By Stanford Arinze Nwokedi
Constitutional democracy allows for varieties of political persuasions and ideologies. These persuasions and ideologies come in the forms of different Political Parties. The plurality of these Political Parties in our style of multiple party system should be seen as a benefit, as it allows the people the room to choose based on ideological valencies and suitability of the different party manifestos. This beautifies the very essence of democracy and emboldens the people’s constitutional freedoms of franchise and associations.
However, per time, despite the multiplicity of the Political Parties that contest for the executive and legislative offices in elections in a State such as Imo State, one of the many Political Parties succeeds in forming the Government while a combination of the parties may sail through in the legislative offices for the different State Constituencies in the State House of Assembly.
The Government so formed after elections is meant to provide governance to the generality of the people and by that steer the ship of the State to guarantee the provision of basic welfare and security needs of the people, without political party biases.
The foregoing presupposes that there shall be Opposition Political Parties who are themselves as important when well disposed as the successful Political Party heading and occupying political offices in the whole democratic enterprise. The opposition is so very important to democracy that their individual and or collective vigilances help to moderate, standardize, ensure and engender responsibility, responsiveness and humanity in the leadership of the Political Party in power.
These Opposition Parties strive to partner with the Party in power, shadowing its activities and constructively contributing their civic quotas in Government policy appraisals and implementations. By being constructive in their criticisms of Government policies and activities, the Opposition Parties use their Platforms to ensure that the best interests of the people are usually projected and protected.
Weighed against the facts elucidated above, it becomes worrisome that, today in Imo State, Opposition Political Parties no longer see themselves as partners in governance with the Party in power but rather outright political enemies. Today, so sadly, Opposition Political Parties deliberately orchestrate dicey socio-political issues including but not limited to insecurity and other contrivances that retard social development and harmonious coexistence. These become antithetical of the real import, relevance and pliability of Opposition Politics in a fledging democracy. Today’s Imo Opposition elements openly support lawlessness just to torpedo the incumbent Government and or to score cheap political goals.
It becomes expedient that the consciences of today’s Opposition Community be interrogated. Suffice it to state that the revalidation of the thematic relevance of being in Opposition can not and should not involve deliberate antics, ploys and as it has been in Imo State lately, unholy alliances with the underworld elements just to infer that the Government in power does not mean well for the people. It becomes unconscionable of such antics to note that the real victims of the insecurity are the same Imo citizens whom the opposition Parties aspire to lead one time or the other in the future.
It is necessary that all parties in our fledging democracy should therefore close ranks and partner as legally permissible even in the few differences that manifest in political ideologies and leanings. Good enough, the incumbent APC Government under the leadership of His Excellency, Dist Sen Hope Uzodimma is evidently accommodating to all other shades of political party sensibilities.
Imo State is our only State. We must now rally round ourselves to salvage whatever these desperations have inflicted on us all as a society. We must bequeath a greater Imo State in line with the extant Government mantra of Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Recovery.
Only then shall the labours of our heroes past not be in vain.
● Stanford Arinze Nwokedi is the Senior
Special Assistant To Governor Hope Uzodimma on Public Enlightenment