It is becoming obvious that we have turned our leaders into wild animals to devour us. When some people state that; ‘the buck stops at the desk of the President,’ It is assumed that either they meant the phrase popularized by the former US President, Harry S. Truman, which referred to the notion that the President has to make the decision and accept the ultimate responsibility for such decisions or to mean what many assumed it to mean in the Nigerian context that every approval comes from the President and he takes all final decisions in every government policy at every level. While the earlier is a responsibility of a leader, the latter is a sign of dictatorship. As a result of this, Nigerian Presidents, Governors and political leaders have been turned into dictators and terrors.
How can enormous power and total freedom be arrogated to a single individual unchecked and such person is expected not to be arrogant, selfish, lawless and greedy? According to our own definition of the buck stopping at the President’s desk, the President single handedly and personally appoints all serving officers, decides on their control, and unilaterally takes final decisions and responsibility of the consequence of their actions. This relegates processes and procedures of various appointments to the background.
Arrogating this kind of power to single individuals has created out of them uncontrollable dictators. It has made our Presidents and Governors seem all knowing, all seeing and all powerful. In this case, there has not been any checks and balances thus creating utter greed and lawlessness. This is why after every election, the winners shared positions according to political party lines, religion, ethnic group and personal affiliations. The beneficiaries use the opportunity to extort, exploit and steal from the common fund without control.
This gave rise to selfish interest instead of collective responsibility. People fight for selfish gains instead of public interests. The states became retarded instead of progressive. As soon as this vice was established at the federal level, it watered
down to the states, local government and to every segment of the society. The activities of the leaders are no longer monitored, measured and assessed. Such leaders take laws into their hands after they were elected into power and distribute the common wealth according to their personal desires as if such wealth personally belong to them.
They use state resources for personal interests such as contesting for electoral offices, building personal businesses and acquiring personal property as well as extravagant spending without due process and approval. This had led to wanton lawlessness, greed and massive corruption and insensitivity to the plight of the common man.
Nigerians need more political reorientation to enable many to understand how democracy should be operated. For now, what can be seen is utter dictatorship. And it seems that many people have come to tolerate this while waiting for their own turn to inflict further pains by voting in their own people. The Presidents and Governors have effectively used the situation to pay the people in their own coins.
