A Wish

Posted By Tazoacha Asonganyi



Motions, Calls and The People



Political discourse is like advertising. Both are meant to have an
effect on people. For both, the first effort is to get the attention
of the audience; the next crucial one is to get the idea across.



The political discourse in town is the divisive issue of the next
presidential election. Somehow, the CPDM has used motions and calls
about the next presidential election to force the more unifying war
effort against Boko Haram to the backwoods!



Their first step was to surprise us at a most unexpected time by
presenting the next presidential election supposed to be held in
October 2018 as an urgent matter. Bizarrely, they were clamouring to
"beg" their natural candidate to accept to be a candidate! When they
were sure that we were all attentive, they put the joker on the table
– they called for the the election to be anticipated!



They themselves say that it is their "democratic" right to behave this
way. Fair enough for the "democratic" environment that their policy of
one strongman with extremely weak institutions has foisted on all of
us. It has permitted that their desire can become the rational and the
irrational can become their desire.



Whatever the case, election is the single most important issue that
unites the people with its leadership. Curiously, the CPDM takes it
seriously only in the effort its leadership makes to detach the people
from the outcome of the electoral process.



The dialectics of the responses of some opposition actors to the
"calls" is likely to contribute to this uncoupling effort of the CPDM.
Some are engaged in Orwellian doublespeak - saying that there will be
war if the election is anticipated,but preparing for the election all
the same, as if the "war" will be prosecuted by some outsiders. Others
are calling for the revision of the electoral process as if it is a
stand-alone problem, not part of the problem of the whole failed
system.



And yet others are calling on the actual initiator of the "calls" not
to accept the calls. In this, they forget the saying that in politics
it is irrational to follow the wishes of your enemies. In politics,
you cannot easily make an opponent to change an idea; the more you
encourage them to do so, the more you stiffen their resolve to do it!



In the cacophony, the bottom line is the unpredictability of politics
– the effect of unknowns. But it is no excuse for those who want to
ride two horses at once! Since pity is said to be a kind of affection,
we can actually pity some of us! There is no need for duplicity and
hypocrisy, or for touting a public persona that is very different from
the private self. There is a point beyond which people with deeply
felt convictions in politics cannot be dragooned, so there is no need
to give the impression that strong willed persons are being dragged in
by the weak. Whatever you accept to do in politics, it is all your
choice!



Everybody is saying that soon the bandwagon will lay its case at the
feet of parliament. Every schoolboy knows that that is where the
cacophony will end up. Who does not know that parliament has become
not an effective but a dignified element of the political chessboard?
Who does not see government ministers giving long and empty replies to
questions in parliament, that avoid the questions; giving brief and
inadequate responses in the confidence that there can be no follow-up
questions? And parliament enjoys it, like we all do!



So, sure enough, the bandwagon is heading to parliament. Like in 2008,
this other one will have its way, and all the bluffs floating around
will be called by the fact.



Some CPDM people are begging their hero even more frantically not to
say "No". They say such an answer would cause the "house" to collapse
on itself because of the feuding factions in the house. In other
words, they are engaged in the folly of solving a problem by shifting
it forward so that the factions can sharpen their weapons and
strategies and prepare for a bigger fight ahead. Or maybe some serious
God-sent kaleidoscope may just shake the glass pieces into another
pattern that will avoid conflict and disorder?



Time has a way of solving apparently complex problems. Invariably,
people with a sense of indispensability always end up humiliated when
such indispensability is entirely dissipated by the timelessness of
the life of the nation, and the emergence of new leadership that leads
differently and much, much better.



My advice is that those inhabited by fear should shed the politics of
make-believe, and embrace the only effective political vaccine against
fear – the people.



Tazoacha Asonganyi

Yaounde.

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