Political warlords

Also published in Daily Trust

If the rest of the world had taken Nigeria seriously, the current dramatic wave of defection from one political party to another among the country’s political elite would have certainly attracted huge international media coverage, in view of its potential impact on the balance of power in the country.

I am sure if it were in South Africa for instance, the leading global media would cover and analyze it thoroughly. By the way, I cited South Africa as an example because Nigerians rightly or wrongly tend to compare the two with each other in many aspects.

It is very unfortunate that, the extremely little international media attention on Nigeria is also largely attracted by events that often prove how unserious we are, which also explains why the rest of the world looks down on us with such unmistakable disdain.

Well, though I dismiss the way Nigeria is stereotyped worldwide, yet I can, objectively speaking, understand it anyway. Because I realize that in today’s highly competitive world, countries derive and enjoy respect according to the amount of their commitment and effort to serve the interests of their respective citizens.

Anyway, back to the defection issue, I look at it in the context of the increasingly dwindling relevance of political parties, which further undermines the already diminishing culture of ideology-driven politics in the country, since it is obvious that no political ideology can survive in a vacuum, as it can only be practiced and implemented within the framework of an effective political party.

Though I have never been a member of any political party in Nigeria, I can understand and indeed share Nigerians’ growing frustration with the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which has failed to live up to their expectation since the country’s return to democracy in 1999.

Nevertheless, I believe the few proven progressive elements among those who have left the party and those who have not yet left it, and indeed their like-minded politicians in the other parties represent the remaining hope for the country’s continued survival and gradual revival, which though is possible but it admittedly requires a lot of work, change of attitude and sacrifice to achieve.

These are particularly necessary in order to successfully challenge the overwhelming influence of the mainstream political elite who pursue conflicting individual ambitions on the bases of their irreconcilable personal agendas at the expense of their respective political parties and the country at large.

They have consequently bastardized their parties and rendered them mere tools for political manipulation. After all, they don’t in fact belong to the parties; instead the parties belong to them in reality. This is why whenever anybody among them loses out to more powerful vested interests within the party; he simply dumps it and defects to another where he believes his interests would be better served.

This situation creates strong individuals at the expense of their respective political parties at all levels of government throughout the country. They are too obsessed with power to compromise in the interest of the people they purportedly represent and serve. Besides, in their desperate interparty struggle for power and intraparty feud for supremacy they have become political warlords who, having held different positions of influence in the land through which they fraudulently amassed huge fortune, have at their disposal all types of paid loyalists.

For instance, almost every one of them has his own thugs who harass and terrorize his opponents, unscrupulous public commentators in the media who often fake impartiality to indirectly defend him, religious clerics who literally seek to sanctify him and even free of charge apologists who, though he hardly knows them, yet they are out there in hangouts and all over the Internet scouting for any pretext no matter how silly in order to defend him. He simply flaunts,   manipulates and indeed uses them as bargaining tools to achieve his political ambitions.

Anyway, while this situation persists and is indeed not likely to end any time soon, it underscores the need for the ordinary electorate in the country to, when electing their leaders and representatives, wise up enough to look beyond the candidates’ political affiliations and indeed any other irrelevant excuse(s), and instead consider the credibility and competence of the candidates they elect. After all, there are still very credible and competent people out there who only need the endorsement of the ordinary electorate to win elections in the country.

Moreover, there is an urgent need to vigorously discourage the culture of blind loyalty to any particular political party or individual(s) in the country. All progressive-minded public commentators, community and even religious leaders should focus heavily on this point. They should step up efforts to raise electorate’s awareness who in any case suffer more.

I am sure if this campaign is sustained particularly at the grassroots level, people, will definitely begin to comply hence pose a real challenge to the survival of the status-quo and those who benefit from it who are in reality too timid to resist a serious popular struggle for a better Nigeria. Because despite their huge influence and the other instruments of coercion and inducement at their disposal, these political warlords have always capitalized on the average electorate’s apparent lack of sense of responsibility towards their own strategic interests and indeed the interests of their future generations.