ENOUGH IS ENOUGH: WHEN POWER MAKES NONSENSE NORMAL
Enough is enough. We need to stop paying journalists to dress up nonsense and serve it to the public as serious discourse.
Sam Amadi’s piece exposes an uncomfortable truth about us: somewhere between our hunger for money and our worship of power we have surrendered too much of our dignity.
Imagine you are the INEC chairman and a politician says: ‘If I had been there, I would have won.’
The appropriate response should be simple: ‘Stop that nonsense.’
Won how? By influencing voters? Muscling the process? Bending institutions? Or simply because he believes his presence should guarantee victory?
An election is supposed to reflect the choice of the people. Politicians contest it but the votes belong to citizens.
Yet statements like this are made casually because powerful people have learnt that they can say almost anything without consequence. Institutions that should speak often remain silent. That silence only encourages more recklessness.
And this sickness goes beyond politics.
We have become too impressed by sudden wealth. Someone arrives with a flashy car, a convoy and a louder voice and suddenly everyone starts asking, ‘Who are you?’ — not because they want to know the person but because they want to know what he can do for them.
We have confused wealth with worth. Money buys respect that character once earned.
The Osun election aftermath offered another disturbing example. The governor thanked the President for ‘not interfering’ rather than thanking the voters who actually cast the ballots.
Think about that.
When a governor feels compelled to thank someone for not interfering in an election, it says something troubling about how little faith we have in the electoral system.
Then came Ogun State where governors and other political heavyweights descended on the election as though a local contest were a national war. We have seen the same pattern elsewhere: elections treated less as exercises in democracy and more as battles for political survival.
This is bigger than Wike. Bigger than APC, PDP, NDC or any other party.
It is about a dangerous pattern: powerful people pushing boundaries, institutions looking away and citizens gradually accepting what should offend our sense of decency.
That is how a society loses its standards — not in one dramatic collapse but through countless little compromises.
A journalist takes money to manufacture propaganda. An institution keeps quiet. A politician makes a reckless statement. Citizens shrug and say, ‘Na Nigeria be this.’
That shrug is part of the problem.
Nigeria needs politicians who respect the rules, institutions that enforce them and journalists who will not mortgage their credibility for money.
Above all, we need citizens who refuse to treat corruption, impunity and political arrogance as normal.
We have compromised enough. Enough really should be enough.
Okiwelu Azed P. writes from Asaba.
