«Rachidi Gbadamassi: Okay and, but what next? »

As one of the most prominent opposition members, MP Rachidi Gbadamassi and his defection from G13 Alliance, made public by himself at a press conference on Tuesday, April 21, 2009 in Parakou, have still been dominating the local news, the well-known columnist, historian and journalism Jérôme Carlos in his chronicle on Friday, April 24, 2009 made analysis on the event. Here is what he had to say:

Source: Jérôme Carlos’ chronicle on April 24, 2009
Translated by Alfred Cossi Chodaton

«It should not be handled thoughtlessly the Rachidi Gbadamassi case. While we should be quick to acknowledge that, apart from the stature of the man who is a heavyweight category, literally and figuratively, his case is nothing extraordinary. This is not the first time the national political realm has recorded cases of defection. A tradition, over the years, has been established. Image rather frequent and familiar of people who turn the other way round, burn surprising with aplomb what they have worked hard so far to defend and worship. What is ordinary no longer surprises, no longer shocks. This behavior in politics, at least, deviant with regard to morality and ethics, we tolerate it, we encourage it by our indifference, our silence or our complacency. Why to make all this fuss about Rachidi Gbadamassi’s transfer to the green pastures of the Emergence? Where were we and what did we have to say while others lined up, queuing on the same path?
Considering this, it is not quite fair to blame Rachidi Gbadamassi for things on which we had to close our eyes, things about which we had kept quiet, things in which we had to play our tacit complicity if not our kind collaboration.

And then, even though Rachidi Gbadamassi here is the main play actor of this bad movie, the star who made headlines in all newspapers, he could not have taken a camera to go and shoot himself all alone, in a role that he would have given to himself alone, in a scenario that he would have written all of his hand, alone. Rachidi Gbadamassi is a pawn in a game, in relation to other pieces. So let us not push our hypocrisy not see beyond Rachidi Gbadamassi. Guilty, he would not be more than the others would. Forgivable, it would not be less than others would. All sides involved in this game are guilty, according to the universal principle that “birds of a feather flock together.”

Even if we lack formal proof, we can assume it is all about bountiful cash, in this dark transaction. The figures in this regard are to give the vertigo. They certainly have given headaches to all our technical and financial partners, surprised that the poor, they help spend as much in the casino of political games rather than in development.

In any case, it would not be the first time, in Benin, money has been solicited and pumped as a super fuel to start the engine of politics. It would not be the first time that money has been called to irrigate the avid land of politics and serve as fertilizer to our entire political prowess. Since the advent of the democratic era in 1991 until now, the politics in our country has been the history of almost two decades of money given out to bribe the consciences, to swindle votes, to distort the electoral results. Whoever can deny this, may throw us the first stone.

Nevertheless, when we become aware of these deviations, which are tarnishing outrageously politics in our country, we will have to change very quickly. Because we should urgently be concerned about the example that our great actors give of themselves to our compatriots, the image that they show about themselves and that is retained in the people’s consciousness; about the legacy that the seniors pass to the juniors.

If we cannot envision ourselves in such a perspective, we never will be able to form a nation that finds on the path of its historical evolution landmarks that build, references that build. If there are no ideals that help us surpass ourselves, or values that lift us up above our individual and selfish circumstances, we will never be a people. We will remain a population, otherwise a mass of individuals without identity, therefore without vision or common destination.

And then, is it not time to put money back to its right place, the one of horse ridden by the knight who can give it orders, who knows how to direct it, orient it , bend it to his will. Because at the pace things are going, we are sacrificing everything to money in a desert of values. Prostitution is pushed to its extreme limit. With men who forge a destiny of goods or men who are assigned a market value after they are listed on the Stock Exchange of all denials and all betrayals.

Finally, we must deepen the historical consciousness of our present actors. They cannot and should not look less like the architects of the future. With the need to seize all the force of the truth, which the idea of Frantz Fanon holds: “Each generation must, in relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.”»