticket?

These three instances (and many more that I have not mentioned readily here) show the addiction of the Nigerian polity (once again led by our elites) to crass stupidity – this space just loves to find itself in the middle of completely avoidable shenanigans and would rather spend weeks and months and sometimes, years rigmaroling in the middle of the same crap than to actually come together, once and for all to put an end to such ‘a present day addiction’ to resolve such for the present and then for the future.

This our patch-patch constitution that so many folks love to speak so much about would rather remain a document filled with lacunas that can always be exploited by desperately avaricious lawyers that would rather always seek to “feed their own greed” than come together to help enrich the document – the politicians who call themselves legislators rather than pick up such grey areas of the document and seek to amend same would rather love to issue threats all over the space as buoyed by our usually morally-bankrupt media – who are specialists at never really raising the agendas that the nation must deal with at any point in time.

And as always, the worst bunch here remains our Intellectuals – who love to “become lawyers” at such times as this even though they are accountants, bankers, architects, economists, sports journalists by training and exposure – they’ll start writing articles, visit media houses – granting interviews on an otherwise political matter that they ought to be challenging the bar and bench to deal with expeditiously – all on the altar of cheap political correctness.

The question must really be asked: Why is this polity so addicted to mediocrity as a way of life? Why is it so afflicted with paying attention to the mundane rather than rising above such to lay the right foundation for the future of this nation? Why are critical and proactive thinkers such in short supply replaced by garrulous short thinkers who love nothing better than the sound of their own voices at the detriment of the larger good?

How can we always choose to miss the opportunity to correct errors as raised by the three instances I raised rather sticking for political affiliations only to have the same errors repeat itself all over again – right in our faces?

Then it gets worse – the institutions we seek to build are also becoming retarded bodies as occasioned by ‘an INEC’ suggesting that “elections numbers can be transferred to another candidate of the party that would emerge from a new primary not the deputy on the same ticket!” Waow!

And we already have educated people applauding such a move as this because “their party must secure Kogi – by fire and by force” – seriously, for all my blind patriotism for this nation, it is at times like these that “I feel I wasn’t a Nigerian!”

Favour Afolabi is a political commentator who runs fbablogs.com in his spare time; and owns a real estate brokerage services company. He tweeted from @favourafolabi.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

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