Well, it's all about democracy, as some people will see it, and it's probably a test of the child of democracy. Of course, by the end of it, you will see that democracy is alive and kicking and strong. – Olusegun Obasanjo

In Ondo South Senatorial District, the PDP won by a “landslide” vote, amassing 318,153 votes while its rival labour party managed a meager 13,333 votes. The “miracle” may not be in that the PDP amassed an astounding 2300% more votes than the labour party but that it was able to do so without presenting a single candidate! Who are those who voted for having no representative at the senate?

If anyone was ever in doubt of the outcome of these past (s)elections, they were dispelled by Obasanjo’s do-or-die rallying cry for a PDP capture of the entire machinery of government. Yar Adua, the president-(s)elect, may as well have decided not to campaign, in today’s Nigeria, merely being the PDP flagbearer is enough to ensure “victory” at the polls. With widespread complaints of irregularities, large scale disenfranchisement, intimidation and vote rigging, it is clear this “nascent democracy” is not about the people but a certain cabal determined to retain a vicious grip on the public treasury in a country where political office may be the difference between wealth and poverty.

If as Obasanjo claims that this was a test of democracy, then it is a test that he has failed most woefully. The wishes of the people have been ridden roughshod, of course the “winners” are busy clinking champagne glasses and courting the press while the people resign themselves to another 4 years of massive looting, executive indolence and grinding poverty.

Obasanjo proudly claims that democracy is indeed alive, well and kicking; he is right, democracy in PDP terms is kicking the people’s wishes to the curb.

Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think. - Hannah Arendt

Tyranny manifests itself in several ways, in its simplest form it involves denying others the right to freedom of expression that we all assume to take for granted. It is far easier to criticize those in positions of authority while we ourselves in our little corners strive so hard to deny others the right to freely express their emotions.

In the last week, I must have been banned from nairaland at least 5 times for offences ranging from “daring" to ask why the admin chooses to refer to others as mumus, not being afraid of a ban, choosing to see things from the perspective of Virginia Tech gunman Seung Hui Cho, “stubbornly” defending men who are verbally assaulted by their women and “offtopic” posts.
While we accuse Obasanjo of using the power of incumbency to ignore court orders and entrench a dictatorial democracy, the Nairaland admin has surreptitiously assumed the authority of the “god” of the forum. From incessant and unwarranted removal of whole threads, arbitrary locking of posts, editing posts without the consent of the poster, removal of otherwise good threads some of which expose the hare-brained ideas of the admin to changing of usernames, the admin has chosen to go the way of other famous tyrants.

The once thriving forum has degenerated into a den of bored teenagers and sycophants. The praise-singer syndrome has taken over with those who criticize the admin finding themselves suddenly locked out of the forum for inexcusable reasons.
Many upstanding and intelligent members have left in disgust, many choosing not to even bother signing on to avoid the embarrassment of an over zealous college drop out who thinks the whole world of himself.
While otherwise decent threads are removed as long as they don’t fall in line with the warped ideas of the admin, sexually explicit threads are thriving. A forum that once used to be a fountain of ideas is no more than a place where children spend their time learning how to insult their mothers, write rap lines that would get the likes of Don Imus jailed for life and verbally assault each other while the admin gleefully looks on.

It would be foolish to assume a hypocritical position in claiming that Nairaland has not served as a melting pot to Nigerians both home and in the diaspora to engage in some cross-pollination of ideas, in the last 2 years it has been the one place where many have gone to reacquaint themselves with home and exchange playful banter. Interestingly as with many things Nigerian, those who build are inadvertently the same people who help to tear down.

I envisage a final and permanent ban after this post. It has been worth the while being on nairaland but as with all good things, it must come to an end one day. Perhaps Obasanjo, Abacha and Babangida were not monsters afterall, they are merely products of a society with an endemic “god” syndrome. Tyranny is not only evident at Aso Rock, in our little corners we are all guilty as charged.

"this is a lesson for all o. i think those American parents should learn a lesson or 2 from this. with the way their kids tease other people of different nationalities. i went to school abroad as well, and i can tell you that most people, even the adult students have no regard for others. if you aint speaking the language like them, or don't look like them, its hard to mix. i'm not generalizing, but its a pattern ive noticed. hence it leaves people feeling isolated from others. i think people should be taught these subtle signs and not to ignore others. no be by force, but at least make an effort to make other people feel welcome. this matter was a big issue in the school i went to. if you aint white, forget it. no-one wants to have anything to do with you, no matter how extroverted or social you are." - Soulpatrol (Nairaland)

Being a foreigner myself set me thingking... what could have made a man shoot 31 innocent people before taking his own life?

It's easy to plant flowers at memorials, write words we don't mean on tombstones and whiteboards, talk about how good people were on facebook. . . if only we did this when we each could appreciate each other perhaps such episodes could be a thiing of the past. How could a fellow not have any friends for 4 years?? Everyone is talking about him being the weird kid who never talked, some are busy posting his plays on the internet, professors are describing a disturbed kid they think they did a huge favour by sending to see a psychiatrist. Where was everyone when a simple "how did your day go" would have averted this problem?

How many times was Cho abandoned in the back of the class with everyone sniggering at that "weird asian kid who never talked"? I find it so difficult to imagine me sharing a room with another individual and him having issues that warranted psychiatric evaluation and police questioning and yet doing absolutely nothing! Only to appear on CNN after the shootings to hug the limelights as the room mates of a weirdo!!!

His family never visited and no one cared to ask why. He never went on holidays and no one bothered to invite him home even when they lived just a stone's throw from the school. He wrote scary plays and his classmates prefered to turn them into discussion points rather than reach out to someone who was clearly troubled. How many times do we push people away because they don't look like us, talk like us or think like us? How many times have we been so ignorant and selfish forgetting to help those around us who need just one person to make them feel loved and accepted? It is easy to talk about healing, fly flags at halfmast, cancel school, while pretending to honor the memories of those that died when we are merely reaping the fruits of our selfishness, rejection of others and inability to stretch a hand of fellowship.

Of course this in no way attempts to justify Cho's act but it is a reminder to us that there are thousands of other Cho's around us. They may never pick up a gun and shoot their classmates but deep inside are living a life that is empty. Luxury can never take the place of love and acceptance, if one person cared for his neighbour perhaps much more than stricter gun laws, we may be able to save someone else from going the lonely road to perdition.

I wonder what would have happened to Cho had he not carried out his act. Many of us leave college with healthy memories that would linger forever. What would Cho have left with?

"I thank the Nigerian judiciary for saving this country from a seemingly one party rule and dictatorship. The judicial pronouncement has given confidence that it is indeed the last hope for the sustainability of the nation’s nascent democracy." – Atiku Abubakar

After 47 years of failed promises, only a foolish Nigerian would ever take the words of a politician with more than a pinch of salt. In a nation where politics is a full time job more about serving the pocket than actually serving the people and political office is a free ticket out of poverty it is no wonder that political ideology has been sacrificed on the altar of greed.

In a political landscape where cross carpeting is now the norm, not one of the numerous parties jostling for power can convincingly lay claim to having a central party principle. Political debates have been reduced to a mere façade with “anointed” politicians electing to make an “unavoidable absence” rather than face the people they keep claiming to want to serve.
Campaign promises no longer go beyond the glib “continuity”, abandoned projects are hailed as “dividends of democracy” while others busy themselves with building white elephant projects that have no bearing on a people struggling to feed themselves more than once a day on less than what our politicians require to feed their dogs.

While the nation burns under the rage of teenagers fighting Allah’s battles in Gombe, rebels turning the Niger Delta into a warzone and the Taliban staging another bloody comeback in Kano, our politicians continue deceiving us with economically unfeasible promises.
A few months ago, the Inspector General of Police proudly unveiled a new set of police uniforms in another cosmetic attempt to put old wine in new bottles. It is unlikely that a new set of uniforms will suddenly take our officers off checkpoints demanding N20 and magically produce a force where “oga no paper, no bullets, no vehicles” are no longer excuses to leave the poor masses at the mercy of armed robbers.

The most interesting drama up to the run up to the presidential elections has been the supreme struggle between Baba and his deputy on who holds the reigns to the treasury come May 29, 2007. While celebrating his victory at the Supreme Court allowing him to contest the presidential elections, Atiku claimed the Judiciary had just saved Nigerians from a seemingly one party rule and dictatorship. Is this the same judiciary Atiku routinely disobeyed when the going was good? Is it the same constitution that Atiku flagrantly disregarded by remaining in office after cross carpeting to another party to fulfill his selfish political ambition thinly disguised as an attempt to save democracy?

By 10am on Monday morning ET, 33 students and professors lay dead with scores injured when a lone gunman went on a shooting spree on the campus of Virginia Tech University.
The gunman, identified as 23 year old Cho Seung-Hui from South Korea, committed suicide after the spate of unprovoked shootings that has left an entire nation revisiting the Columbine high school shooting disaster all over again. The usual blame game has begun with many wondering why the school was too slow in alerting its staff and students after the initial shooting that left 2 dead in a dormitory.

Perhaps the most important question is to wonder why there are more young people living on the edge of sanity. Why has the government refused to tighten gun control laws in a nation where buying a gun is as easy as getting a loaf of bread? The constitutional amendments that gave citizens the rights to bear arms were enacted in an age were loading a gun took more than 10 minutes. In an age where guns can be found anywhere, can we all claim to be safe in the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Once revered ivory towers have now become a safe haven for unstable individuals looking for the next innocent life to snuff out. What sort of society breeds this kind of heartless souls? Not even in third world countries do we see 23 year olds carry guns to school and slaughter innocent students for no just cause. Could it be because we are too hungry to go looking for guns?

Perhaps poor old Don Imus is somewhere nursing a beer while kicking himself for sacrificing his lifelong dream on the altar of political correctness. For merely describing the Rutgers female basketball team as a bunch of “nappy headed hos”, Imus had crossed the line, employing the sanctity of the airwaves to inadvertently expose his own inner demons of racial prejudice.

Imus’ remarks did not come without the usual hysteria. NAACP leaders “condemned” him, self styled black rights advocates in the Revs Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton once again found their voice demanding his removal from his position at the CBS, corporations withdrew adverts for his show, by the time Imus had gotten round to making his insincere apology, the tide of racial prejudice had swept him away from the airways he once ruled like a colossus for more than 20 yrs.

But for those who bother to self reflect, the Imus episode has once again revealed a new brand of racial prejudice camouflaging as political correctness. Why did Imus lose his job for a statement that is used on a daily basis by others? Why is it wrong for Imus to use a word that bombards us daily on TV shows, billboards, hiphop music and movies?
Since when did it become a sin for certain individuals to use certain words based on the color of their skin? Am I allowed to say the word “nigger” in public yet Imus must lose his job for merely repeating what I said, simply because he is white? Is it justifiable that Imus lost his job while Ludacris remains a platinum selling artist singing about hos in different area codes?

There is no justification for Imus’ behavior, but perhaps those of us crying the loudest need to take more than a cursory look at ourselves. The word’s “nappy headed hos” did not originate from Imus and his white friends. The black community invented the words, glamourised it and introduced it into mainstream use, to crucify others for merely calling us for the names we invented for ourselves is the highest form of hypocrisy.
Imus may be gone but his words remain very much with us, on our streets, in the churches and even in our homes.