Pebbles with Igbotako Nowinta
“In these traumatic times the best duty any true patriot can do for his fatherland is to challenge the status quo in the harshest way possible, because the best liberation is that achieved from within. No external power can liberate the people…from the deepest abyss of despair, sorrow, anguish and hopelessness” – Quoted from Nowinta’s book- WHERE WE ARE
I have deliberately tried to limit my weekly analysis or discussions to issues bordering us in the Federal Republic of Nigeria for some years now.
This is because never before are we being confronted with nagging issues of development, insecurity, democracy and poverty etc, particularly since civilian rule came on board again on May 29, 1999.
In the early nineties I used to maintain a regular column tagged “Foreign focus”, in the Nigerian Observer newspapers, where I had the marvelous opportunity to thrash various issues globally & continentally as they were being thrown up.
That column actually enabled me to come to terms frequently with shakers and makers of world events.
It was during that scintillating period that I first discussed Blaise Campaore who had decided in connivance with the mortal enemies of Africa and third world countries in 1987, to snuff life out of his precious and bosom friend and President of Burkina -Faso – Thomas Sankara, in Ouagadougou via a bloody military coup.
To refresh the memory of readers of this column today, it is important to point out that Thomas Sankara was a young, vibrant, focused, dynamic, fearless, uncompromising revolutionary leader and president of Upper-Volta who renamed it Burkina-Faso – land of upright men.
He was on his way to repositioning his country through charismatic and pragmatic leadership before Blaise Campaore toppled him, thereby ending and derailing his life and revolution.
27 years ago, my heart sank as I wept bitterly within the recess of my soul because a criminal, a useless conspirator and an arch enemy of Africa succeeded in terminating the progress of one of the poorest countries in Africa.
Then the senseless elimination of Thomas Sankara reminded me of the cruel machinations of neocolonialists and imperialists, who had violently plucked the lives of Africa’s immortals like Patrice Lumumba of Congo; Samoral Machel of Mozambique; Eduardo Mondlane; Ruth First; Amilcar Cabral, Tom Mboya to name a few.
One had thought that Blaise Campaore had repented, several years following his assassination of Thomas Sankara and that he would amend his ways and do the right thing, especially after transmuting from a military dictator to a civilian despot.
But, Blaise Campaore, instead, chose to go the inglorious avenue of demented rulers like Idi-Amin Dada (Uganda); Mobutu Sese-seko (Zaire, now, Democratic Republic of Congo; General Sani Abacha (Nigeria); Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe); Hosni Mubarak (Egypt); Muamar Gadaffi (Libya); Gnassingbe Eyadema (Togo) etc.
Therefore, I was never surprised when the opposition parties and leaders in Burkina-Faso, began series of protests several weeks ago, to flush out President Blaise Campaore’s nauseating ambition of altering the country’s Constitution in order to insert a clause that will make him run for another tenure in office, even, after 27 years of political insanity and retrogression.
When I saw and monitored the crisis in Burkina Faso, with about one million protesters (out of 18 million people) constantly on the streets, calling for the end of Campaore’s madness, I knew the end was in sight for one of Africa’s extremely worthless rulers – a maggot.
What do we call a man, who had the best of political office, dragged his country into the mud of underdevelopment, and stamped his people with excruciating poverty and wanted to continue to run the show of mediocrity, waste, caprice and cant?
Blaise Campaore, to me, is even worse than a maggot, a disgrace to humanity who should be made to pay dearly for his murderous rule that reduced governance to incompetence, impunity and ridicule.
What do we tag a character that waited until the Parliament building was attacked and set ablaze, before he hastily promised to midwife a transition to democracy within a year?
Even, as Blaise Campaore had thrown in the towel of power and ran into exile, every effort should be made by the opposition political parties in Burkina-Faso to seek his extradition to the country to account for his crimes.
The people of Burkina-Faso must be commended with wild applause for standing up against a maggot like Blaise Campaore; they have truly proved beyond any semblance of doubt that sovereignty absolutely belongs to the people.
This is also calling on the organizers of the recent protests in Ouagadougou to ensure that their democratic push for electoral sanity in their country is not subverted by the military leaders who have stepped in to fill the vacuum left, with the disgraceful ouster of President Campaore
Lieutenant Colonel Yacouba Isaac Zida (who has claimed leadership) and his cohorts must never be allowed to steal their pyrrhic victory; they should be shown the way out as soon as possible, as they did to Campaore.
After all Burkina-Faso‘s Constitution states explicitly that the head of the National Assembly steps in as president, when a sitting president vacates the scene.
African Union’s (AU) leaders and western powers should assist the recent efforts of the people of Burkina-Faso, so that the country can access multiparty democracy that will install people-oriented leaders as soon as possible.
Nowinta, wrote WHERE WE ARE: A CALL FOR DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION IN NIGERIA
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