Of Hope and Decorum lost

Yesterday someone said aloud during lunch that democracy is not for Africans. I know I have some of the world's most intelligent friends so let me peg the tide of high profile arguments by saying that I agree with him but will not go into the reasons why. Often times it has become clear that the black person finds a way to circumvent and rubbish the best systems in the world. Western immigrations and customs, banking systems and processes, political structures....everything that binds the white man who by nature recognizes and respects boundaries clearly does nothing for the black man. The military is not any help in terms of leadership and dictators often forget how they got to power and become tyrannical but I digress.

The papers are full of politics. Everyday in the news is one new political stone being thrown or dodged. It is tiring. Every single action has political undertones, political alliances are broken and formed, monies are changing hands, psycophants are in business. All the while, no one takes a moment to assess the impact of governance on the governed, or take a scientific study of unemployment or measure infrastructure development or long term strategies. Nothing. It's still the base student union type of politics where some old governor who did nothing but loot his state blind calls a sitting governor a tyrant or some other fancy nomenclature. Where crowds of women are paid and transported into Abuja to sing the praises of the president and so on. You get the picture.

I have often said that the only way to rule Nigeria is to keep the poverty levels just right. Never liberate the people by giving them what they require, never give them economic independence. Buy them motorbikes and grinding machines as part of yet another "youth and women empowerment program" and then move on. They will remain hungry enough to be bought when next you need them to curse their mothers for a loaf of bread. It sickens me.

The part that irks me the most is me. The fact that in spite of all, I still had hope. I had hope that with the entry into the fray of respected folk like Pat Utomi, Tunde Bakare, and the much acknowledged focus of governor Fashola of Lagos state, the time had come for the country to take a different path finally towards retracing its leadership missteps and replicating some of the good leadership principles evident everywhere else in the world. how stupid could i be. as we head to 2015, the semi-senile, regurgitated old men have returned. taking party leadership everywhere and sealing our fate to another four years of doom. younger people have decided to leave the political playing field altogether and focus on saturating the music industry and arranging sham marriages to Eastern Europeans at ikeja registry just to leave the country and never return. Do I blame them? No. Do I wonder if we will ever have a dynamic president who comes to serve this country as a duty to his conscience? All the time. Do I have hope for 2015? Not with the loss of decorum that the Presidents wife is displaying incrementally on a daily basis.

I was going to write about something completely different. I guess politics has a way of seeping into your soul and refusing to leave. Maybe tomorrow. See y'all around peeps