It took the spirited efforts of majority of the electorates to dislodge the iron fists of the Peoples Democratic Party-led Federal Government and install the faces of bright hope of good governance in Nigeria. But suddenly, a dim hope surfaced from internal scuffles among the faces of bright hope and we must salvage the situation to prevent a shattered hope. Hope comes with trust and attestation of good antecedents where the masses are clear-headed and decisive, but the spate of misdemeanours along party lines at variance with patriotism threatens the formulation and implementation of productive policies, programmes and actions by the Federal Government.

When genuine intentions of few leaders combat with dubious actions of the majority, good actions becomes wanting or probably wanton as shown in the persecution of the Presidency against the decision to recover looted resources, block financial leakages, revive the economy  and make life bearable for all Nigerians. The Presidency must derive means of sensitizing the masses to align with the strategies and plans of government to alleviate their sufferings and bring forth mass oriented programmes and policies.

The hunt is our stolen resources, which is responsible for the recession of our economy and failure of government to boost the economy expectedly. What we hunt is still in possession of the hunted who are the culprits fingered in shady deals and massive looting under the last administration. The hunted are scattered across political and business lanes, they are major in the opposition and minor in the ruling party. The hunted are ready to checkmate the antics of the hunters to evade trials and prosecution, the hunted are gaining upper hand over the hunters, while the hunter seems lost on best strategies to nail the hunted within the ambits of the law.

The hunters are the government agencies vested with authorities to retrieve the hunt from the hunted, while the headhunter, which is Mr. President, seems suppressed by the machinations of the hunted as clearly manifested in the tacit support of PDP leaders for any action that will portray the headhunter in bad light, as noted in series of blackmail of the Presidency on the travails and trials of the Senate President, former National Security Adviser and others. The Biafra agitators are having a free ride in PDP-controlled states and the PDP senators from the South East Region are mute in their desperation to box the Presidency into corner of ineffectual leadership and dismal performance – a PDP machination to ensure the Country record no significance success under the headhunter, not only for their political gains but to pervert the cause of justice and calmly enjoy the looted resources.

With all the instruments of government under the control of the headhunter, one expects the speedy recovery of all stolen funds but really contrasting to note the contrary, which cast aspersions on the competence and credibility of the hunters to act expediently. What we have witnessed are financial policies to block financial leakages and fraudulent practices such as the Bank Verification Number and the Treasury Single Account which brought temporary sufferings to the masses affected by the policies.

An average bank customer suffered one fate or the order in the process of getting BVN linked to their accounts, many were deprived access to their accounts, many have to effect changes in compliance with the directives of ensuring that biometrics and identities of account owners and genuinely verifiable with truism, while the TSA delayed payments by government agencies to indebted contractors and staffs. Weighing the overall benefits of both the BVN and TSA to the economic growth and blockage of financial leakages, the sufferings of the masses at the moment will translate to their prosperity at the long run, but it will amount to grave injustice if our looted commonwealth is not retrieved with immediate alacrity.

There is no point twisting the facts of the restrains of the Presidency to act in isolation of the National Assembly and the Judiciary as the synergy of the three arms of government is an impetus towards economic revitalization and recovery of stolen funds. When the uprightness and integrity of any of the arrowheads is questionable, the businesses of government get enmeshed in jeopardy and double standard, which might deny the masses the good governance they seriously yearn.

The Presidency has a covenant with the entire people of this Country and no excuse will be sufficient enough to explain any impediment towards the fulfillment of that covenant. The covenant is good governance and any lawful means must be engaged to dislodge all impediments, obstacles and albatross blocking the fulfillment of that covenant.

Mr. President must be bold enough to ignore all contretemps among his allies over the leadership of the National Assembly and other Political Appointments in the discharge of his responsibilities to the Country, Mr. President hold the aces and they should be used productively to achieve a greater Nigeria where even the Biafra agitators will celebrate him as a hero. The headhunter should be assemble the best think tank and intelligence network to suppress all obstacles endangering his perform and ensure positive result to the benefits of the masses. With clear conscience, reputable team and clear headedness, Mr. President must come out of his shells to solve the numerous problems of Nigeria.

. Comrade AbdulRahman Agboola is the National Coordinator of Mass Action for Good Governance and Grassroots Development in Nigeria. He wrote from massaction4gg@gmail.com. 08032813279

Aung San Suu Kyi writes in Letters from Burma: “I have never ceased to be moved by the sense of the world lying quiescent and vulnerable, waiting to be awakened by the light of the new day quivering just beyond the horizon…” That new day and awakening arrived on November 8 on Burma’s (Myanmar) 2015 election day and with the subsequent announcement of the final tally of the election results. But something even more remarkable happened. The military leaders have congratulated Suu Kyi and her party. The elections have been adjudged free and fair.
The ordinary Burmese who trooped out in large numbers as early as 6 am to vote, are excited. It is tempting to conclude that Burma has just had its own equivalent of a Spring! The people wanted change. They have voted for it. Aung San Suu Kyi is the symbol of their hope, the irrepressible icon of their struggle. The people of Burma have shown that if they are allowed to speak, they will speak clearly about what they want. The powerless of Burma have found power at the polls. It was a vote not necessarily against incumbent President Thein Sein whose reforms have further opened up Burma and made change possible, but a referendum on years of corrosive military repression.
The ruling party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) lost in its strongholds, military-backed candidates accepted defeat and even organized parties for the triumphant opposition. When the new government is formed, next year, over 100 former political prisoners will sit in parliament. And the spirit behind all of this is Aung San Suu Kyi, the venerated daughter of General Aung San. There is in the process that has just begun in Myanmar, (it is another beginning really), a touch of the ironic and the pleasurable.
But perhaps in the long run, a major aspect of modern Burmese history will come down to who between General Aung San, and Aung San Suu Kyi, his daughter has had the greatest emotional, political and spiritual impact on this South East Asian nation. The former negotiated Burmese Independence from the British and helped establish the modern Burmese army. The latter, ever so proud of her father’s legacy and conscious of his spiritual hold on the Burmese psyche, has led the struggle for a certain kind of independence from a successor patrimonial military which has held the country hostage since 1962. Aung San’s daughter was over the years, rewarded with house arrest, harassment, vilification, detention and ugly name-calling.
In 1990, the National League for Democracy, which she founded and led, was denied victory at the polls. But Daw Suu Kyi has seized the Burmese public imagination in a manner that no one else has since her father’s time. On November 8, she led the NLD to the polls again, and has won a landslide victory over the military-supported ruling party, winning 387 of all 498 seats, with a majority in the Upper and lower Houses and across states and regions. This has brought so much excitement across the world. The winners are the people of Burma, for whom The Lady and the Golden Peacock (the NLD emblem) are the symbols of redemption.
The ruling party induced voters; still they voted according to their conscience. Burma’s rulers have congratulated Aung San Suu Kyi, with the attendant politesse about “reconciliation” and “accepting the people’s desire”. But all of that is the easy part. What has happened, despite the euphoria is a case of deferred democracy, given the in-built contradictions in the Burmese brand of democracy. The irony is that the change that the people have voted for may raise their hopes, but the reality of Burma’s complex politics may not deliver the prospects they seek. Voting for change is not enough, ensuring the substance of that change is the hard part. This is the reality today in Burma, as much as it is in Nigeria where the complexity of political change has a special and felt resonance.
It will most likely take a much longer time before democracy takes root in Burma. Elections may be substantially free and fair and the people may have spoken their mind, but five decades of military hegemony, transformed into a culture of praetorianism is the biggest threat. Burma’s military leaders have imposed on their country a unitary system that effectively puts the military in charge of the key aspects of the state, including internal security, justice, and a veto power over the Constitution. They have created a system, which ensures that they are in no way answerable to any civilian. They get 25% of the seats in parliament, not through the ballot but automatically, and they reserve the power under the Constitution to veto any legislation.
Their excuse, for five decades has been that this is a “disciplined democracy”, to protect Burma from intrusive external influences, and ensure national unity and solidarity. But the same military establishment has failed to build institutions or encourage practices that will achieve unity or sustainable development. The economy is poorly managed, human rights abuses are prosecuted as state policy, and after decades of civil war, Burma remains sharply divided along religious and ethnic lines.
The people of Burma have demonstrated in 1990 and now again in 2015, that they will like to be masters of their own destiny and not be teleguided by the military. Until the tension between freedom and control in Burma is resolved and the people’s will is allowed to prevail, there can be no real democracy. And this is why the international community must continue to insist on true democratization in that country. Mere civilian presence is certainly not democratic control. The Constitutionalisation of military domination is as ominous as the overt intrusion of the military and security forces into the political process and the policy centre: another point that should resonate well in our own context in Nigeria.
In Myanmar, the shape of things to come is already evident. Aung San Suu Kyi is leader of the NLD, but she cannot be President. Article 59(f) of the 2008 Constitution, deliberately inserted to stop her from ever becoming President bars anyone who is married to a foreigner or has children with foreign citizenship from occupying that office. Suu Kyi’s late husband, Michael Aris and her two sons are British. The making of laws to achieve the purpose of either vendetta or exclusion is a feature of dictatorships. Burma’s Constitution is at variance with the people’s hopes, expectations and sovereignty. Only a people’s constitution will signal a new beginning. Given the present situation, how Suu Kyi and her NLD manage their relationship with the military will determine whether the events of the last week are real or illusionary and whether the new parliament will be the engine room of democracy or change or the decorative assembly that the old guard has made it.
Suu Kyi will remain the major factor as she has been since she went into partisan politics in 1988. She has waited for so long for this new day and she has left no one in doubt that she intends to exercise power and authority. She intends to be “above the President” in her capacity as party leader. “I’ll take all the decisions”, she has declared. A figure-head President under the watchful eyes of a superior leader could be an arrangement for instability, or distractions as has been seen previously in Indonesia and Malaysia. Suu Kyi, also referred to as Mother Suu Kyi must guard against the contradiction of being a symbol of democracy and becoming at the same time, a parody of her former tormentors. It is important not to promote provocations.
It is certainly still a long road to travel in Myanmar; as winter endures, the people hope for decent survival, a better economy, respect for human rights, including minority rights, a good life, in an open society. Whatever happens, the example of Aung San Suu Kyi: how an innocent woman became one of the most fiery defenders of the powerless in human history, will continue to inspire both men and women across the world. When will Nigeria produce our own San Suu Kyi? Or Indira Ghandhi? Or Hillary Clinton? [myad]