Dr. Stephen Patrick
Some say the charade of October 19th 2024 in Kaduna State is not a grave sin after all, since other states have also committed the same crimes, why shouldn’t Kaduna State. This argument is tantamount to saying that we should accept crime because everyone is committing the crime. Some day we will not see robbery, kidnapping and murder as crimes since everyone is doing it.
Some have clapped for the governor, and hailed him as a hero for slicing the opposition parties by their jugular. If other parties that were in power before APC had graduated to this level of brinkmanship, we would not have seen the survival of democracy, not to talk of conducting an election that gave APC power.
Some have described him as the karma that has unleashed a deserved punishment for those politicians who committed unpardonable sins. This argument has glorified a mortal to an instrument of punishment, but has failed to tell us what qualities qualifies the governor to play God or act as his messenger. This argument is fallacious and absurd. Should we then say that every victim of injustice is reaping what he sows and the person committing the crime against a victim is merely metting out an appropriate punishment?
Some have adorned their social media profile pictures with the picture of the governor, as an open endorsement of his Machiavellian tactics. They say everything is fair in war and love, so why can’t we accommodate any atrocious act in politics. They said politics is war! Why then do we waste so much time and resources to organize ourselves into political parties, set up an electoral body to conduct elections, and provide guidelines? Since all is fair in politics according to this people, are they willing to accept that killing to win an election is fair? Is ballot snatching, thuggery, violence and all other forms of crimes perpetrated during elections fair in the game of politics?
The underlying problem we are facing is the failure of our moral compass. And the dangers ahead of us is the birth of anarchy, we are gradually sliding into that Hobbesian era when life was cruel, brutish, barbaric and short. We have revived the vicious era of lawlessness where those who are strong waste those who are weak. And the question is, why then do we need a social contract? Why do we need government? Why do we have laws?
With the experience of the election we had in Kaduna State, the essence of government has been brought to question? It seems that going forward, every one can just do anything with no recourse to law and order, since the government which is the custodian of law and order, and hold the power to enforce it have suddenly become its saboteurs.
Should I be denied my right to vote and then in turn be required to obey an impostor? Can someone whose mandate was never decided by majority of vote cast, but was declared by a fraudulent process become the one to ensure law and order in my local government?
I come from Zangon Kataf Local Government Area, where there was no election! We queued up at Polling Units and waited for voting to commence, only to receive news that winners have been declared in all the eleven Wards and a Chairman has emerged for my local government area. Without a single vote cast but we have Councillors and a Chairman?! I do not think that my right can be brutally abused beyond what has already happened. I reserve my right to act decently, and a right not to be coerced to obey illegitimate government. We have seen resistance to illegitimate government, we have seen people with conscience run to exile than face oppression by illegitimate government. It is a right I will protect with everything I have, my right to call an illegitimate government by its name. I don’t have a Chairman in Zangon Kataf. The impostor occupying the seat illegally as chairman is not my chairman!
Dr Stephen Patrick
Zangon Kataf Local Government Areas
