By Dele Sobowale
Trust Nigerian leaders and My Fellow Citizens (“I am beginning to wonder how many fools it takes to make the term ‘My fellow citizens”, Honore de Balzac, 1799-1850) to leave undone what should have been done decades ago; and then to rush out to do it without considering one of the most important consequences.
Amendment of the 1999 Constitution has now been rushed through the National Assembly and sent to the states’ legislature, with very few people being aware of what is being imposed on us. It might be a coincidence that the matter is moving with all deliberate speed only now that terrorists have entered the South West and are now holding teachers and children hostage, but, it is doubtful. Nigerian politicians don’t move speedily unless it is to their advantage. There must be a hidden agenda – unknown to the rest of us.
Predictably, the rush has been advertised as a response to ‘the voice of the people’. The first question is: which people? For as long as I can remember, even under military rule, sections of Nigeria had agitated for State Police; others were opposed. No federal government had listened to ‘the voice of the people’. The second question follows naturally: why now? The third stumbles on the heels of the second: who benefits from this measure – which will have far reaching consequences? Who benefits?
