Nigeria: How To Quit Public Office With Dignity

My arrival in the United Kingdom on Wednesday July 13th 2016 coincided with the making of political history. Wednesday July 13th 2016 was exactly when British Politics underwent a baptism of transformation with the emergence of former Home Secretary Mrs. Theresa May as the second ever female Prime Minister to follow the footprints of the late Iron Lady Mrs. Margret Thatcher in a century.

Already she has made all the necessary cabinet level appointments with more women rising in political profile and one of her probable rivals Boris Johnson the former Mayor of London becoming the Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary.

In Nigeria it took our President Muhammadu Buhari nearly 8 months to pick his cabinet members which ended up being padded with less than impressive political jobbers.

Prior to her assumption of office in No 10 Downing Street London, Mrs. Theresa May's predecessor Mr. David Cameron had exhibited the dignified attitudes for which those holding public office in decent societies are known for. Those holding public offices in the Western World do it out of their conviction and determination to serve the larger society and not to be served. The political office holders in Europe and USA are servant -leaders and not Emperors as they are in Nigeria.

Again, looking at the larger society, the ordinary people I see in United Kingdom went about their daily activities unperturbed by the political earthquake that took place in their parliament.

If it were in Nigeria, with the only exception being former President Goodluck Jonathan(who voluntarily quit office when he was out-manipulated and outmanoeuvred out of the 2015 election by the Attahiru Jega-led electoral panel), political office holders would rather that they are disgraced or forced out of office than honourably quit when the kitchen becomes hotter.

In Nigeria if a politician envisages an electoral misfortune he would immediately instigate the hired street thugs to arm themselves and unleash mayhem on innocent Nigerians who are killed at no provocation and the killers are never caught or punished by competent courts of law resulting in build up of impunity and bottled up angst.

In the year 2011 when the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC ) which featured the then Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retired ) as the Presidential candidate lost the Presidential election, all kinds of weapons were freely deployed by armed street thugs to burn down houses of supporters of the then Goodluck Jonathan who won the election.

The retired soldier turned politician Muhammadu Buhari distanced himself from these dastardly criminal acts of his road-side illiterate supporters. A Presidential panel that investigated the post 2011 Presidential election riots said statements credited to Muhammadu Buhari may have instigated the crisis but added that General Buhari narrated to the panelists that he too was a victim.

In Bauchi State, these armed bandits slaughtered five young Nigerian University Graduates serving as NYSC participants just because they were part of the electoral adhoc staff who coordinated the election.

That is the atrocious scenarios that usually characterize politics in Nigeria because for most aspirants for public office, the quest to serve themselves and corner public funds motivates them more than the zeal for selfless services to Fatherland. Followers in the political process are yet to own the process so as purify the way the nation is administered.

Politicians are typical habitual rapists whose stock in trade is to subject Nigeria to horrendous financial rape and abuses.

But what I see on ground here as I move around the major streets of London tells me that our people in Nigeria really needs to embrace a sense of urgency and change their orientation towards politics by demanding transparency and accountability from their elected public officials and must brace up to face the challenge of demanding that those who can't perform should honourably quit.

Politics must also not be made as the sole viable economic activity in Nigeria. If the private sector in Nigeria is truly independent of government as it is here in Great Britain the incidence of violence that Mars every electoral process would be a thing of the past.

In Britain, as i punch the keyboards to put up this piece, Mr. David Cameron was photographed helping to move his personal effects out of the official residence of the office of British Prime minister.

Mind you, David Cameron didn't lose any election. He only failed to convince the majority of the British voters to vote to remain within the European Union as a member.

This referendum which David Cameron lost was only a non-binding aspect of his campaign promise but he chose to dignify himself by quitting the high office of Prime Minister but not without showering his wife with encomiums.

The British press captured these historic moments thus: "Appearing in front of the cameras with his wife and three children, the Prime Minister spoke of his pride at leading the country for six years as he made his final appearance outside Number 10."

He said it had been "greatest honor of my life to serve our country as Prime Minister".

Mr. Cameron said he was leaving the country "much stronger" and spoke about his record on employment, free schools, gay marriage and the health service.

He said: "I want to thank my children Nancy, Arthur and Florence for whom Downing Street has been a lovely home over the last six years.

"They sometimes kicked the red boxes full of work - Florence you once climbed into one before a foreign trip and said 'take me with you'. Well, no more boxes."

Mr. Cameron went on: "Above all I want to thank Samantha, the love of my life.

"You've kept me vaguely sane and as well as being an amazing wife, mother and businesswoman, you have done something every week in that building behind me to celebrate the best of voluntary service in our country."

He said he was "delighted that for the second time in British history the new Prime Minister will be a woman, and once again a Conservative".

And he said Mrs. May would provide "strong and stable leadership in delivering the Conservative manifesto on which we were elected" and wished her well in negotiating the withdrawal from the EU which voters backed in last month's referendum.

Mr. Cameron concluded: "For me politics has always been about public service in the national interest. It is simple to say but often hard to do.

"But one of the things that sustains you in this job is the sense that, yes, our politics is full of argument and debate, and it can get quite heated, but no matter how difficult the decisions are, there is a great sense of British fair play, a quiet but prevailing sense that most people wish their prime minister well and want them to stick at it and get on with the job".

As I sat back in my hotel room somewhere in Shepherd's Bush along Uxbridge Road London a distance of less than 20 minutes drive to Westminster Parliamentary building, one thing that struck me was the toxic noise coming from the holders of political offices at the national level in Nigeria who are openly telling Nigerians that they are incompetent in such a way that they lack the capacity to sort out issues of much more innovative ways of funding the budget of 2016 without waiting for revenues that would come from the crude oil resources which by and large belongs to the suffering people of Niger Delta region.

These same politicians had previously told Nigerians that they would borrow to fund the 2016 budget. President Muhammadu Buhari took a large entourage to China whereby cap in hand they begged the Communist government for credit facilities to fund the 2016 budget.

But after speaking from both sides of their mouths on the ways and means of funding the budget, these clever-by-half politicians without conscience are again lying to us that there is no longer money to implement the BUDGET but there is always money to fuel the 12 exotic jets on the Presidential air fleets to fly members of the political elite in their fruitless globetrotting and empty junketing.

These jokers called Nigerian politicians will never lack some freshly minted lies from their bag of tricks.

These same mentally lazy Nigerian Politicians spent billions of cash prior to last year's national election campaigns marketing their party manifestos with promises to fix the national economy.

First the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo uttered some unintelligible and unintelligent sounds to the effect that the consequences of the attacks by Niger Delta Avengers targeting crude oil facilities means that the Government isn't in a position to fund the budget.

I think the wisest choice for these mentally challenged class of political nitwitts in Nigeria is to take a walk in the event that they are unable to wear their THINKING CAP and implement other non-crude oil Revenue means of running Nigeria. Nigerians I think ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

*Emmanuel Onwubiko is Head of Human rights Writers association of Nigeria (HURIWA ). He blogs @ www.huriwa.blogspot.com: www.emmanuelonwubiko.com.