By Tunde Abatan, tunde2013abatan@gmail.com 08165660217
Election period in Nigeria as in order civilized democracirs is always characterized by high drama, intrigues and name calling.
For us in Nigeria, it has become a season of revelations and accusations to confirm the saying that our election season is typified by unearthing secrets, elevating half truths some good and many unpalatable. Ekweremadu, wife detained in UK
For former Deputy Senate President,Ike Ekweremadu and his wife Beatrice, circumstances of their domestic affairs though pitiable, has elevated them to national reckoning in a rather not too pleasant way.
It will take them more than washing themselves seven times in River Jordan for them to completely washed off the dirty linen confer on them by the controversy over their bid to get healing for their ailing daughter.
While issue of age and concession on the part of the victim of alleged harvesting and trafficking of human parts is yet to be conclusively proved ,yet the Ekweremadu have been made to throw all what they could to save their image especially on the field of politics where the former Deputy Senate President has achieved more fame in the past twenty years.
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For Ekeremadu, the onus is now on him and his wife to prove innocence over a false claim on age of the victim,David Ukpo and circumstances of his being co-opted as a kidney donor to save their daughter.
Ekweremadu also have to prove to the British court whether the victim was lured into modern slavery in his bid to save his daughters life.
He also have to prove that neither has he lied on the boys true age as contained in his international passport and biometrics as being contested by the 21years claim.
Ekweremadu also has to prove that in his over twenty years in public life, he has not live on lies to retain his seat as a Senator representing his Igbo kinsmen.
The distinguished Senator also has to show prove that the international passport obtained for the troubled ‘donor’ was obtained following the due process and appropriate channels as a senior and responsible state citizen.
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If he is able to prove his innocence on the two- count charges of human harvest and trafficking,then he would’ve restored confidence to the citizenry through whom he has been in the hallowed chamber for over two decades.
Ekeremadu would also have to wash the distinguished members of the upper chamber off the tag of liers whose true character Nigerians are just beholding few months to election.
If Ikeremadus travails is not demeaning enough for the ‘distinguished’ men who inhabit our hallowed chambers, the public denial of and resentment to Senate President Ahmed Lawans ‘trick’ to eat his cake and have it by straddling himself between the Presidential candidacy of All Progressives Congress,APC and the Senatorial seat of his Yobe North Senatorial district which a younger Bashir Sheriff Machina, who polled 289 votes .
The Senatorial primaries many believed was surreptitiously held in trust for Lawan who also had his eyes in the Presidency.
That the former has mobilized both fact,logic and public opinion to get Independent National Electoral Commission,INEC, to recognize his selection via a properly constituted party primary of which Lawan could not have dualise himself to contest along with his quest for Presidential slot is commendable of the electoral umpire.
INECs refusal to succumb to APC Chairman Senator Adamus ‘indecent’ plot to bulldoze Machina to abdicate his coveted seat for Lawan is a revelation of lies,deceit and greed which has dominated our intra party politics and by inference affected APCs performance in national governance the last seven years.
It has also revealed reasons for the various policy somersaults of the Buhari regime.
The APC chairman’s uncharitable and dubious conduct on the primary is a direct evidence of why nothing seems to work in this country.
Perhaps, this failure by Adamu ,is the second of such faulty and mischievous move in running the party primary after his disastrous scheming to rail road the party on concensus arrangement in it’s presidential primary for same Lawan.
It is a clear evidence of anti -democratic credentials of APC leadership.
It is apparent that this if not checked by the state governors,who saved the day during the presidential primaries,could also spell doom for APC as it did for then ruling People’s Democratic Party,PDP in 2014.
This undeniably sounded the laters death knell in which it never recovered.
As for Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu-the man who is putting all his best to beckon to a destiny far off, the resumed controversy over his academic credentials is a sore point which has refused to go since year 2020 .
Like most popular and famed leaders, controversy is not new to Tinubu and shouldn’t be seen as such.
It is also not strange and new that opponents are gourding INEC to questionable background checks on him.
This issue alone, appears to be a sore point which has continued to poke it’s nose on Tinubus political logical life and aspiration.
Yes, that Tinubus name is on the line for being the man to beat in next year’s election is not in doubt.
This is considering his awesome political machinery and bridge building on which he has invested in the last two decades.
But if he must be, the citizenry who have had to battle same issue of certificate background with incumbent Muhammadu Buhari,could only latch on Tinubus failure this time arround.
As for critics, for Tinubu to deny never having attended both primary and secondary school in his forms before INEC is curious.
Yes,while it is not in doubt he may be running away from duplicity of identity he faced during his challenging years and trying to emerge from life’s viccititudes, yet the fact remains that gaps in his educational claims in the INEC form exposes him to critics.
Critics claims of his leaving out the primary school which he had earlier claimed in his form filled while contesting for governorship in 1999 is also logical.
Logical they argued because it is not possible to erase the past he claims never existed from his resume.
Demand for transparency on the part of public officials on personal and public life has assumed a consuming passion among hitherto reticent public who for reasons of good governance has continued to x-tray their leaders past and present as a consequent of their future roles.
Like in all civilized climes,transparency and Intergrity in leadership and character has continued to define public acceptance based on Nigerias travails of bad leadership in the past decades.
Like, Ekweremadu,Tinubu may also need all the waters of Jordan to wash himself of labels of ‘questionable ‘ and unverifiable genuine background for as long as he remains in public life and contention for leadership of the nation.
As it is happening to the trio of Ekweremadu,Lawan and Tinubu, so will it become a national charter of demands for trusting public offices to serving and intending public officials ,at least to have sanity in good governance for betterment of the society.
Perhaps it is not out of place to draw a correlation between our public officials penchant for lies to gain reckoning and the very questionable national population figures used over the years to determine sharing of national resources.
If the country has continued to grapple with acceptable Census figures,then how could it equitably allocate and share resources .
Since Census figures since pre independence have always been premised on faulty and questionable processes,so will attitude of citizenry for transparency in public conduct will continue to be questionable.
You reap what you sew.
For the nation to come to equity,it must come with clean hands.
The last definitely is yet to be heard of the travails of the three notable figures who has attracted national attention in the past one week.
This is so especially in an election year when social tensions occasioned by failure of governance has further pushed the citizenry back to the wall.
