Politicians and the National Pledge

I pledge to Nigeria my country
To be faithful, loyal and honest
To serve Nigeria with all my strength
To defend her unity
and uphold her honour and glory
So help me God.

I don’t know if school children still recite the National Pledge, but in our days in primary and secondary school, we did it every morning during the assemblies.An analysis of our National Pledge reveals that it is carefully worded to evoke patriotism. Those who crafted the words, indeed, sought to make us to have a sense of duty and commitment to our fatherland. Perhaps, those who came up with the idea of reciting the National Pledge at schools did so to inculcate patriotism in Nigerians from a infancy.

Thus, many of our politicians must have recited the National Pledge when they were pupils or students. Even the old breed politicians, who might not have recited the National Pledge during their school days, must have recited it later in one political forum or the other. In other words, our politicians must have at some point pledged to be ‘faithful, loyal and honest’ and to serve the country with all their strength. But are they in any way fulfilling that pledge? A pledge is like a vow, and to Christians, a vow is sacred. I believe this is also true in other religions.

The Bible makes it clear in Ecclesiastes 5:5 that, “It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfil it.” God, according to the Bible, does not take such act lightly. I have also heard stories of Amadioha (in the case of African Traditional Religion) venting its anger on those who made vows to it and failed to fulfil them. Our society is a very religious one. I do not think that we have many atheists. If my assumption is correct, it means that most of our politicians are either Christians or Moslems or devotees of the ATR. If this is the case, then, they know the consequences of not fulfilling vows. One should, therefore, expect that after vowing to be faithful, loyal and honest, our politicians will avoid telling untruths. But we have politicians who have made dishonesty their second nature.

A former governor of Imo State once claimed he completed 1000 projects in 1000 days. His publicists put up advertisements in the media to trumpet the ‘achievement.’ But after seeing that a road in a local government area close to mine was included in the 1000 projects, I called a friend from the LGA to verify the authenticity of the claim, and to my surprise, the only work done on the road, according to the guy was the cutting down of a huge tree at a market in the beginning of the road. At the same period, too, a former governor of Enugu State was busy bandying his ‘achievements’ in the media. One of those achievements was a ‘tunnel.’ But my friend who lives in Enugu told me then that what was being celebrated then was far from being a tunnel but a big culvert.

Some years ago, too, a former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, once berated a former governor of Ekiti State for using a poultry farm to defraud the people of the state. The ‘multi-million naira ultra modern’ poultry farm, which the state government claimed had become operational, was among the projects Obasanjo was to inaugurate during a visit to the state. But ‘Baba,’ a veteran poultry farmer, was stunned when he couldn’t perceive the stench of chicken droppings at the farm. He remarked that that must be the only poultry farm in the world where chicken droppings didn’t stink. It was later learnt that the then governor had ‘arranged’ some day-old chicks the previous night for the inauguration.

Some time back, President Goodluck Jonathan visited Imo State and ‘commissioned’ the newly ‘dualised’ Orlu and Okigwe roads in the state capital, Owerri. Now, these are roads yours truly is very familiar with. The last time I visited Owerri, I noticed that medians were being erected on the roads but I never noticed any expansion work going on. And so when I learnt that the President had ‘commissioned’ the ‘dualised’ roads, I called my friend who resides in the city to know the true position. I was surprised when he told me that what the Imo State government referred to as ‘dualisation’ was actually ‘demarcation’. “The roads were demarcated and not ‘dualised,’” my friend told me.

What of our lawmakers? We all know that they are given millions of naira for constituency projects. But most of the times, the projects become personal projects as the money is used to erect palatial mansions for themselves in their countryhomes, and if they are kind enough, they just drill a borehole in the village square and put a signpost there with the inscription: ‘Constituency Project for Senator Uche Oluwaseyi Usman, Senator representing Otumokpo West Senatorial District.’

What do we do to such unfaithful, disloyal and dishonest politicians that have neglected their national vows?