By DiePreye Krukrubo

The Nigerian political class, expected to make laws and ensure the welfare of the Nigerian people and public good, does not exist to serve the Nigerian people, but instead, has created a feudal state designed to exploit the land and secure the narrow interests of the benefactors of the current political system.

From party executives to appointed officials (masquerading as democratically elected leaders), the Nigerian political class has only concerned themselves with their allowances and the benefits they receive through fraud and rent culture, using their positions to steal the resources of the Nigerian people, tax them, and enrich themselves, leaving the people in debt and destitution.

The history of the 4th Republic of Nigeria, as was other subsequent republics, is a history of repeated and utter ineptitude and malice, all intending to maintain a feudal state over the Nigerian people.

• The Nigerian political class has refused to abide by the laws they create, allowed their families and subordinates to disregard and undermine the laws, and institutionalized the notion that they are indeed above the law.
• Their governors refuse to pass laws of necessity and common good to the people of their states but instead, collude with their legislatures to pass budgets to steal resources and land from the people.
• They refuse to accommodate equal representation for all the tribes and citizens of our states through free and fair elections but instead insist on appointing criminals and corrupt men and women without the mandate of the people to safeguard their tyranny.
• Their legislatures and commissioners reside, often, away from their constituents, with their families living in high privilege, insulated from the realities of their ineptitude and failings of the public services that they refuse to provide.
• Their governors dissolve local government executive councils without justification or recourse leaving residents without local representation for years on end.
• They refuse to protect the lives and property of our people.
• They refuse to confront crucial questions of common law, community development, intelligence and security, ethno-religious dialogue, and public goods, despite the enormous state security infrastructure at their disposal, and their large security allowances. Instead, they choose to expose our people to foreign invaders and domestic uprisings.
• They continue to obstruct the administration of justice and deny our people access to justice, by clogging the judiciary with incessant electoral lawsuits, persecuting the people with impunity, while denying the judiciary any form of independence, and stripping them of necessary funding to operate on behalf of the Nigerian people.
• They have established many new agencies without explicable goals or reasons for their existence, only destined to further drain the resources of the Nigerian people.
• They have made the Nigerian military independent of, and in some ways superior to, civil society.
• They have formulated and passed laws without scrutiny to protect themselves from their crimes against our people, including theft, murders, and extrajudicial killings.
• They have formulated and passed laws without scrutiny to protect the resources they have stolen from the Nigerian people.
• They have formulated and passed laws without scrutiny to bind the Nigerian people to treaties and debts foreign to our collective interest, without our consent nor even credible hearings.
• They impose taxes without the consent of the Nigerian people.
• They deprive our people of the right to trial but instead incarcerate our people without hearing or even a charge.
• They refuse to create a free system of laws for the Nigerian people, instead establishing a culture of corruption and cronyism that has rendered the judiciary hopeless for the common man.
• They have expanded this corruption and impunity into every single institution of government and society.
• They have abolished our local customs, they have taken away the virtues of our traditions, and in their place fundamentally destroyed the spirit of our founding.
• Their governors frequently suspend their legislatures and bestow upon themselves powers to unilaterally rule over us.
• They have plundered our natural resources, destroyed our homes, and butchered our people.
• They hire thugs and mercenaries who act with such awesome cruelty for their sake; in the preservation of their power, they choose to terrorize our people.
• They have created such hate and distrust among neighboring communities who have long lived side by side, forcing our fellow Nigerians to consider raising their weapons to kill their brother or die at his hands.
• They have excited domestic insurrections amongst us in the name of politics and continue to align with terrorists and disreputable business interests to displace our people.

In every stage of these violations, the Nigerian people have begged and petitioned the Nigerian government, only to be met by further brutality and apathy. This has been tolerated long before the advent of democracy, for the truth of the Nigerian people, as sole and legitimate Children of the Land, endowed by the Gods with great liberties and opportunities to discover rivers of knowledge and riches beyond our imagination has been largely hidden.

Amidst the barrage of calamity by the Nigerian ruling class, for their unwillingness to release the Nigerian people from the bondage of serfdom, it is the duty of every Nigerian people who long for the freedom we are divinely entitled to, with extreme and righteous prejudice, to remove the shackles of all existing political structures, their enablers and local agents who have shown indifference to, or who seek their gain at the expense and demise of the people of Nigeria.

It is our duty as Children of the Land, to reimagine and create a just society that provides a new representative democratic state solely dedicated to the service and protection of the rights, liberties, and prosperity of the Nigerian people.

There is one truth that has always been self-evident despite our collective amnesia: the lives of the Nigerian people are a gift bestowed by our God as an affirmation of the true value of each Child of the Land, and any political system whose character is thus illustrated, and class and actors associated, is unworthy of the privilege of leading the Nigerian people.

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