The current horse-trading in which politicians are recklessly carpet-crossing is not new to us. Today’s post revisits the flagrant abuse of due process in this unholy game. Published on April 17, 1983 in the Sunday Concord, the article also examined the nauseating penchant for wasting the nation’s resources in useless court cases.
Today’s cartoon is a mirror of the pre-independence era. I had to issue a reminder to President Shehu Shagari that, while he was hobnobbing with the British monarchy during his state visit to Britain in the early 1980s, the Margaret Thatcher administration was paying deaf ear to the hue and cry over South Africa’s independence. Thank God, reasoned prevailed in 1994 when South Africa was accorded universal suffrage.
Enjoy your day.
Sometime in the past, I cant remember precisely the year. I was taking a ride back home in my company's staff bus alongside my colleagues. In one of the evening news bulletin, it was announced that a national assembly memmber has decamped from his party and moved to another party. I remember saying aloud 'oh no! this is morally wrong and amounts to a betrayal of party trust'. Well, I got a rude shout down from some of my colleagues who felt they were more politically informed than I do. I was given a lecture on nigerian politics and I was reminded that "political Cross-carpeting" is not new in nigerian politics. Ofcourse, in an attempt to convince me, they cited past instances.
ReplyDeleteWell, I accepted their lectures and swallowed my outbust in shame. Need I remind you ones again, that my argument was based on moral ground and a betrayal of party trust. I wish I knew what I know now, I wish I knew that beyond the issue of morality, it is also constitutionally wrong. I wish I knew that even as far back as 1999, this issue has been enshrined in the nigerian constitution.
Question. If indeed it is a constitutional issue as we now know, how come in Nigeria of today and with the level of awareness, such blatant abuse of the constituion is allowed to continue without no legal challange in a competent court of law. Or peharps, is there a clause in the constitution which the policians exploit in order to get away with this abuse and lawlessness? I need further education please.
Charles Oge Baadi.