In the year 1789, revolution occurred in France, not because the people desired it or called for it. Revolution occurred in France because the country’s political leadership was divorced from the political and economic realities of the time, which had impinged on the people the necessity for change. When it came, it was spontenous and everything was turned upside down – the people took over political leadership, the French monarchy was abolished, and the king executed.
Before the revolution, France had been experiencing serious political and economic difficulties. The cost of government was increasing rapidly and the cost of wars could not be met from the usual sources of revenue. The various means by which the king could properly raise taxes had already been exhausted and the country was heavily burdened.
Apart from that, French traditional legal and political structure gave special privileges to the two classes most divorved in outlook and interests from the peasantry and the middle class, that is, the higher clergy and the nobility. Numbering about half a million in a population of between 24 and 25 million people, political and economic power was therefore concentrated in very few hands.
In the face of that difficult and uncertain situation, the French king, Louis XVI, in a bid to continue to hang on to power, made a very costly mistake by convening the Estates Genera (parliament) to find solution to those problems. This was what let the cat out of the bag and brought to the open, the deep-rooted grievances of the suffering masses.
By confronting the representatives of the privileged order – the First and the Second Estates of the higher clergy and the nobility, with the representatives of the unprivileged order – the Third Estate of the middle class and the peasantry, through the Estates General, the King precipitated action which threw France, nay the whole of Europe into turmoil and revolution.
It was therefore not difficult for the exercise to be highjacked through the brilliant argument of that indefatigable constitution monger, Abbé Sieyes, who in a pamphlet widely circulated to members of the Estates General, posed the crucial question: ” What is the Third Estate? ” His answer was that it was nearly everybody, yet, it counted for nothing; that it was identical with the nation, yet, excluded from the government of the nation.
That was how the revolution began. Louis XVI was dethroned and executed for high treason. The monarchy was abolished and France became a republic. The revolution spread to other parts of Europe.
When some people are junketing through the length and breadth of the country, holding mega and minor rallies here and there, and asking the President to declare for 2019, they seem not to appreciate the mood of the nation, and appear to be insensitive to the plight of millions of Nigerians.
No Nigerian in his true conscience will agree that he had had it so well these two and half years. Is it in term of the high exchange of the Naira, that snowballed into high cost of almost every essential item, or is it in terms of nonpayment of salaries to civil servants, loss of millions of jobs, youth unemployment, etc?
They keep telling us that PDP was responsible for all these problems. We are tired of blame games. We elected them to correct these problems created by PDP. If they are unable to do this, let them hide their face in shame. You cannot be talking about 2019 when you cannot manage 2015.
Nobody is begrudging our President the right to seek reelection. It is his constitional right. In going about this, however, the APC should respect the sensibility of Nigerians. How on earth will APC be holding a mega rally when 73 people killed by Fulani herdsmen were being buried in Benue State? That was insensitivity of the highest order.
When our President’s son had a motorcycle accident, they told us to pray for him. We prayed and he recovered. Many people were attacked and killed by Fulani herdsmen in Benue, Taraba and Adamawa states, nobody had asked us to pray. That’s double standard.
The seven governors who went to Abuja to urge the President to come out for second term in 2019, did it for their own selfish interests. Six of the seven governors are first timers seeking reelection, while the remaining one is serving out his second term and now seeking to retire to the Senate. They all want to climb on the back of Buhari to actualise their ambitions.
“The” big French Revolution started with the storming of the Bastille (July 14, 1789) ; after two years, the attempt to build a constitutional monarchy (like in England) failed, due …
