There is never a best time to speak
Over the past three years or so, I have come to learn two important lessons about the Nigeria brand of politics. The first is that while many follow leaders out of sincerity and conviction, many others (if not most) follow because of some reasons, such as ethnic, religious or beneficial sentiments.
The second lesson is that virtually every person I know believes that his/ her Party or his/her candidate will win election not out of any popular support or empirical basis, but simply because he or she supports that candidate. We also tend to feel that once we support a person, that person does no wrong, so everybody must support him. Who ever does not show sympathy for and support that person must be a bad person and a traitor. Out of hypocracy, everybody believes that his candidate must win or the election was rigged. These may be the reasons why people resort to violence when their candidates lose, an ungodly behaviour.
Another common feature of our politics is that instead of trying to convince political opponents, or even the general populace to our cause through logical arguments and healthy debates on issues, more often than not, we tend to prefer threats, intimidation and, at times, sheer blackmail. Our own candidate is always right and anyone that holds contrary view is uninformed and a hypocrite! We claim to love democracy and to be democrats, but in the same breath we abhor any dissenting voice or views contrary to our own. In short, we tend to ignore that famous saying of Abraham Lincoln, that:: “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, it is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
I am saying all these against the backdrop of what is going on in our national political arena. On the one hand, we have an opposition party that seems to have lost its bearing since it lost power in 2015. Instead of going back to the drawing board to reflect and seek to find out why it lost power and then draw up strategies on what it needs to do, and would have to do, if it were to regain that power back, it is embroiled in deep rooted and substantially self inflicted crisis. And from all indications, there is no individual or group, within or outside the party, that is strong or reputable enough to sort things out. No member of its Founding Fathers nor any of those how benefitted from the party is ready or even willing to be its benefactor. Of course, some of them pretend to want to sort things out, but end up worsening matters. How sad and unfortunate.
On the other hand, we have a government that was brought to power with hopes and high expectations. The general feeling of the people immediately after the 2015 elections was that by now things would have changed, or at least would have started to change for the better. As it were, the national spirit is already dampened. Granted that when the new government took over, it found out that things were much worse than was expected. Also granted that the depression in the international economy, particularly the drastic fall in the price of oil which is the main foreign exchange earner to our economy, did not help matters. Nonetheless, the expectation was that with the charisma of the new leadership, especially the persona of the new President, coupled with the tremendous support and goodwill of the people, nothing was in the way of turning the country round for the better. Alas, that has not so far been the case. Instead of seeing the positive change they voted for, all they hear is how badly the previous administration had mismanaged the country instead of what and what need to be done to put things right. The so called ‘blame game”. What has really gone wrong?
We all know and accept that the dominant force in the administration is the President. He has a very strong will for power, but not in the banal sense. That is to say, his quest for power is definitely not for any personal advantage. In that respect he is definitely above reproach. His love for power is in the sense of wanting the ability and the locus standi to enforce what he believes to be right, especially in the management of public trust. He has the reputation and the ruthlessness to pursue his well known goal of seeking to change the country for the better. He tried to do this in the past as a military Head of State. This time round, he came to power on the basis of an agenda which gave emphasis to the curbing of the perennial menace of corruption in the country; the problem of national insecurity; and the devastating issue of national economic degradation.
It is a well known and an acceptable fact that no leader can succeed in reforming a country, nor even any enterprise for that matter, without having three important qualities: First, he must have the resolve and be ruthless in the pursuit of the goals he feels right. Then, he must have the ability and the resolve to turn his back to wordly things and the quest for personal wealth. The third issue is he must have the ability to assemble a good team to work with and the foresight to evaluate the possible outcomes and consequences of whatever actions he takes.
Let us now evaluate the leadership of this administration against these three point criteria I have set out above. As I effective leadership and see how it has fared in each of them. The first thing even its worst enemies must conceed to is that the leadership has the resolve and ruthlessness to see through whatever policies and goals it sets for itself, without bothering about whose oxe may be gored. It has The salvation of the nation may lie in the real patriotic Nigerian from both the ruling and the main opposition party coming together to form a new vehicle that will imbibe all the prerequisites of real democracy and the capable hands to assist a leader in steering the ship of the Nigerian State shown this, for example, in the way and manner it has implemented some previously unacceptable policies, such as the removal of petroleum subsidy (?), and the manner in which it has curbed insecurity and is fighting corruption. So we tick the first criterion. In respect of the second critirion, even the worst enemy of the leadership will accept that the lust for worldly things is never its weakness, nor any part of its agenda. No one has ever accused the leader of being self serving in whatever he does. And I strongly doubt that he will ever do that. So here too, we give a tick. It is when we come to the third criterion, that is to say, the ability to assemble a good and formidable team to work with, and the ability to forsee all possible outcomes or consequences of actions and policies that we seem to have a problem. Why do I say this?
In the first place, Nigeria is a country very well blessed with abundant manpower. You name any expertise, and the country has it. In spite of this, the country has come to have a management team that is variously labelled as being mediocre, uninspiring and uncoordinated. I am not the one saying this, but I am only quoting what even those closest to the administration have been saying. So there must be an element of truth in it. There is then the problem of actions being taken and policies implemented without due regard to the short-term, medium-term and longterm impact and effects on the populace. Perhaps, if such considerations had been given due regard, some palliative measures would have been taken to alleviate some of the severe hardships being experienced. Perhaps also the administration feels so unassailable and believes that because it was brought into being by the popular will and overwhelming support of the people, it can get away with anything. That the popular support that brought it to power is so formidable that it can be taken for granted, even in the light of the serious disaffection that has started to rear its head.
I agree that up to this point in time, the administration continues to retain its support base with the masses. But let us not forget the famous saying of Nicholo Machiavelli that politics is corrosive and no leader is immune to popular disaffection and leader fatigue. In simple words, if nothing is done to improve the economic well being of the people, that popular support will erode. Here too, I am olny quoting those who are very close to administration. Another factor that cannot and should not be waved off is the happenings in the ruling party itself. It shows every sign of being a house divided amongst it self. Its principal architects show every sign of being at daggers drawn with each other, and that must be causing not a small pain and worry to the country. The sad thing is that the divided house will fall with all the attendant negative consequences to the President and the Nigerian nation. From the foregoing, it is obvious that the nation is at a cross road. On the one hand you have a President that is not supported by capable hands and a ruling party that is divided in itself, causing unfathomable worries to our Leader, and on the other an opposition party that is more engaged in internal crises than in stategising on how to regain power at the next election. So what is the way forward? Without much ado, I venture to suggest that perhaps the answer lies in the emergence of a third force. What I mean is that the salvation of the nation may lie in the real patriotic Nigerian from both the ruling and the main opposition party coming together to form a new vehicle that will imbibe all the prerequisites of real democracy and the capable hands to assist a leader in steering the ship of the Nigerian State.
I earnestly believe that the time has come for all patriotic Nigerian to join hands and see to the betterment of the country. I am a patriot and I am loyal to my country. But as one political thinker once said, my kind of loyalty is loyalty to my country, not to its officeholders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing. It is the thing to watch over, and care for and be loyal to. Governments are extraneous institutions, which are mere clothings that can wear out and become rugged. Although this government may be doing its very best to see that Nigeria is transformed into a great country, the ordinary people are not seeing much by way of beneficial change. Therefore, as some great political thinkers have said:
“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right” Martin Luther King Jr.
“You’re not to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.” - Malcolm X
A stitch in time will surely save nine! I rest my case
Sen.