by Ben Murray-Bruce
Even out of office Jonathan continues to show that he is a man who believes in Nigeria.
I have three urgent and important things to say to Nigeria and I will not beat about the bush.
Let me start out this piece by saying that even though I am of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), I voted for Senator Bukola Saraki of the All Progressive Congress (APC), and I did it for Nigeria.
I am of the firm belief that political parties are created to serve the interest of the masses and not individual or group interests. That is my ethic in politics.
Nigeria does not belong to a party. Both the PDP and the APC must allow President Muhammadu Buhari be his own man and the Senate be her own body.
Why should a party aspire to treat a president like a caged bird to be let out when they choose so it can sing to their guests and be put back in the cage until it is needed again?
In case anybody is in doubt, Nigerians voted for President Buhari, they did not vote for
the APC. The same was also true in 2011 when Nigerians voted for President Goodluck Jonathan and not the PDP.
I admire the party chieftains of the APC but we need to face reality here.
On the 28th of October 2014, the then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, defected from the PDP to the APC and still kept his position as Speaker.
Try as it may, the PDP was unable to get the judiciary to depose Tambuwal for leaving his party as both Justice Ahmed Mohammed and Justice Justice Ibrahim Buba rejected such arguments.
Therefore there are political and legal precedents to state that any elected person can leave his party and still retain his seat.
That being the case, political parties have to be very careful because if they push too hard they could unwittingly or perhaps wittingly win the election and lose the government.
I have no doubt in my mind that the PDP will not be unwilling to open its arms wide to anybody and I mean anybody who wants to escape from internal dictatorship.
Again, let me sound a warning to parties that they are like in-laws who give out a woman in marriage. Once they have given out their daughter in marriage the expectation is that they allow her bear her husband’s name. Enough said on that score.
The second thing I want to say to Nigeria is that I am disappointed at the way we treated the late great Dora Akunyili.
Scarcely has Nigeria encountered a woman who gave so much and took so little from her.
Many Nigerians may not know that Dora served with President Muhammadu Buhari when he was Executive Chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF).
While serving at PTF, she took ill and was given a frightening diagnosis in Nigeria which necessitated her going to the United Kingdom for treatment. She was given her medical expenses and when she got to the UK, she was told that she was misdiagnosed and that she would be all right.
And that is where Dora stood out from the crowd. She returned to Nigeria and refunded the medical expenses PTF paid her back to the agency! How many Nigerians would do that?
This story was the reason my boss, then President Olusegun Obasanjo, appointed her to head the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).
In that position, Dora brought life to the fight against fake drugs which had taken an untold number of innocent human lives.
So successful was she that two assassination attempts were made on her life in August 2001 and in December 2003. The second one was almost successful as the bullet pierced her scarf!
Altogether Dora won over 400 local and international awards in recognition of her work as the Director General of NAFDAC.
It is no longer news that we lost Dora to cancer (that wicked disease that keeps taking my friends) on the 7th of June, 2014.
What is however news is that no governmental or non governmental body thought it wise to remember Dora and honour her on the first anniversary of her demise despite all she did for Nigeria.
June 7th 2015 came and went and it was as if nothing happened. In just one year Dora was purged from our institutional memory. What message are we sending out when we behave this way?
Does it mean that we only remember the living and the strong? Are we telling our youth that Nigeria is not worth sacrificing for because no one will remember your sacrifice?
People like Dora are put on stamps in other nations. She saved lives and she instituted a system that is still saving lives. Surely that maters.
Let me thank former President Jonathan who was the only person I know that publicly acknowledged her and her sacrifice on the first anniversary of her death.
On Sunday June 7th, former President Jonathan released a Facebook update and said: “It was just a year ago that I was greeted with the shocking news of your passing. Hardly has Nigeria encountered an amazon such as you. A grateful nation remembers your services, which saved lives and advanced the cause of democracy. Continue to rest in peace Dora Akunyili. GEJ.”
Even out of office Jonathan continues to show that he is a man who believes in Nigeria.
May the soul of Dora Akunyili rest in peace and may God give her the reward that Nigeria failed to give her.
And finally, I feel deeply sad to read about workers that have not been paid for many months. It is so sad. Even sadder still is the headline I came across as I wrote this piece which revealed that over 200 pensioners had died while being owed for months in a particular state. This is very inhumane and something must be done very soon or corruption will increase.
Why do I say corruption will increase if something is not done soon? If civil servants are not getting paid and if they feel that the situation will get worse when they retire, then they have a higher incentive to steal government money and corrupt the system.
It is in the states own interest to ensure that salaries are paid to workers as and when due. If we push our state civil servants to the wall, governors may be in for a shocker as these workers may turn on them.
And I salute the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) for raising donations for unpaid workers in some states. This is a noble gesture and will help save the lives of the most vulnerable amongst the unpaid workers.
I hereby call on other religious and humanitarian bodies to follow CAN’s lead and come to the aid of these particular set of less privileged persons who became less privileged through no fault of theirs.
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Senator Ben Bruce represents Bayelsa East in the Senate and is the Chairman of the Silverbird Entertainment Group.
Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.
Hi lolu I appreciate ur insight,critical assessment n evaluation of d hon. Write-up.who is deceiving who.
@ Lolu, while I commend Senator Bruce for his write-up and essentially beaming light on the loving memory of Dr Dora Akunyili on the first anniversary of her passing; I want to thank you Lolu for raising some serious points in a forward-looking sense to re-awaken the generality of Nigerians especially now that the election is behind us… Yes.. #WeCanHaveABetterCondition #ItsTimeForActionNotTalk #CampaignAndElectionAreOver #OgaSenatorLetsStartToWorkTheTalk #LetsWakeUpAndWise #NineBillionNairaWradrobeAllowance #IsAnEvidenceToTheFactThat #TheMassesDifficultiesAreNotOver #ThisIsJustTheBeginingOfPermanentResolutions
Good talk and nice piece. But with due respect to your person and intelligent our hon. Senator, enough of all the talks, it’s time for action. Its good to know that we could still faintly hope that we have a reasonable voice like you within the government, but the problem I am having reading through your write up is that it is meant to serve a kind of multipurpose personal good (but the most important is appeasing to the sentiment, emotion, and love of the general populace, seeing that average Nigerians are so gullible, a condition that had developed over the years, due to the level of the poverty that the few people that were in position to serve had subjected the people and the whole country to, and again, as a result of clash of our multi ethnicity and religion system, with the our value system and sense of judgement and demand for true accountability). Reading through the write up, I could see one weird side of every good but chance taken guys in you, of which the majority might not see this, but I hope we can have more coded soul and people that have been to the informal school of hard knocks and mental alertness to further dissect issues raised in this article of yours, line by line, word for words, and come tell of the aided emotions and intentions that underlies the piece of write up. It takes more that the eyes and mere reading to see it, you just have to do away with the love and respect for the person, and figure things out with your hindsight and with a curious, sound, and probing mind.
My take on all the three issues you addressed will be handled and addressed into one general purpose that I belief your intention was meant to serve. First of all, democracy is about party system, ideology, and manifesto, then the election, assumption of office and defense of the constitution. Even at that, the characters, intention, belief, agenda, intelligence, and the quality of of the person to take the seats of affair or leadership plays an important role in the quality of governance to the people. Saraki or Lawan, Dogara or Fijabiamila, the house in control of APC or not, what we the masses are demanding with the vote for change is a government with compassion, vision, discharge of duty, ability to protect and duelly utilize the wealth and resources of the nation to the benefit of everyone of us (not just for the greedy and most political class Where we are talking about being a person with high moral standard and disciplined, there should not be the acceptance of the any abnormality of a system or past ocurrence to be norm and normalcy, because it seems good or protect to our individual interest, when you all have the constitution to follow and defend.
Point on point, my elite and admirable Senator Sir, are you not in this Nigeria, or are you that ignorant of the practices in PDP for the past sixteen year when it come to the issue of politics, internal dictatorship, god fatherism, and the winners take all, because it’s so surprising now to hear you talking as if it’s a new development by the now ruling party. I am so shocked and surprised that it’s now time to start separating the president from the party he belongs to, when it wasn’t so all these years that PDP was in control. If you want to address issues, go ahead and do so Sir, rather than being an agent of damage control or image laundry for GEJ and the PDP as a whole. I will also like to ask Sir, all these you are saying, where were they or even you when GEJ was in the office, why were you not this bold and forthcoming to speak and address issues of national development and interest, at least your interest of good governance and government functionality is appearing to be second to none and issues that have been bothering your mind for years. It is no more a secret that what your party PDP set to do was exactly to hijack the government from the ruling party and make any meaningful way forward difficult without negotiation and protection of self interest. If that plot is new to you, Sir go and ask those behind the true script of the emergence of Saraki as the Senate President. Altough the conspiracy theory of the PDP intentions in this dispensation is as well so glaring in your piece too, taking the following statement of your into consideration “[a party] could unwittingly or perhaps wittingly win the election and lose the government,” “I have no doubt in my mind that the PDP will not be unwilling to open its arms wide to anybody and I mean anybody who wants to escape from internal dictatorship.”
Furthermore, if you want to pay tribute to Dora Akunyili, go ahead and do so as a friend of the or a person, rather than abusing the occasion and using the medium to pay homage to your man GEJ, or acting as the spoke person for the Akinyili`s family, all in an attempt to gather general populace’s attention and affection in order to build a self reputation as a now member of the political class. I think we should take a critical look at these your following statements, may be we will be able to understand your true stand better; “Let me thank former President Jonathan who was the only person I know that publicly acknowledged her [Dora Akunyili] and her sacrifice on the first anniversary of her death., Even out of office Jonathan continues to show that he is a man who believes in Nigeria.,” My take is that you should not come here appearing to be speaking for the general masses, while it’s all about projecting self image for future ambition, as well as stylishly doing so in an attempt to renew the image of GEJ.
Finally, Sir, I believe that it will henceforth be better for you, let us start seeing you in the house, raising issues like this and tackling your fellow Senators, in the defense of the general masses, rather than on the social network, in an attempt to bamboozle the unfortunate majority. Your distinguish Senator Sir, I will want to see the end result of the latest issue of the day (lawmakers and demand the billions of Naira wardrobe allowance from the this economy of ours that had been so crippled due to the activities of the last President and the dispensation), knowing that we supposedly have people like you on the side of the common man, among the lawmakers. Also, at this point, before the house debate on this, I will like you to give us your take on the issue of wardrobe allowance and the insane cost of governance in this country, now that you are no more an aspiring or yet to be confirmed Senator, but a full member of the assembly.
To the general masses, please don’t let us forget that talk is cheap, but the fulfillment of promises and equal sharing of our wealth and dividend of democracy has always been damn expensive to our lawmakers and political class. Can we stop all these praises, and start holding everyone of them to responsibility and accountability, and ensuring that our voice count, just as our vote, for the first time in this country proved efficient. Let`s stop being so gullible and responding to all these people`s sweet talks. They are all aware of our condition, and as well know what we wanna hear.
#ItsTimeForActionNotTalk #CampaignAndElectionAreOver #OgaSenatorLetsStartToWorkTheTalk #NobodyHolyPass #AllfThemNaTheSame # LetsWakeUpAndWise #WeCantHaveABetterCondition #UntillWeStopBeingTheirMumu #NineBillionNairaWradrobeAllowance #IsAnEvidenceToTheFactThat #TheDaysOfLawmakersDaylightRobbery #AndTheMassesDifficultiesAreNotOver #ThisIsJustTheBegining
people like you is what nigerian need to achieve greater thing,s in life sir may God bless you
You are so write Mr. Senator may God bless you for this pieace , you are one of the people I admire so much not been bayers in your speech. May her gentle soul rest in perfect peace amen
Well said Ben bruce,is people like u that deserve to be in the senate,aand u are going to make a great leader