Elections in the dilemma of options

…also published in Daily Trust

As the political atmosphere in Nigeria gets increasingly charged with politicians already slugging it out for nomination by their respective parties to run for various elective offices in the forthcoming elections, the question whether or not the calibre of politicians jostling for these offices is the best the country can boast of remains relevant as ever.

Like any typical developing democracy where a tiny elite minority prospers at the expense of the overwhelming majority, almost all Nigerian politicians are actually self-acclaimed populists whose largely empty political rhetoric appeals to the electorate in their respective constituencies. However, their individual abilities to feign populism differ according to their respective cunning capabilities and the amounts of their lust for power. While some of them feign it quite perfectly, some others hardly disguise their elitist tendency.

Incidentally, though elitism as a theory that favours members of the elite in power struggle in a society due to their ancestral lineage, familial political background or reputation, social status or economic class, is indeed discriminatory, I for one believe it isn’t necessarily so when an individual’s proven superior intellectual and professional capabilities as well as his moral quality are the criteria for favouring him in power tussle. In other words, I see nothing wrong in favouring exceptionally intelligent, highly competent and indisputably trustworthy individuals to attain leadership positions.

This kind of elitism is particularly imperative in a country like  Nigeria where, due to its inherent culture of corruption and ineptitude and the pervasive influence of this culture on public mindset, it obviously needs leaders with extraordinarily imaginative minds dynamic enough to think outside the box and come up with appropriate ideas and application mechanism to turn the leadership system in the country too transparent for systematic corrupt practices to persist, and equally too efficient for ineptitude and mediocrity to characterize its systemic function. 

 

In northern Nigerian states in particular, and in addition to these qualities, the high-calibre leaders necessarily needed should equally be thoroughly conversant with the states’ peculiar underlying socio-cultural and attitudinal challenges, which obviously must be addressed before expecting any comprehensive socio-economic development strategy to work out in the region. They should, in light of this, be intellectually able to conceptualize customized and viable comprehensive development strategies and tailored implementation mechanism dynamic and resilient enough to withstand any underlying socio-cultural constraint.

This is the calibre of leaders northern Nigerian states in particular need, not mere English-speaking elite whose intellectual horizon and professional competence revolve within the confines of the foreign-dictated socio-economic development policies they have imbibed over the years of their academic pursuits, which they often recite in a parrot-like manner and, at best, seek to apply in robot-like manner repeating the same thing over and over again in futility.

Worse still, even this low-calibre elite is yet persistently diminishing as most its members passing away or retiring from partisan politics or active public service are succeeded by even lower-calibre generation of elite. Today, a typical northern Nigerian politician, for instance, betrays particularly blatant cluelessness and inability to think critically, let alone conceptualize alternative development strategies that suit the needs of his particular constituency. His perception of the concept of development is too simplistic, and when he somehow makes it to a position of authority, he never contemplates coming up with an alternative mechanism for pursuit of development. His sheer disregard for the basic order of priority in the process of conceiving and executing infrastructure projects and public service delivery is too obvious to elude even the mai-shayi joint public affairs analysts. Besides, the projects are largely massively inflated, cost-wise, and they in many cases end up as white elephant projects that never provide value proportionate to the amount of public resources spent.

Unsurprisingly and indeed sadly, public mindset with regards to governance and politics is largely conditioned to not only accept this culture of ineptitude but actually glorify it for that matter. This is manifested in the quality of political discourse in the region. One only needs to listen to any of the popular political shows on the radio in, say, Kano or any other state in the region, to understand the extent to which public perception about politics and leadership has been reduced. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry and even marijuana-addicted thug can be hosted in a supposedly political show, hence all one hears on the shows are largely sheer stupidity and abusive innuendoes given as political analyses, and are accepted as such by the general public.

By the way, contrary to what could be assumed, there are indeed many individuals in the society with the qualities of high-calibre elite as described herein, however, they are deliberately, and quite understandably as well, laying low knowing that the society is simply too unfriendly to the views and principles of people like them. They are also particularly committed to preserving their dignity, which they wouldn’t want anybody to infringe on the pretext of politicking, as it’s currently the case.   

Now, though some may find my arguments too idealistic and perhaps quite elitist as well, yet given the sheer complexity of the overwhelming challenges bedevilling northern Nigeria and the country at large, I wonder if any critical and pragmatic assessment of the gravity of the situation would dispute the fact that, in order to profoundly turn things around and achieve appropriate and sustainable level of human development in the region, the  situation necessarily requires more than the intellectual  capacity, professional competence and commitment of the current calibre of the mainstream elite in the society.