One of the beauties of democracy is the separation of power
amongst the three arms of government. Most often, this is mostly visible
between the executive and the legislature. The usual power tussle makes for the
necessary checks and balances to avoid misrule, often, on the part of the
executive. These corrective exercises are mostly fueled and projected by the
opposition party in the legislative arm of government. Ordinarily, the
opposition functions as the custodian of the tenets of the rule of law and a
fighter for the interests of the poor masses.
The opposition in the legislative arm of government is
usually members of another major party different from the one heading and
controlling the executive arm of government. Most often, they occupy the least
seat in the legislature, but are usually more vocal and energetic in the
discharge of their legislative duties. They serve in their capacity as
opposition to checkmate most of the moves of the ruling party which they
consider inimical to the interests of the masses. They seldom compromise.
Being the watch-dog that they are to the ruling party, part
of their functions is to always sniff-out all government agencies, as part of
their oversight functions, to know when certain obnoxious policies are about to
be implemented and bark it out to the public domain. This function had on many
occasions saved the masses from the cold-heartiness of the ruling party. As
always is the case, the alarms they raise had saved the masses from socio-economic
perils, many times.
With this kind of a massive work, mostly in the interests of
the members of the public, what then happens “when the opposition is dead?” The
unfortunate incident of having a dead opposition is put as when there is no
opposition in the legislative arm. That is, no single member of any rival
parties is elected into the legislative arm of government. Which means, just
one party, in a multi-party democracy, controls both the executive and the
legislative arms of government.
Ekiti people may not know now, the implications of the evil
they’ve brought on themselves. When a governor had handpicked his legislature,
most of whom were not qualified, experience and education-wise, to have a seat
in the hallowed chamber, one may not be too wrong to hurriedly conclude that
he, the governor, has the legislature in his pocket. A good number of
possibilities may be expected.
The first gory implication of this kind of an unfortunate
scenario is that the executive is going to have a field day. It is a situation
in which there would not be any watch-dogs to checkmate the excesses of the
executive because party sympathy and loyalty would undoubtedly override any
other kind of interests on the part of the legislature. More so, in this
monetized kind of democracy of ours, one may not be too wrong to say that the
executive is going to have a jolly ride all-through.
In this kind of a situation, it could be corruption galore
on both sides of the divides as they would, because of party loyalty, be ready
to cover for themselves. Therefore, the meager resources that ought to be used
for the people may end up in private pockets with no one making no fuse about
it.
The people of our land should expect impunity and executive
recklessness to reign supreme because as it is said, “power corrupts, and
absolute power corrupts absolutely.” We have ignorantly created, not only a
one-party, but a one-man state where he could do and undo. There is no
gainsaying that when a man wields too much power like in this situation that we
have created, anything could happen.
Let many who contributed to this with the hope of creating a
harmonious government not so conclude in a hurry because we could have a
turbulently peaceful government at the end of the day. With what is on ground
now, any member of the executive or the legislature could be removed from their
positions at the whims and caprices of Mr. Governor without any of the expected
consequences. So, we could end up having a silent war engendering unstable
stability.
On the final analysis, with what has been happening in the
state since October 16th, 2014, notable members of the opposition
who want to reside in the state should know that their cases are no different
from that of a mouse who want to attend a cat’s naming ceremony; there surely,
would be more meat to serve at the party. Vocal opposition members therefore,
must know how to keep quiet or be ready to pay heavy fines for “poke-nosing.”
When the opposition is dead, the people, whether they know
it or not, would suffer silently without anyone to rescue them.
