POLITICS TODAY

By Moses Chris and Hadiza Garba

The recent call by Deputy Senate Minority Leader, Emmanuel Bwacha that the Nigeria Immigrations Service boss should be sacked could have passed for yet another political statement.

Though no one has taken such political statement serious enough to respond, I still feel that doing so is important in order to set the records straight. In doing so, I’m not unmindful of the fact that we cannot overlook the tendency of Nigerians to blindly attack public office holders, especially to score cheap political gains.

We are all too familiar with a negative perception of reality, where groups and individuals direct their pointless attacks on the wrong set of public office holders deliberately. The question is, why is this culture of presumption so rampant in Nigeria today?

Nigerians who are never in a hurry to accept spurious claims immediately as they are made, would always take a second look at such claims. In the end, they tend to discover that the so-called positions of many groups and individuals in moments of national discourse are coloured by pettiness, misconception and lack any justification.

Therefore, when an issue arises that is of concern nationally and certain organizations or agencies are perceived as not being up to its task, you would discover that it is a mere misconception. The bitter truth is that as citizens, we generally believe in quick-fix for a system that has been degraded for years; for example, the fight against corruption cannot be won in a day, neither can food shortage as a result of neglect of our agricultural system for years. It logically follows, that anybody in position of authority can only do his best to address, to the bearest minimum, the decay and delapidation it inherited and so it will be unfair for anyone individual or group to be calling for the removal of the person in authority who only inherited this systemic problem. Even in the United States that has an advanced economy, Donald Trump is still battling with issues inherited from Obama’s administration; same in the UK and other advanced economies, which shows that no government can change a system overnight, it is but a gradual process. It is therefore pertinent for anyone outside the theater of administration or governance to understand How it feels on the inside. I mean that it is easier for somebody watching a game to keep commenting on the winning options than the players themselves.

If I may ask, how many bills has Senator Emmanuel Bwacha sponsored that scaled through the floor of the senate and how many constituency projects has he execute? How many of the youths that facilitated his campaign activities has he secured gainful employment for, at the local state or federal levels. And if not now that the electioneering activities have commenced, how many times has he visited the same constituency that voted him?

The issue of national concern that he raised and for which he is calling for the removal of the Comptroller General of Immigration is like cutting the branches of a tree that is deceased, without checking the root. Nigeria is not where it is today for nothing. It was a journey and therefore calling for the removal of service chiefs or specific heads of agencies is not the solution Nigeria needs at this particular time; rather the Senator and his colleagues should sponsor bills that will take care of those issues, get them to scale through debate on issues that are people-oriented, to bring an end to our national security concerns and other issues. Jumping to conclusions and calling for people’s head is not an administrative or scientific approach to any challenge, but crosschecking the facts and separating bias and political sentiment for truth is a necessary step to finding a lasting solution.

Chris is the Chairman Concerned Democrats Forum,  Hadiza is secretary. They wrote from Kaduna.