Personalisation of Governance and Pauperisation of the Governed by Taiye Olaniyi

Government and governance come in a myriad of ways and added to such a submission is the governed.

It is obvious that no matter what is referred to as government carries the tones of who governs who, the governed and the style of governance thus put in place surely determines what the governed feel about governance by whatever government is ruling them.

These three Gs, Government, Governance and the Governed are replicated in 3 Ps that is predicated on Personalities, Policies and Politics therein.

Humanity has undergone through the 3Ps in 3Gs and these have been replicated in traditional, religious and different political institutions hence, the popular inferences and references to theocracy, autocracy, feudalism and the most current one that is globally referred to as, "Democracy".

Democracy - has been defined as a "system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives."

It is equally, a" system of parliamentary democracy" that Nigeria once practiced before this current slight variant we now have as presidential system of government and governance patterned after American political system.

The current political trend like the previous parliamentary mode affords the democratic process of forming political parties from where one constitutes a major party that forms government at a federal level in particular, giving room for the opposition party(s) to exist while a few other ones may similarly emerge at the state down to local levels of political administration sometimes acclaimed as not only constitutional but also in conformity with their varying manifestoes.

The ways and manners the Nigerian politics is being practiced this democratic era rather than oblige with the ideal of the, "Government of the people, by the people and for the people,” has caved in to mainly only the powerful individuals with most times rotten wealth always the ones dictating the tunes.

They are members of government in power, with power and for power to do and undo whatever appeals to their most times, personal, family, cabal and cartel interest groups at the expense of giving power to the people.

They often pride themselves only in the personalization of government and governance and making paupers of those that sane politics if practiced requires they need to govern with godliness and conscientiously too.

At the traditional, religious and political levels they by their fruits of mere rulership for which they are known, only unite in the quarantining of the commonwealth that the governed should equally enjoy but are so deprived of to the extent that many now commit anomic suicides and several others have lost hope in true nationhood.

These personalities in their self-styled selfishness engraved in modes of governance, appropriate and misappropriate their political influences and powers to suit only their whims and fancies without least consideration for constitutional and public service policies that could help assume and assure good governance.

In their birds of a feather always flocking together to satisfy personal and most times fiendish interests, the Book of Proverbs highlights as here excerpted :

"We shall find all precious substance, We shall fill our houses with spoil: Cast in thy lot among us; Let us all have one purse: My son, walk not thou in the way with them; Refrain thy foot from their path: For their feet run to evil, And make haste to shed blood."

Proverbs 1:13-16 KJV -It therefore becomes relevant at this stage to ask, to what extent are the fiendishly rich Nigerians in traditional, religious, political and economic and financial turfs truly happy?

To what extent are they from their accumulation of unending wealth exonerated from meeting untimely deaths directly or indirectly to their perceived adversaries but much more several innocent Nigerians?

With their innumerable boasts and penchants for unending acquisition after another especially to the peril of the downtrodden Nigerians they now make daily miserable, how insulated are they also from ill health, business failures, mental depression, family and power instabilities including deaths, the ultimate end of every and all mortals?

Mere mortals are also like us, the president, ministers, members of the National Assembly, the states' governors, all political stalwarts, economic wizards, those of the high hierarchies of traditional and religious rulership, like us all, they are mortals .

In all our nothingness as mere mortals. No matter the wealth or the none of it, sisters and brothers maggots await us all as barbecue after the empty merriment and night party of life.

Thus at this stage, no presidential power, marabouts, power of anointing nor trillions of dollars nor Emefielic Bible and cash deposits and transfers can serve as protective devices.

I wish that in being what they seem to be as earthly rich, they that misappropriated the power to rule and ruin including many still aspiring basically for selfishness and inordinate ambitions would daily allow: "Conscience, the Eye of God in the heart of Man," to reset their hearts back to base and thus allow guiltiness of mind redirect them to the noble purpose for which God has created us all.

Bob Marley for long had drawn the attention of the world to the fortune, misfortune, the emptiness and fates associated with those that pride in the personalization of the commonwealth.

He sang:

Guiltiness (talkin' 'bout guiltiness)
Pressed on their conscience. Oh yeah.
And they live their lives (they live their lives)
On false pretence everyday -
each and everyday. Yeah.
These are the big fish
Who always try to eat down the small fish,
just the small fish.
I tell you what: they would do anything
To materialize their every wish. Oh yeah-eah-eah-eah.
Say: Woe to the downpressors:
They'll eat the bread of sorrow!
Woe to the downpressors:
They'll eat the bread of sad tomorrow!
Woe to the downpressors:
They'll eat the bread of sorrow!
Oh, yeah-eah! Oh, yeah-eah-eah-eah!.

For you and I, "Envy not the appearance of happiness in any man for thou knoweth not his secret grief" so advice the sages of old in their sanctum musings.

For those who because of the current predicaments in the country may want to join the band of bad wagons in high places, please remember that "All that glitters is not gold"

There is no doubt the law of karma, of retributive justice, the law of actions and reactions that impacts on the life of every being from which no one can escape its justice, either rich or poor, righteous or otherwise.

To us all I wish a prosperous and Happy New Year,

God bless Nigeria.

First published for METRO

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Taiye Olaniyi, a retired Postman of the Nigeria Postal Service, is based in Lagos.