By Nnamdi Nwokedi
October 7, 2011 05:14PMT
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We need to totally overhaul and revamp our judiciary- the last beacon of hope for the common man so that it can effectively and efficiently deliver justice to the people. So that it can deal with the myriad of financial scandals, lootings and improprieties perpetrated by unscrupulous and criminal minded politicians and their ilk. What completely vexes me is this over used and misrepresented catch phrase: ‘Zero tolerance for corruption'. What have you put in place to be able to effect that? It is akin to a country declaring zero tolerance for robbery without having a police force to enforce the law. How can a man declare zero tolerance for poverty and hunger and then lie on the beach all day long sleeping. Almost all our past and current leaders in various branches of government are billionaires, yet they've all declared zero tolerance for corruption with a straight face. One famously declared zero tolerance for unexplained wealth as if there is any explanation for his own stupendous wealth. Meanwhile there are no indices put in place to effect it. I am not talking about the number of EFCC arrests, but the conclusion and execution of justice; the most important deterrent in ensuring that the people are un-desirous of committing a crime. Not when you arrest someone and share his loot, or you give him a two-year sentence and he gets away with billions. Give even a reasonable, God-fearing man a billion and he will follow you to Kiri-Kiri for two years, while his children are at school in England. The system must change. We need to have a system that works not zero tolerance. Americans don't have zero tolerance but their system works, which effectively translates to zero tolerance. We are not necessarily more criminal minded than they are but because their system works, you do the crime, you do the time- no matter who you are. If they didn't have such a system in place, they very well might be as corrupt as we are, if not more. However, they made a choice not to be like we have become so they built a credible system over the years through thick and thin, through civil war and world war, through struggle and prosperity. What a great country.

We might even excuse the atrocities committed by several military governments but; ‘DEMOCRACY'?! I don't want to talk about governors caught with millions of dollars at our airports. Forget the actors for now. Talk about the structure. Any system that allows this demonic level of odious mendaciousness ought to be scrapped. It ought to be changed. The system can no longer sustain this level of kleptomanic madness. Not to mention the outrageous cost of governance. If we don't change it willingly and in a planned fashion, it will change itself unnaturally. If you don't believe ask Mubarak, Saleh and Ghadaffi.

So, can our current leadership give our great nation the selfless service of biting the bullet and doing what is right even if it entails the ultimate sacrifice? Please do not delude yourself that doing the right thing does not involve sacrifice, and I do not mean the type our leaders are used to such as sacrificing other people's children on Satan's alter in order to obtain political power such as exemplified by the Okija debacle.

We need a man who is single minded and fearless enough to take the bull by the horn and wrestle it to the ground. He has to be bold enough to this, he has to be selfless enough to do this and he has to be foolish enough to do this. But posterity will reward him and his family forever. A man called Mikail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union and changed the system forever. He was elected Chairman of the Politburo, the highest decision making organ in the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). He was young (early fifties), dynamic, and charismatic and had ascended to arguably the most powerful position on earth. However, this man, even before he took over the helm of affairs had his own agenda. He knew his country was going to the dogs and was determined to ebb the tide. It was clear to him that his country could no longer compete with the United States militarily simply because while the might of the US economy could easily underwrite and sustain its massive defense spending, the USSR on the other hand, was diverting valuable and scarce resources much needed in other sectors of their economy to military spending. The situation had become so bad in the Soviet Union that basic infrastructure had begun to deteriorate badly, standard of living plummeted and the situation threatened to implode. The consequences would have been chaotic, possibly degenerating into rebellion and civil war in a country with thousands of nuclear warheads. Gorbachev forestalled it all by going for a FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE IN STRUCTURE, including the most difficult part, reviewing and amending their ideology. Massive reforms were carried out. A season of transparency, openness and accountability held sway. Glasnost and Perestroika were the order of the day. The mighty Soviet Union was split into independent states called the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Autocratic concentration of power was gone for good. The Bolshevik revolution had ground to a halt for all time.


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