The British Queen’s death , after 70 year’s on the throne , the smooth , seamless , ascension , and succession to the monarchy by her son as King Charles III , has left the world dazed by the pomp and pageantry of her transition and left other nations wondering at what a commentator called ‘ the dignity of silence ‘ at her mourning , especially at Edinburgh , Scotland . Technology brought the funeral to our various homes globally , and made us watchers at least , if not outright mourners like the miles’ long queue of morose somber people , who thronged to watch her funeral as she laid in state preparatory to her burial on September 19 . To me however , it is an opportunity look at the concept of democracy which she presided over for 70 years in the UK and draw a comparison with democracies without monarchies like France which killed its aristocracy and elites in the French Revolution of 1789 , Russia which killed its Czar or king in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and Nigeria which the British made a nation by force , selfish and blind administrative convenience in the amalgamation of the North and South of Nigeria in 1914 . Of course this is an excursion into history and the road map or evolution of the political culture at work in the nations mentioned and hope fully we should learn why the British loved their nations so much and gave rise to the well known political cliché that says ‘ with the Queen in Buckingham Palace every Briton sleeps well on his bed ‘‘ Which should be the same even now that the UK has a king . After all , the old and long awaited saying that ‘ the Queen is dead , long live the King ‘ has been consummated so majestically before our eyes in the making of King Charles 111 , the old , , , but overly prepared , very long king – in- the making , and now the oldest king in history to ascend to the British throne .
Before dealing with today’s let topic however , me briefly congratulate my club , the Yoruba Tennis Club which turned 96 on September 15 2023 , as it was founded on that day in 1926 . The anniversary called ‘ 95 plus I ‘ was celebrated in grand style , led by the Club’s Chairman Chief Jide Damazio , the Onigege Wura of Lagos and former Secretary of Lagos titled Chiefs . A lecture on social clubs and social cohesion was given on September 15 by the Vice Presidential candidate of the APC Senator Kashim Shetima Mustapha , who I christened KSM during the question and answer session . It was a well delivered lecture and of course a master politician and genius at his trade was at work in marketing the Muslim Muslim ticket . In addition, he tackled the two questions asked him brilliantly and effectively . A retired judge and YTC member Milord Suyi Olateru Olagbegi asked why the APC had not delivered in two terms , the restructuring it promised in its campaign and manifesto . Senator KSM promised to deliver on that if elected in 2023 with the Jagaban as president .Incidentally His Lordship’s father was one of Nigeria’s traditional rulers who received the now deceased Queen Elizabeth’s 11 when she visited Nigeria in 1956 . I asked why Nigerians are being subjected to the exploitation of political colonialism by Nigerian politicians now that we have been independent since 1960 . He replied brilliantly that the issue is one of leadership and it is up to Nigerians to wisely elect people like him and the Jagaban to the presidency in the 2023 presidential election to get the right leadership to stop exploitation of Nigerians by politicians .I agree totally with that and wish the APC Muslim Muslim ticket a grand success on that score in the coming 2023 presidential elections .
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Now , let us go back to the topic of the day .Most Nigerians of my age are products of British colonialism and hold the British Royal family in high esteem which is what you can call colonial mentality . It does not however make us inferior to the Britons and indeed I would say that many Nigerians in all walks of life are better educated than the average Briton . Our problem in making our environment safe and beneficial like the British is our lack of honest leadership . Again I hold the British responsible in terms of the extravagant and crude amalgamation of 1914 . I would however not wish that the Queen should ‘ die in excruciating pain’ like a female Nigerian professor based in the US did on the Internet because Britain supported Biafra in the Nigerian civil war . In addition I hold the military and its intervention in the Nigerian politics and democracy responsible for turning Nigeria from the well known path of Parliamentary democracy to the American presidential system which is a winner takes all that concentrates too much power in the executive , in its system of checks and balances .Britain still practices its parliamentary democracy even with its monarchical constitution and the PM governs while the monarchy rules . Parliament however is supreme and the PM governs as Liz Truss promised to do , as a conservative . The British cabinet system makes the PM only primus inter pares in the cabinet .That explains why Boris Johnson can retreat to the back benches in Parliament and wait to be called up to power later like his hero Winston Churchill once did , only to be called up again to be the UK’s most successful war PM in the Second World War from 1939 to 1945 . To me Parliamentary democracy offers better chances for equity , accountability , leadership integrity and transparency than the presidential system which is expensive , exploitative and repressive as a democracy and is the bane of our democracy as it is today . It has made our democracy not only a journey too far but a futile and unending perennial ‘work in progress’ .
With regard to France and its Revolution of 1789 , it is obvious that when Republican France is compared with the British monarchy , France looks like an orphan . The French Revolution killed kings and princes of France but Napoleon Bonaparte created his own dynastic monarchy almost immediately and France has been longing for royal splendor since . That explains why the tenure of its presidency was once seven years a term till it was reduced to two , five – year terms recently . The French Palaces of the sun kings of France are still there without their landlords and are now occupied by elected democrats but the French remember them with nostalgia. Especially with the long reign of the now dead British Queen and her succession by her son as king . Certainly , history has taught the French , with the evolution of their brand of democracy a harsh lesson , that you can not eat your cake historically , and still have it .
On Russia , it is a pity that the nation which used to be the USSR after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 has invaded Ukraine which the invader Putin insists is an integral part of Russia . If the USSR had not disintegrated under Gorbachev in 1991 into its 15 component states , one could have called the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine an implosion . But now it is a Russian explosion that has unwittingly united western Europe against a common enemy that Russia under Putin has become to the EU . This is with Russia using oil as a war weapon against an EU that seeks to castrate Russia with economic sanctions . More dangerously for the west led by the US , the Americans are sponsoring Ukraine with billions of funds while claiming not to be at war with Russia . It is a western illusion that the Russian leader will never accommodate or condone . Ukraine has a brave leader in the mould of Boris Johnson’s war hero Winston Churchill . But Putin is not Hitler and the theater of war is in the heart of Europe not in far places like Alamein or Egypt . The drums of the third world war are waiting to be sounded sooner than later on the shores of the world’s most economically advanced continent . The omens are dire , indeed .