Icheoku says, congratulations to the people of Thailand for a successful peoples action! At last, your rejected government of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat is no more! Kudos to your grand meeting of the mind and firmness of purpose; together your wish and desire have materialised. Be assured that every real democrat the world over, is very happy for you and may you find in your next leader, a person deserving of your trust and confidence. 
At Icheoku, we believe that a government is owned by the people and not the other way round, which explains our felicitations for what you were able to accomplish today, December 2nd, 2008 with the forced resignation of the discredited Prime Minister (pictured left) Somchai Wongsawat's government. Your week-long blockade and seige of Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International airport, was a project well orchestrated and worthy of all the effort put therein. The People's Alliance for Democracy (PDA) of Thailand showed to the world the effectiveness of a mass action and how to topple an unpopular government by the people that installed it. The over 350,000 stranded passengers brought the much needed attention to your quest and the fall of the government today, marks a new beginning for the people of Thailand. Your court of justice, the military and your police all played their patriotic roles by not allowing themselves to be tools of oppression in the hands of the government which mandate, you had since withdrawn. The court especially became the agent of speedy change by disbanding the governing party of the ousted Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, banning him from politics in the process. The nine-judge constitutional court found the People Power Party (PPP), the Machima Thipatai party and the Chart Thai party guilty of vote-buying in the last general election, in 2007.
Icheoku says it was the same year 2007 that the Peoples Democratic Party in Nigeria equally stole the election in Nigeria and imposed a sickly frail man Umaru Yar'Adua on the country as their president from his hospital sick bed in Germany. But Nigerians are still waiting, anxiously praying and hoping that their Supreme Court will muster enough courage like the Thai Constitutional Court to sack Umaru Yar'Adua and possibly disband the rogue and arrogant PDP, banning their leaders from politics for at least five years. 
The court's ruling in Thailand, following several months of PAD-led protests that crippled the political process in that country, shows that a meaningful goal-directed opposition can effect a change in the politics of a country, whose elections were as corrupt as Nigeria. If only Nigerians can wake up and smell the coffee! The name of the country is Thai-land, meaning the land of Thai people and not Somchai Wongsawat-land, hence it does not belong to the rejected Prime Minister but the Thai people! The lessons of the successful removal of the Wongsawat led Thai government is two-fold: that mass action works and that the government is owned by the people and not the other way. Hopefully, Nigerians will take note of the non-violent revolution that just took place in Thailand! 
The Thai army was ordered to quell the peoples protest but refused! The Thai police was also ordered to kill the protesters but refused leading to the removal of the police chief! It shows that the security forces of Thailand is there to protect the Thai people and not to become a tool of oppression and mayhem in the hands of the government as obtains in Nigeria! Remember the Odi and Zaki-Ibiam massacres of Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo's very repressive government when the military was ordered to kill thousands of innocent Nigerian protesters? .
The Thai people's revolution is a testament on who really owns the land - the people and not the government! In Nigeria the despots in power own the land and the Nigerian people are mere guests that can easily be dispatched at the whims of the men of power in collusion with the equally highly corrupt and blood-thirsty security agents! So, Nigerian security officials have you seen that an illegal order can be refused or disobeyed and that the protesters you are usually sent to annihilate are fellow Nigerians whom you are sworn to protect and not to kill. The Thailand People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), is a motley collection of businessmen, elites, middle-class, academics, opposition party members and royalists that were united by their
common hatred of the former leader Thaksin Shinawatra. Is there any way in hell Nigerians can become as united for their common hatred of the despicable Olusegun Obasanjo and the very insulting manner in which he imposed Umaru Yar'Adua on Nigerians, to coalesce and install a desirable government in Nigeria? Remember, the Thai people viewed the now ousted government, "elected" in December 2007, as an illegitimate Thaksin proxy! Icheoku says, this is exactly on all fours with the Nigerian situation since Umaru Yar'Adua is equally viewed as the illegitimate Olusegun Obasanjo proxy! Also could the Nigerian Supreme Court be as courageous as the Thai's constitutional court and throw away the handicapped Umaru Yar'Adua? Only time shall tell. 
It is equally note-worthy that the PAD co-leader Chamlong Srimuang, is a retired major-general who is championing the common interest of the Thai people. This is unlike in Nigeria where retired military leaders are the root-cause of most of all the troubles facing Nigerians. It gets even better to note that this retired major general led the 1992 "people power" protest against a military-led government. Thai Army chief Anupong Paochinda, a member of the military council that ousted Thaksin, insisted the army would not get involved, perhaps mindful of unrest in 1992, when soldiers opened fire on pro-democracy demonstrators, killing dozens. He added that politics must be resolved by political means! Icheoku asks, does this Thai army chief position resonate with the Nigerian military authorities to provide them with the much needed position in case of any future but unlikely non violent protest by the Nigerian people against the illegitimate Umaru Yar'Adua led PDP government? Once again, Icheoku says, congratulations for a job well done, Thailand!
Nigeria should learn from fall of Thailand govt—AC
ReplyDeleteWritten by VANGUARD
Thursday, 04 December 2008
THE Action Congress (AC) has said Nigeria has a lot to learn from the ruling by the Constitutional Court of Thailand, which brought down the government of Prime Minister, Somchai Wongsawat on Tuesday.
In a statement issued in Abuja yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said "the ruling that dissolved Thailand’s top three ruling parties for electoral fraud during the 2007 vote that brought them to power, and the five-year ban slammed on the Prime Minister and other executives of the three coalition parties, is a lesson that should not be lost on Nigeria, where electoral fraud is carried out with impunity, even as we write this statement.
“Coincidentally, the current Nigerian government is a beneficiary of a huge electoral fraud in the same year - 2007, a fraud that has also been challenged up to Nigeria’s highest court by our party, the AC.
“Therefore, as we in the AC have consistently argued, heavens will not fall if the Supreme Court should rule that the PDP Federal Government cannot benefit from the electoral fraud that characterised the 2007 polls,’’ the party said.
It also said it is necessary for the various election tribunals in the country to punish proven electoral fraud by barring the beneficiaries from participating in the re-run, unlike in the current situation in which proven master riggers are still allowed to participate in re-runs in which they even commit worse electoral fraud.
“Flush with state funds and in control of the state security agencies, these riggers now go even further to score moon slide victories in the re-runs ordered by the tribunals, meaning they are being rewarded for rigging in the first instance.
“Unless and until we punish perpetrators of election fraud to serve as a deterrent to their ilk, Nigeria may not get out of the cycle of rigging, violence and manipulations during elections," AC said.The party also said there is a lesson for democracy-loving Nigerians, as those opposed to Thailand’’s ousted government’’s mode of assuming power did not just sit back but vehemently protested until the government fell constitutionally.
Electoral fraud: Afenifere hails Thai court
ReplyDeleteKALU OKWARA
AFENIFERE Renewal Group, a socio-cultural and political organisation of Yoruba, has commended the judgment of the Thailand Court, which yesterday brought down the nation’s government on the grounds of electoral fraud.
The group said the courageous ruling of the court was auspicious, given the fact that it came at a time Nigerians were also awaiting the verdict of the Supreme Court on the suits filed by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and General Muhammadu Buhari, challenging the victory of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
"This expectation becomes more strident as an online journal Saharareporters has lately been speculating that a 5-2 victory may be awarded to the incumbent for political considerations.
"Afenifere Renewal Group holds that electoral manipulation has assumed a frightening proportion in Nigeria because at the critical moments of our history, the judiciary has always bent the law to suit political expediency.
"But we must not as a nation place all the responsibility for the validation of the will of the people on the courts alone. The awakened electorate in Thailand who have sustained their rejection of electoral fraud which was capped with a week-long shut down of the country’s two main airports, are the greatest heroes of this earth-shaking development. For the Nigerian electorate, it is time to also get up from their slumber.
"Afenfiere Renewal Group commends the Thai protesters and their country’s judiciary for this great contribution to democracy worldwide as we commend it as a manual for all peoples who want their votes to count," read the statement.
A statement issued by the National Publicity Secretary of the Group, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, prayed that Nigerian Supreme Court Judges would find the same courage in giving their judgment on the case before them without yielding to any sort of pressure.
The Thai court yesterday dissolved the country’s top three ruling parties for electoral fraud and temporarily banned the Prime Minister from politics bringing down a government that has been enmeshed in crisis following months of protests against its tainted victory.