THE Head Pastor of the Household of God Church, Revd Chris Okotie, says he plans to introduce aboriginal democracy if given the opportunity to run an interim government.
Okotie stated this in an interview with Punch.
“What I have done is to speak to the candidates first because they are patriots and they understand the realities that confront Nigerians at this time. I have asked them to temporise and maintain a hiatus so we can transition into an interim government. What I have done is to galvanise the Nigerian people into a conversation that would lead to this transition. At the end of this conversation, I intend to collate all the information and send as a transcript to the President and National Assembly. I know they recognise that we are sitting on a time bomb more or less and we must do something fast,” he said.
“I haven’t met with them personally because I just began to speak publicly on the subject and I believe their people would have communicated my position to them. In time, I would probably meet with them as opportunity presents itself. I’m persuaded that these are great men and are patriots. I am hoping that the nationalistic sentiments they have whipped and communicated during their campaign before getting the ticket would now supersede their personal ambition.
“The first thing I’m doing is to communicate the concept of governance that I’m proposing. I call it aboriginal democracy. Within that concept, we don’t require a National Assembly. This tripartite system of government we borrowed from the United States is an affront to our cultural sensibilities. Our political conscience has not been developed to a point where we can apprehend that system of governance. That is why it has become inimical to the survival of our country. It has polarised our people, balkanised our society and demoralised the entire nation. The first thing I’m proposing is that we don’t need a National Assembly because we have established associations within the polity that are being duplicated by the various committees in the National Assembly. There are about 57 standing committees in the Senate and 89 in the House of Representatives.
“I’m saying these committees are conterminous with the associations, so if we give the professional associations the capacity to make laws, they will replace the legislature, and they will be volunteers so they won’t need to be paid. Take for instance, the Nigerian Bar Association was established in 1933; the Nigeria Union of Teachers in 1931; the Nigerian Medical Association in 1951 and the Academic Staff Union of Universities in 1978. Some of these predate the present political parties and there is a natural evolution within those associations, which I call gregarious socialisation. They have ties of professional consanguinity and they establish a nexus by way of enterprise and endeavour. So, they have been in the system and so you don’t need to replicate that in the National Assembly”.
