What is Sauce for the Goose is Sauce for the Gander

The point of departure in this article is that, by accident or design, by omission or commission, competent and capable persons within the thirty-seven different civil services in the Nigerian federation, including the Academia and other parastatals funded from the budget are excluded and barred from playing active role within the nation’s political arena. Conscious of the importance of the mass media in mass enlightenment, and realizing the fact that mass enlightenment is an inevitable weapon for the destruction of old myth, old and new ways and forms of oppression, and the opening of new avenues to progress and development, I decided to commit my pen to paper with a view to seek for the redress of this gross unfairness to the Nigerian labor force.

In representative democracies like ours, citizens elect people to serve in legislative and executive positions. These representatives, invested with the confidence of their constituencies, then try to convey the interest and desires of these constituencies by participating in governmental processes. Indeed, section 40 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 clearly states that: Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and in particular he may form or belong to any political party, trade union or any other association for the protection of his interest (emphasis mine). The interest of the Nigerian civil servant has always been at stake, indeed now, with the Federal government’s intention to retrench 33,000 workers within the Federal civil service alone.

The whole foundation of the political system in a democracy is the equality of rights and equal opportunity for all, under free constitution and equal laws. In the words of the Honorable Justice Chukwudifu Oputa “Freedom to vote or rather the right to vote and the corresponding right to be voted for, are the essential props of modern democracy’. And, I will add, a modern democracy like ours.

It is unfair! It is simply not fair. The Nigerian civil servant is the only one that is required to forfeit his means of livelihood to contest for a political office. The unemployed is not required to be employed to contest for an office. The businessman, the contractor, the petty trader, and all those in between are not expected to stop businessing, contracting, petty trading etc to run for a political office; only the civil servant. This absurdity is absolute, in a country where presidents, governors and other elected public office holders recontest while still in office! One may ask: who is better more qualified to be a public servant other than a civil servant? There is no gainsaying that in Nigeria today, it is only the civil servant alongside his cousins in the Police, Military, and the Paramilitary outfits that are faithful and consistent taxpayers. And, payment of tax, as any school boy knows, is a hallmark of good citizenship. So, why deny a good citizen a go at political offices?

Perhaps it can be said that everything done was deliberate and in execution of a diabolical plan to lockout strong and promising political materials with a view towards entrenching sycophancy and bootlicking, which indeed, fostered corruption and inhibits public’s ability to freely and effectively judge issues and candidates.

It is very true that unequal justice is outright injustice, as it is also very true that treating equals unequally is unjust. Again, as noted by Justice Oputa: Equal opportunity is the cornerstone on which to build a genuine democracy. Freedom, Equality and Justice are thus, basic ingredients of democracy. Talking about freedom, Thomas Hill Green (1836-1882) drew distinction between the Letter of Freedom and the Spirit of freedom, distinction between negative Freedom and positive Freedom. He postulated in his essay on Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract that freedom which is the chief end in citizenship, does not consist in the absence of restraint, but in “a positive power or capacity of doing or enjoying something worth doing or enjoying”.

To this end, we are advocating for a provision to the effect that, a civil servant is free to contest for any political office into which he is qualified, and he shall be entitle to return to the Service, federal/state/local government, when he lost in the election or when his tenure in the political office he was elected expired. After all, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

In this current dispensation, our present political class is not the solution to our problem; the present political class is the problem. Politics must be transformed from its present state of bitter personal wrangles into a healthy game of political argument and discussions_ apologies to the late General Murtala Muhammed. The Nigerian civil servants can add, in no small measure, colour into the Nigerian political arena as electioneering campaigns will certainly be based on skillful debating of issues rather skillful election riggings, political thuggery and Ghana-Must-Go politics. “Politics,” declared French President De Gaulle (1890-1970) “is too serious a matter to be left to politicians”… alone.