By Nicolas Adekeye
Former governor of Niger State 2007, 2015, Dr. Muazu Babangida Aliyu (CON), Talban Minna, has called for caution by politicians and elected public officers to retain the true tenets of democracy so as not to bring about the extinction of democracy.
Aliyu said,
“Parliamentarians have no business doing roads or building hospitals, they are to make laws for the country or for the state. And they are to lobby, the executive either of the state or of the national to get things for their constituencies. But we have turned everything upside down. The people now can decide to say if I don’t collect now, I will never see them again until another four years to come. So therefore, this vicious cycle unless we break it, it will continue this way and Nigerians will be disappointed and at the end of the day, will be disillusioned by what we call democracy, unless there is a change.”
The former Governor who spoke after casting his votes at his Minna residence, lamented the level of degeneration in the polity while attributing low voter turn-out to the disappointments experienced in the February 25th 2023 Presidential elections across the country.
“I have heard many people say that people are little apathetic in coming out and that can be justified, but what we saw on the 25th of February. The result, people voted a particular way, but the result gave a different dimension. And I believe that many people are disappointed with that and the confidence of many of us, was raised when the chairman of INEC almost 16 times came out to talk about their preparation to talk about the beavers and how they can be transmitted from the BVAS directly from the polling unit to the servers, only for us to be disappointed that they decided otherwise. And from that decision that has been questioned and showed the fraudulent nature of the elections of 25th February, and by that many people will be discouraged to come out. You can’t force people.”
“But another disappointment is that in Nigeria in 2023 that people could be convinced to vote a particular way by simply one spaghetti and two yards of cloth, a cloth of 500 or 600 Naira of six yard divided into three and given to our women which is a display, one, of poverty, two, of ignorance and three, because of the nature of our democracy, those that we elect, either at the National Assembly level or state level, do not really go back to their constituents.”
The chief Servant as he described himself during his tenure as governor of the state, condemned the error of religious insensitivity in Nigerian politics today while advising caution.
“And another dimension that has come out and for particularly this election. Yes, religion, sentiment ethnicity, or have a place in what make people decide what to do. But this time around was brought out opposite about this Muslim-Muslim ticket you find religious groups going out, talking about Muslim-Muslim, if I were a Christian, I will be provoked to also now go back and talk to the Christians, let’s do it this way. Yes, we don’t have essentials to show us the percentages of the Muslims, the Christian but a cursory look at the Nigerian population, one could say that the Christians are probably up to 40% in this country, if not more, and then you cannot do without them. And you cannot provoke them by telling them that you are only for this religion. And also, we have seen states where they have Muslim-Muslim tickets and there is no positive change in those areas. Therefore, we must be sensitive to our environment. We must be sensitive to our demography. We must understand that we need to live in peace.”
Muazu Babangida Aliyu is a Nigerian Politician and a long-standing member and Chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP. He is a dedicated party man who is known to have never jumped ship even when the party was voted out in 2015. He has served as executive governor of Niger State for two terms in 2007 and 2015 respectively. A staunch politician who started representing his people in parliament from when he was a student, he has shown great leadership qualities in the country.
