Strong Opposition: The Beauty Of Democracy

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The concept of democracy is freedom! Freedom!! Freedom!!! But freedom within the purview of the laws of the land. And the beauty of democracy is more evident when all parties involved obey the contents and the tenets of constitution- constitutionalism.

If administrative comparison is anything to go by then USA, the strongest democracy to India, the biggest democracy in the world tolerated opposition hence, the trickling-down of dividends of democracy to the ordinary man on the street. Our nascent democracy would grow if we could collectively fight for strong opposition to stay, not necessarily criticizing the government of the day but doing it constructively in a way it will always allow the existence of opposition which will invariably be to the advantage of the poor masses.

The personal experience I had under the regime of Olusegun Agagu when Mimiko formed a strong, formidable opposition against the government he helped into ascendancy to power, then, the people of Ondo state experienced tremendous development compared to when there was no opposition under the same regime; they lavished our money. But more unfortunately, the same Mimiko is not tolerating existence of opposition in Ondo state today.

The reign of mass defection from PDP to APC is my source of fear; it is a bad omen for any democracy anywhere in the world. It is a confirmation that the people will call democrats are nothing but kleptocrats who run to where it's happening, today, it's happening in APC hence, the mass defection you and I have witnessed for the past three weeks.

At this juncture, I must personally commended Tinubu, Buhari, Fashola, Ameachi, Fayemi, Rochas and many more others in that camp for giving the ruling party, PDP the desired headache they deserved, consequently, the birth of a new government. More emphatically, I will want the PDP which will in no distance time form the opposition party to stand on their feet and recruit intellectuals who will brain-storm on government policies and provide the necessary constructive criticisms the in-coming government deserves to be on its toes, not the basking of Fani-Kayode, Doyin Okukpe and their likes.

This is exactly what APC did to be where they are today, they recruited intellectual like Lai Muhammed. PDP made noise and referred to people (Oby, Obasanjo and others) as people who criticized government because they are suffering from 'out of power syndrome.'

I will also call on the Nigerian historians to document the political prostitutes amongst us who jump from one political party to another so that posterity could easily take care of them. Together we can build our democratic institutions so that the ordinary man on the street can taste dividends of democracy.

It is also pertinent to note that Jonathan is worthy of our commendations, he is the architect of this peaceful transition we are about to witness. However, if he had done anything wrong by abusing power while in office he must be investigated and prosecuted according to the law of the land, he will not be the first and will not be the last to be prosecuted if guilty of any wrong doing after thorough investigation as a former president, it happens around the world every day.

Osobu Suuru Alexander
(A motivational writer)
[email protected]

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Articles by Osobu S. Alexander