http://pmnewsnigeria.com/2011/04/04/nemesis-catching-up-with-gov-daniel/


Pray the 'zombies' give us some breathing space

Excerpts;

What interests me right now is to let people understand their interests. When I see people being humiliated, then I am humiliated because I don’t like people to be humiliated. When I see a constituency being treated with disdain and utter contempt, I feel I am part of that. We have always been treated with contempt. I am a citizen of Ogun State.
Look at what is happening at the Ogun State House of Assembly. Many of them rigged themselves in, but that is not the issue. The Assembly has been locked up illegally for nearly six months and it looks likely to continue till after the elections. This is an illegality, a slap on the face of every citizen – man, woman, child, old and young, myself included, in Ogun State.
One sometimes wonders what other people are made of. Don’t they feel this sense of humiliation? How can they accept this act of contempt from an ordinary mediocre citizen who was rigged into office to preside on their affairs? I think, critically, my problem is that I have the genes of a teacher (the son of a headmaster). I think I have a compulsion to teach. It is a citizen’s responsibility. I have not quite thought it out myself. Why did I form, for instance, a political party or rather, why did I back those who wanted to form a political party? I did so because I saw in it a possible instrument of gradual transformation of human beings. It is letting people know that there are many ways to skin a cat; it doesn’t have to be through violence. It is to make them question the system, it is not to encourage them to be part of the system. It is to let them see this as an additional way to effect a change. It is to encourage them to insert a thin wedge in the rotten system, which will widen the aperture for others of like minds to form their own party or group for the salvation of their own dignity.
I don’t have to sit among people who are less than human. I would rather be happier to be in the forest, at least, doing my usual hunting there. I don’t feel personally involved with life in the bush beyond trying to put animals in the cooking pot. I sometimes like to define my own motivations. The only way I can sum it up is that I like to be among human beings and human beings, to me, are defined only by expression and demonstration of self-worth and by assertion of their own dignity.

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I saw what happened at the town hall meeting in Ake as an exercise in self-exposure by Daniel, the governor of that state. What happened was clear and did not require any further comment from me. It was quite clear. You saw two groups of Daniel-paid thugs, some nicely dressed, but it was clear what they were anyway. They were people whom in many ways I pity as thugs. I don’t often feel superior to people, but I think I was on that day. I just saw myself as infinitely superior to the minions of Daniel. And we have a proverb in Yoruba, which says ‘ti won ba ran eniyan ni ise eru, a fi ti omo je’ (a knotty message requires diplomacy). And the servants of the governor who were there on that day proved themselves not only omo eru (slaves) but incapable of transcending the ranking they have been given by their paymaster.
Also, I had made up my mind from the beginning that it was a very poorly schooled individual behind it, who needed to be taught freedom of expression in many avenues. I sent a message to him (Daniel) afterwards that ‘he wants immortality’ but I will immortalise him. I have sort of gone outside to the environment even though I was trying to keep in control of the environment. I see those people as zombies. A number of times, I was tempted to call in the police to say end of meeting. But I was determined that the meeting would hold until I was ready to end it. Every single rubbish that was said by some of those people was a comment, a self-exposure of Governor Daniel and what he is doing?