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Peace is not just the absence of conflict but includes also the presence of justice. Any peace which imposes absence of conflict but retains injustice is not a true reflection of peace but is simply the peace of the graveyard. The graveyard is not a place of peace per se, it is the serene permanent resting place of dead men. The peace that obtains in such places come from the fact that the inhabitants can no longer speak, think, oppose, object, resist whatever is placed on them. They have been permanently neutralised. They don’t have any human right to protect. Their fate is completely left in the hands of God and the living. This is why God and the human government make stringent laws for their protection because they can no longer protect themselves.
This is the kind of peace that arrogant dictators around the world foist on their people. Their countries appear relatively peaceful on the surface because the dictators have destroyed every voice of dissent. They often weaponise poverty as an instrument of domination. They deprive men all their sources of income and offer them pittance whenever they need them to fall in line and accomplish their wishes. A Russian dictator described how a cock is made to be permanently dependent on its owners by plucking the feathers of the cock gradually so it cannot fly and leaving the cock hungry and yearning for food. In that desperate situation, the only thing the owner needs do is to drop seeds of maize little by little while working towards the direction the owner wants the cock to go and watch with devilish joy and enthusiasm how the cock humbly follows him to eat the crumbs that fall from his hand. The only thing in the mind of the cock is survival not contesting the powers of the dictator. The men still existing in those countries are living corpses. They might be breathing but are dead. Little wonder the Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, opined that the man died in the man who keeps silent in the face of tyranny.
Unfortunately, most of the unwary minds fall into the trap of these evil leaders and get their destinies destroyed in a democracy. Their traducers offer them pots of porridge for their birthright which they often regret after selling it but which they cannot recover except with the intervention of God. Did you not hear His Excellency, Chibuike Amaechi, who came second in the APC presidential primary election, openly declaring that those who sold their votes in the APC presidential primary election are now regretting? This is a clear evidence that whosoever won the APC presidential primary bought the victory because Amechi, being a participant in the election, has direct evidence about what he said. Some of them have monopolised some states since after governing such states and are now collecting all the revenue of the states and giving back the states pittance after collecting the revenues, only for the revenues to reappear as bullion vans during elections as instruments to buy the votes of Nigerians in such elections. Those ones can even pay up to N20k per a voter in general elections and $20,000.00 (twenty thousand dollars) per voter in primary election. No price is worth anyone selling his birthright.
The danger of this kind of enforced peace is that when it burts, it has the capacity to send individuals, nations and countries to early graves. We use to think that the middle east was the most peaceful place on earth. It took the Arab spring of the uprising of the citizens of the middle east for us to realise that all along they have been suffering the peace of the graveyard. It took a frustrated man who set himself ablaze in Tunisia after the State has impoverished him and denied him every source of his income to spark off the revolution that engulfed Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and so on. It led to the brutal killing of Muammar Ghadafi after governing Libya for more than 42 years. The Tunisian President was sent to exile forever and till date the dust is yet to settle.
In Nigeria, the events in the two major political parties have clearly shown that they want to foist the peace of the graveyard on their opponents and subjects in order to perpetually keep them in bondage. Our Constitution is very clear and prohibits political parties organising their parties in a manner that will make the party appear to have religious or ethnic colouration. Section 222(e) of the 1999 Constitution states, “No association by whatever name called shall function as a party, unless the name of the association, its symbol or logo does not contain any ethnic or religious connotation or give the appearance that the activities of the association are confined to a part only of the geographical area of Nigeria”. A close look at this section will imply that our Constitution forbids any party, either by sign or conduct, from appearing to symbolise ethnic or religious colouration or connotation.
In order to achieve this constitutional requirement, each party also included similar provisions in their Constitutions. This position is reflected in the Constitution of the major political parties. The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, vowed in Section 7(3)(c) of its Constitution to adhere “to the policy of the rotation and zoning of Party and Public elective offices in pursuance of the principle of equity, justice and fairness”. It was on this trajectory that the APC borrowed a leaf and mandated its National Working Committee, subject to the approval of the National Executive Committee, in Article 20(v), to make Rules and Regulations for the nomination of candidates for primary elections and “All such Rules, Regulations and Guidelines shall take into consideration and uphold the principle of Federal Character, gender balance, geo-political spread and rotation of offices, to as much as possible ensure balance within the constituency covered”.
The ruling party, APC, went into its primary election of its presidential candidate knowing full well that they already have in existence a Muslim Senate President, Muslim Speaker of the House of Representatives, Muslim Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Muslim Chief Justice of Nigeria, Muslim National Chairman, yet produced a Muslim Presidential candidate and a Muslim Vice-Presidential candidate. If this is not organising their political party in a manner that symbolises religious connotation, please let someone educate me on what it is. Today, PDP is more divided than APC because it gettisoned zoning and rotation. Power ought to rotate to the South in 2023 in accordance with PDP’s Constitution and in preparation to observe that constitutional mandate, all posts in the South in the PDP party offices were shifted back to the North and all the posts in the North were shifted back to the South. The South gave up the post of National Chairman of PDP to the North on the understanding that the post of the President will come back to the South. The Southern Governors vowed that the President must rotate to the South. Immediately the North grabbed the post of the National Chairman, it started thwarting every understanding reached earlier and eventually destroyed the zoning arrangement which led to the North occupying simultaneously the posts of the Presidential candidate, National Chairman of the Party, Chairman of the BOT, even when the presidential candidate admitted that it was the turn of the South-East to produce the next President of Nigeria. The South-West is totally eliminated from the scheme of things, while the South-East and prominent politicians from the South-South were roundly humiliated. For daring to contest with Atiku, Wike has been called uncultured, disrespectful, insulter of everybody and a child. He was told that Atiku can win the Presidency without him and the votes of Rivers State. Indeed, he can go to hell. If this does not give the appearance that the activities of PDP are now confined to a part only of the geographical area of Nigeria, please someone should help educate me.
On realising that their unconstitutional and premodial actions in their parties are causing tremendous consequences on the peace of the party and robbing them of their chances to win, both parties started resorting to the peace of the graveyard in order to avert the pending political disaster. APC decided to give the position of the Director General of the presidential campaign council to His Excellency, Samuel Lalong, a Christian Governor from the North, who is the current Chairman of the Northern Governors forum, but of whom was incompetent to be the Vice-Presidential candidate of APC, but is only competent to be the messenger of “his better and more competent colleagues of the other religion”. He should make due with the crumbs that fall off their table. PDP is not left out on pursuing the peace of the graveyard. Among the executive positions in their Party, it decided to cede the position of the BOT Chairman to the wailing children of Wike, Seyi, Ikpeazu, Ugwuanyi and the rest of them who should be enjoying their mother’s breast milk rather than crying for posts that are not meant for children to occupy, even when the current PDP Chairman gave his words that he will step down if the presidential candidate emerges from the North and even when the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku, assured Wike that Ayu must go. The BOT is an advisory position with no executive power whatsoever. All the Southern politicians in PDP are now political neophytes according to the incumbent Chairman of PDP, Ayu.
It doesn’t appear as if the peace of the graveyard is working in both failed political parties because nobody in Nigeria wants to be a slave or second class citizen and the Constitution didn’t make any citizen one. Indeed the Constitution forbids every kind of domination. HE Seyi Makinde pointedly told Atiku that Ayu must step down for fairness in the party. We were surprised when Atiku invoked the Constitution of PDP in defence of Ayu while trashing the same Constitution in usurping the post of the President which he admitted ought to go to the South-East. The people of Plateau State has practically disowned Lalong for accepting to be the DG of the campaign and even the invocation of the name of Pope didn’t help him. It is important to note that despite the failure of these outdated political parties, a new Nigeria is possible through a consensus on an acceptable alternative to these political parties. We must all join hands to build a new Nigeria that will accommodate every citizen whether Muslim or Christian, Northerner or Southerner, on the basis of social justice to ensure enduring peace which is the foundation for development.
