Assad Falls in Syria. Who’s Next?
Since the Arab Spring that started about 2010, there’s been somewhat of a political reshaping of the landscape in North Africa, and the Middle East at large.
Hold the internet responsible.
Everyone can now read about what’s going on elsewhere without the government jamming BBC signals or expelling foreign reporters from their country as the people causing trouble.
What is surprising about these uprisings everywhere is that the reasons for people rising up against their government, or loving and supporting their government have never changed. Whether it be a King who sits on the heads of merchants that led to a sort of evolution that resulted in the Magna Carta, (1215); or the insensitivity of the King of France, and his Queen to the hunger in the land, that led to the French Revolution in 1789; or the inability of the Tsar of Russia to bring about changes in his country to lead to political pluralism, add to that, the scarcity of food that led to the Petrograd riots of 1917, the reasons are always the same. The government becomes rigid in its ways, set on a course of denialism by a coterie of people whose only call to fame is access to the national treasury.
They urge them on without a sense of history to guide.
In the three examples listed above, but for the case of England, violent revolution led to confusion and more hardship. The Magna Carta allowed for evolution which eventually led to the Bill of Rights, and the separation of the institution of the monarchy from the institution of daily governance—(Westminster Form of Government with the Queen as Head of State, and the Prime Minister as Head of Government).
On the other hand, the French Revolution led to a 2-year reign of terror unleashed by Maximillien Robespierre which led 17,000 people to the guillotine, and eventually consumed him.
In the case of Russia, they left a burning house for a burning country. After Lenin died, Stalin let loose a level of evil that could only have been conjured by Satan himself on his people. He consumed 53 million of his people to keep himself in power. Many wished they had just endured the hardship under the Tsar, but the Tsar made it impossible because he would not accept reduced powers, and more political involvement by the people.
A cursory examination of revolutions reveals one thing. People do not revolt because they just feel like it. People revolt because someone powerful appears not to be listening.
A certain level of deafness gets even more intense, the greater the power.
Now, that the Assad reign has come to a bitter end in Syria, the question being asked is: what next?
No one really cares. Assad is gone, and that is all that matters now.
The Nigerian Parallel.
There’s acute hunger in the land. Wages do not go far enough to cater to the needs of families. The insecurity in the land either appears to be abating, or is now under-reported. Whichever one it is, everyone knows that rubbish can be swept under the carpet for only so long.
For the hundredth time, as I have written in the past, I again reiterate. The Nigerian problem is solvable.
I have a Blueprint.
There is no famine in the land.
The earth stands ready to yield its increase. We must face the bush everywhere across the country. In one year we can have an abundance of every major food we consume. Is the government willing to listen, and implement an agricultural program that would create millions of jobs, pull people out of poverty, and restore our human dignity?
The Farotimi Matter.
One wonders with all the reports coming out if this is also a case of “do you know who I am?”
In this matter, one of the contending parties is a real-life behemoth.
This is why I am wondering here why we cannot settle this matter in our traditional Nigerian way. It is because of matters like this that we have traditional rulers. This is not a matter for the courts. We must be a country that seeks to protect our great achievers whilst also protecting the rights of the young to be young, and angry. It is my submission that Chief Afe Babalola’s reputation, and great achievements must be preserved. It is also my submission that Farotimi’s human rights be not abridged.
Where then does wisdom lie in this matter?
Trump Transition on Steroids.
The Trump transition continues full speed ahead. I think he’s a man in too much of a hurry. It is not good optics that Matt Gaetz has fallen by the wayside because his choice was not well thought out. The same fate may yet await his picks for the Pentagon, and the FBI. MAGA can be great if MAGA thinks through what MAGA really needs to build a truly great nation.
Coming Back Home.
In recent days, a lot of mockery has occurred in the matter of the presentation of the Appropriation budget by the Governor of Edo State.
My people, when elections are over, elections are over.
The candidate of the PDP is in court. If the time comes, and he prevails, we will rally support for him to succeed. The success of our Governor is the success of Edo State.
If however, Senator Monday Okpebholo makes it through the election tribunal, posterity will judge him not based on his grammar, but on how he helped to improve security; how he made many roads motorable; how many new schools he built for our children; how many new jobs he created; and how he helped to pull millions of people out of poverty with a robust agricultural policy that transformed Edo State into the food basket of the nation whilst in the process making Edo second only to Lagos in industrialization.
Grammar shall pass away, but roads and schools will endure.
O’meekey O. Ovienmhada, (Egogonewshub.com).
Ghana will always shame us.