Gimba Kakanda
The most amusing thing about the Nigerian analysts, especially the outspoken observers of our political evolution as a pseudo-democratic nation, is our shared hypocrisy in reacting to outcomes of predictable public issues, as seen in our jaw-dropping responses to the outcome of Ekiti governorship election. In this build-up to the next presidential election, I transformed from being an uncompromising idealist to an equivocal realist that I even wrote, frustrated, in my Friday column, to congratulate Goodluck Jonathan as 2015 President-elect – in advance. I’m still equivocal because to be a convinced political realist, one absolutely devoid of any idealist leaning, means remaining in the bandwagon of this government that has broken my heart so many times I lost hope in immediate redemption of Nigeria.
What happened in Ekiti is a mere restatement of our tragedy as a nation, where a politician is seen as Santa Claus, and thus his primary duty, when elected, is supposed to comprise uninterrupted three-square meals on the table of every voter, and constant flow of gifts, in kind and cash, and the former colourfully branded with smiling faces of the donor, from the elected representatives. Idealistically, that’s a possibility hard to maintain, for it’s not only the genesis of corruption in government and an excuse for underdevelopment, it’s a nightmare for even the most honest of populists. Yet, that’s the form of politics the people need. Reading the commentaries of Ekiti people, I learnt that the outgoing Governor, Kayode Fayemi, despite holding town hall meetings with the grassroots and setting up welfare system to cater for the old, was still perceived as “elitist” – in having his government dominated by ‘technocrats’, some being non-indigenes, instead of the ‘actual’ politicians); “unpopular” – with the political philanthropy-awaiting masses and threatened school teachers; insensitive” – perhaps because his “modernist” approach to developing Ekiti is seen as unbearable by parents who think the tuition fees of the state university is unreasonable and unaffordable, farmers who think that his agricultural policy is a scam, job-seekers who think that his employment scheme is a gimmick. This is detailed in a feature on the Ekiti election by my good friend, Femi Owolabi, for “The Scoop”, who reported a voter as saying: “(PDP runs) a ‘chop make I chop government’. Money didn’t flow well in (Fayemi’s) government… APC is now pumping in money at the die minute to election.”
But I forgive the masses. Our politicians undermine the conditions of their unschooled and hungry followers, schooled and unemployed followers, poor and hopeless followers, the enterprising and economically unfortunate followers and even the sick and the destitute, and the financially handicapped illiterate and dropouts who rely on their humane policies. The current politicians wouldn’t have been faulted if their understanding of populism isn’t limited to distributing food items, while the chunk of their budgets is invested in their private businesses. We inherited a structurally flawed system with a particular class unfairly subjugated and taken for granted by the political establishment. Members of this class are the countrymen whose only dividends of democracy are the “gifts” they receive from the politicians – in exchange for their votes. Because they’re hungry, and a hungry man is an irrational man. And the politicians, elected to redeem their welfare, deliberately avoid doing so simply to keep them asking. For gifts acquired with public funds or proceeds of some abandoned or inflated contracts. And the politicians insensitive to the bangs of their poverty, pursuing elitist policy in the name of idealism, are shown the way out.
So, unless rural community developments and the welfare of the urban masses too are given the same attention as building bridges and installing streetlights in our cities, anything likely to be seen as elect is policy, only money and of course “rice”, not promises, can get you votes from this manipulated class, largely based in villages remembered only in election years.
So, what next for APC? APC, to some, is “an old wine in new bottle”, but being the first time the opposition emerges with the strength to put the incumbent government on its toes, I am, as a citizen unimpressed with the status quo, willing to settle for another shape of bottle, for this old one is no longer convenient to carry. This is the peak of my realism as a citizen in search of the imaginary “fresh air”. I think this is the time for the opposition, for whom I have sympathy, to play politics beyond impracticable idealism. APC needs, for the coming election, a presidential candidate with street credibility, identifiable by the masses: a Buhari or an Atiku or any member of their clout.
Political education isn’t acquired in our classrooms; it’s in our ability to strip ourselves of polarising sentiments in making political choices. We think that “third-world” politics is all about writing “deep” articles, composing tweets and writing profound Facebook posts and screaming yourself hoarse about how things ought to be run from your AC-ed rooms and offices. Which is why we act as though we aren’t the direct victims of failed political experiments; and screaming and writing about failed governments without struggling to infiltrate the ranks of our “laboratory politicians” whose incompetence cause these troubles means we are complicit in the fall of this nation. May God save us from us.
