Concepcion “Connie” Picciotto arrived
the United States as an 18-year-old from Spain. She worked at the
Spanish embassy in New York. She later moved to Washington DC where she
seemed to find her life’s calling. Connie, as she was fondly called,
became friends with William Thomas who started out protesting in front
of the White House months before Connie started her record breaking and
at times impactful protest at the White House. Connie essentially lived
the rest of her life as more or less the neighbour of the US. Presidents
from 1981 when she started keeping her peace vigil at the Lafayette
Park end of the White House till her death in January 2016. Her protest
has been deemed, “the longest-running act of political protest in the US
history” by informed observers.
I happened to be at Lafayette Park at
the White House two Sundays ago and Connie’s tent remains there as
activists take turns to maintain the vigil she kept for some 35 years.
There is a lot to be picked in her story
and the issues she stood for but for the purpose of this piece, despite
Connie being regarded as a hero by many, the other hero in this story
is the American democracy that allows for an immigrant to maintain a
virtually permanent presence, right in front of the office and residence
of the President of the United States. There is something to be said
here about democracy in its very essence.
Nigeria more or less copied and pasted
the American presidential system of government, despite being a former
British colony. America is the father of modern democracy even though
Ancient Greece is its origin. We copied the American system but we have
yet to copy the essence of that system. Connie and any American can set
up a tent and stage a protest opposite the White House because the
President of America who occupies the White House is a staff of all the
citizens of the United States. He runs a presidency of the people, a
presidency by the people and one for the people, not just by the letters
of the constitution as it is the letter of our own constitution, but in
truth and in deed as it is not our reality, even today under a
president who rose to power via the sheer will, determination, intellect
and commitment of ordinary Nigerians! In other words, Nigeria operates a
democratic government on paper, in reality, based on the essence of
democracy; we have yet to start operating a truly democratic system. Ask
Nigeria’s longest running protest group, the Bring Back Our Girls and
you’d be told the closest they have ever gone to the Presidential Villa
is the Independence Avenue where they eventually always get stopped by
fiery looking policemen, irrespective of whoever has been president
since the movement started. Note that Independence Avenue is still
several hundreds of metres from the Presidential Villa. As it is today,
no protest will EVER arrive at the Presidential Villa. If you have ever
been there or have ever been part of a protest towards the Villa, you
know that a camel really and truly has a bigger chance of going through
the eye of a regular needle than a protest successfully going through
the impregnable barriers that lead to Aso Rock. This is one of the
relics of the military – like those officers who stand behind the
president or governors at public events when they stand to speak – that
remain in our democracy. It will take a bold, brave and legacy-minded
president to bring down those walls separation between the President of
Nigeria and the Nigerian people.
If you, even if not American, intend to
contact President Barack Obama, all you need to do would be to visit the
website of the White House, click on “contact” and you will have
direct access to emails, phone numbers and other means of reaching
President Obama or whoever gets to be president at any point in time.
President@WhiteHouse.Gov is the fastest way to reach the US President.
As usual, we tried to copy the Americans – and there is nothing wrong
with copying something that works, so we have our own
www.statehouse.gov.ng but click on contact and the farthest you can go
is, “Office of the Special Adviser to the President (Media &
Publicity).”
The British Prime Minister works from No
10 Downing Street, the US President works from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
NW
Washington, DC 20500; where does the Nigerian president work from?
You said “Aso Rock Villa.” What is the address of Aso Rock Villa? What
does Aso Rock Villa look like? How many Nigerians have access to Aso
Rock? Forget access, how many Nigerians have seen Aso Rock Villa?
Government in Nigeria operates behind a
veil and until that veil is removed, we really cannot indeed say we
operate a democracy. We know the budget of the National Assembly per
year but no one outside of the lawmakers knows its details. These are
meant to be the representatives of the Nigerian people but the Nigerian
people are in the dark as to how their parliament disburses its budget.
The National Assembly is the true spine of our democracy, you cannot
have a democratic system without the representatives of the people. You
can have government without a parliament as long as you have a president
or head of state but you cannot have democracy without a parliament
even if you have an elected president! The Judiciary and the Executive
existed under previous military governments. The Executive existed in
different forms while the Judiciary existed as it always has. The arm of
government that started out afresh at the advent of democracy in 1999
is the Legislative arm.
The leadership of the Senate is
embroiled in various allegations of corruption and criminality, the
leadership of the House of Representatives is burdened by allegations of
corruption by one of its own who ought to know, the former Chairman of
the Appropriation Committee. They are innocent until proved guilty –
fair enough – but since the allegations, have you seen any telling move
by any of the Houses bordering on opening up the books of the National
Assembly?
The Senate President, Bukola Saraki,
committed to opening up the books of the Senate; he also tweeted
commitments on working to reduce the pay of lawmakers. The books of the
Senate remain closed, the pay of lawmakers remains high and sinister,
only less higher than the walls that divide the Senate and the people
for whom it exists. Allegations of corruption against the Speaker of the
House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, would have started a process
of his office throwing the books of the Lower House open. No attempt has
been made on that front whatsoever but even more tragic is the fact
that the people are not making such a demand. Mostly, because they
expect the allegations to be swept under the carpet and the ruling All
Progressives Congress has not disappointed on that front as moves to do
the same are moving faster than Usain Bolt has ever run.
Do not miss the point, from a
President Muhammadu Buhari that continues to maintain an Aso Rock with
the same veil that separated military head of states from the Nigerian
people despite his rise to power being on the strength and will of the
people’s trust in his “man of the people” persona, to the aforementioned
leaders of the National Assembly, this piece is not about these
personalities, it is about our system of government, dressed in the
adorable garment of democracy but with dirty under wears reeking of
unaccountability, opacity and secrecy all providing cover for a body fed
fat and unhealthy of corruption, waste and the apparent reality of
underdevelopment and failure of governance as we have come to know for
the most part of our democracy.
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