Why governors sing deregulation

The recognition of the omnipotence of a cabal in any government is the absence of control. I am outraged to hear a government official, supposedly elected to bring government closer and make life better for the citizenry, coming out to express their helplessness against the antics of common criminals. Except of course, they are a part of that criminality, there are no excuses at all, because these people are invested with all the powers to stop criminality. To invest in the people and have that investment hijacked by any person or groups ought to be high treason. It should not be an excuse for non-performance. The day armed robbers take over the country, then the inspector-general of police has no business earning his pay, he should resign. It is the moral thing to do.

The culture of impunity will drive Nigeria into oblivion. If need be, we should sack the entire NNPC, PPPRC, DPR and force both Lukman and Ajumogobia to resign their appointments or be sacked with ignominy. Those who stop the subsidy getting to the desired end are economic and national saboteurs. They should be tried in irregular courts for their irregular crimes, tied to the stakes in their different villages and exterminated with a single bullet to serve as deterrence. Subsequently, the Nigerian government should take control of the entire processing of its oil and use its proceeds for the transformation that this society needs.

But this government, at all levels, are not going to change anytime soon. And the reasons are so obvious. They are insulated from the stark reality of the society. They run us, the electorate out of the road with their sirens and gun-totting gestapo, their wives do not patronise open markets and they sure don’t bother about paying school fees and taking care of aged parents. And to crown it all, they steal the people’s votes by sabotaging the entire electoral process. This society needs a people-pronged change and it seems we are inching closer to it.

There is for now, no reasonable excuse for deregulation. None can be advanced in another decade except of course that governors are eager to get more money to pursue selfish agenda. An electoral calendar is ominous and they need money to recruit thugs, bribe electoral officials to return verdicts that do not reflect the people’s votes and after that, engage the crime fighting arm of the police to protect their stolen wealth and mandate.

These governors wrote a letter to the acting president, aimed at straight jacketing him to keep the status quo ante and keep Nigeria moribund, because such state of inertia suits their whims. They even hijacked Vincent Ogbulafor to endorse their thinking and are all over the place canvassing for a clinically dead status quo to remain. Whose interests are they canvassing? Certainly not that of the generality of Nigerians who want a leadership that inspire hope and courage. These governors mostly have a mandate to change their societies, but go to their states and compare the tokenist adventures they have undertaken with the things that are begging to be done and you start asking what democracy means in practical terms. Most of them would run away from their state capitals at the expiration of their contrived terms for shame and fear of the revenge of the people.

With men like these at the helm of affairs, how can we call what we have a democracy? Where is their conscience, their sense of patriotism and their quest to serve in the interest of the people? In some of these states, fuel has never been sold at the official rate in the past twelve years, and they have done nothing to change it. Why, simply because some of them have stakes in the retail oil business or were sponsored by the same cabals who have hijacked the people’s subsidy. Nigeria must rise above these petty people and demand a probe into this so-called subsidy. They must demand for the trial of those who drained the subsidy and their prompt execution. There is just no justification for deregulation now and there will be none under this democratic contraption. Any governor canvassing such should be stoned.