Senate President David Mark’s radicalisation into a supporter of national conference is no different from royalty campaigning for the reformation of the monarchy. Consider his antecedent, first, as a stakeholder in the conservative political establishment and, secondly, as a former soldier who “dealt with” critics of this indefensibly-inequitable political arrangement in the country! After spending the better part of his life rooting for a discredited system, Mark’s recent transmogrification qualifies as a befitting epitaph for a system that is inevitably coasting towards self-destruction, unless providence steers it away from that direction.
Welcoming his colleagues from their seven-week annual holiday, the Senate President said the country could not continue to shy away from discussing national issues in view of the discontent in the polity and present global realities. According to him, “We live in very precarious times, and in a world increasingly made fluid and toxic by strange ideologies and violent tendencies, all of which conspire to question the idea of the nation state”. Very perceptive!
“But that is not to say that the nation should, like the proverbial ostrich, continue to bury its head in the sand and refuse to confront the perceived or alleged structural distortions which have bred discontentment and alienation in some quarters,” Mark said, adding that “this sense of discontentment and alienation has fuelled extremism, apathy and even predictions of catastrophe for our dear nation”. No clairvoyance is required to know that the extremism referred to, in this case, is the heady Boko Haram variety that prescribes some fundamentalism that is not only impossible but also deliberately provocative.
Without diminishing the seriousness of the issue under consideration, it must be stressed that because confession is an act of great personal courage, Mark’s conversion also requires tremendous admiration. And since foolishness, in itself, has never really been regarded as the issue, the first person to trivialise or romanticise his or her personal limitations invariably becomes lionised as hero that must be celebrated like the Senate President. Without deliberately setting out to do so perhaps, Mark has suddenly acquired a cult rating, especially among compatriots who never thought clarity of perception, sheer intuitiveness or capacity to decipher the inevitable was possible from so-called oppressors.
Indeed, Mark has re-affirmed that he is a true patriot who deserves the support of other like-minded Nigerians out there who are smart enough to buy into this futuristic vision of the signals soldier that time has run out on the traditional manipulation of ethnic arrogance and supremacy of ignorance- and expecting those at the receiving end not to notice that they are being patronised. For example, earlier in his life, the Oturkpo-born senate president snickered and generally scoffed at the idea of a national conference as a recipe for the disintegration of the country. As a member of the policy-making Armed Forces Ruling Council during the Babangida junta, he jointly supervised the court-marshal and execution of some brilliant young military officers who questioned the decadent system, including Major Gideon Orkar and Squadron Leader Martin Luther. Thus, swallowing his vomit, which is what recanting his original disdain for a national conference invariably amounts to, is a great act of courage on his part.
“A conference of Nigeria’s nationalities, called to foster frank and open discussion of the national question, can certainly find accommodation in the extant provisions of the 1999 Constitution which guarantees freedom of expression and of association,” Mark told his colleagues. He added: “It is welcome. Nonetheless, the idea of a national conference is not without inherent and fundamental difficulties. Problems of its structure and composition will stretch the letter and spirit of the Constitution and severely task the ingenuity of our constitutionalists.”
Has the realisation that the downfall of a good man who delayed his confession is usually more painful than that of an ordinary criminal who confessed pronto got anything to do with this policy somersault by the general who is also famous for ruffling feathers? Recall his controversial argument that “a sergeant is better trained than a university professor” and the tenacity with which he clung to this belief? So, if Mark is confessing to the conviction that we live in a world increasingly made fluid and toxic by strange ideologies and violent tendencies (including religious fundamentalism), all of which conspire to question the very idea of the nation state, his admission of error should be regarded as superior to a stiff-necked insistence on the supremacy of ignorance.
Whether or not he once said that telephone is not for every Tom, Dick and Harry has been rendered irrelevant by the fact that he is alive to and agree with the true wishes of the Nigerian people. Assuming that it is true, that statement was supposedly made while he was Minister of Communications during a profligate regime that is most responsible for whatever derelict the country has turned out to be. And considering that key actors in that charade shamelessly strut about like statesmen today, despite their crimes against Nigerians, David Mark deserves not only support from but also the admiration of his compatriots for the courage to admit what even full star generals are afraid of.
•Umosen wrote in from Ketu, Lagos via dominik.umosen@gmail.com
No comments
Post a Comment