One has to love Nigeria, if not for anything, at least for fast becoming a comedy country where jesters and clowns sprout at the slightest opportunity to survive vide the political abracadabra.
National lawmakers are mere rubber stamps of the executive in this dispensation that take pride in nocturnal visits to the residences of federal executive council members begging for remnants of what was looted. In turn, they transform to tin-gods in their federal constituencies beating their chests of imaginary achievements. In their impoverished constituencies, they are rated far above their performance and mental capacities by those, horde of parasites and miscreants confined in the localities as sentries, zombies, aides, sycophants and hooligans maintained from what was stolen from diverted federal constituency projects and other palliatives doled out by the federal government for even distribution.
The 2023 election offers highland to viral nature, the fabled staircase to Nigerian paradise, as espoused by new political kids on the brick, The National Movement (TNM), and National Consultative Front (NCF). The emergence of both associations wildly projected as a mythical ‘third force’ that sprang to thwart and grab power from the ailing All Progressives Congress (APC) and the strongest opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), flies in the face of reason.
While nation’s political analysts, aptly dissects the emergence of the so-called third force as a farce, a previous report had listed likely partners of the group all in desperation to wrest power for misuse.
At this particular period, the political space pulses with the usual theatrics. A cursory glance at the characters constituting the farce of a group reveals familiar faces- self-confessed patriots and “thought leaders” who pride themselves as Nigeria’s saviors.
As we approach the elections, they present themselves as the nation’s most dependable compass for navigating a brighter future. They will claim that they’d do a better job projecting a positive image for the country on the global scene by their exploits in academia, politics, entertainment, literature, and digital technology.
This supposedly pro-youth group would argue that the outgoing leadership has failed, citing its inefficiencies and contempt for the youth.
They would claim that poor leadership pushed the youths to the extreme hence the high rate of crime and terrorism.
But even amid their storm of spunk and slogans, Nigeria will thirst for a liberating elixir. Rarely have we seen or read, an instructive and realistic strategy at reclaiming the country from the vulturine political class-to which most of their members belong.
They would argue that their boutique or Ivy League education, international exposure and friends in high places affirm their sagacity and depth in local politics. It’s all part of their hustle.
When the hustle pits them on the side of the oppressive oligarchs, they arrogate to themselves a false sense of worth and significance in national affairs. They jostle to be part of the government’s ‘think tanks’ they lobby extensively to become political aides, playing Goebbel to our nation’s Hitlers.
When the hustle pits them on the side of the ‘masses’ or youth divide, they think they are deeply engaged in politics by debating the latest developments on social media. They might sign an online position or start, #Hashtag for or against anything and everything.
They follow the news presenting sexy realism and varnished perspective on local and international politics-often rehashing other people’s views. This breed of the intelligentsia will reel by rote why the Arab Spring’s failure must be seen as inversely successful.
Groups like the so-called third force are part of the afflictions of political Nigeria. Nigerians must learn to scorn such platforms that only emerge a few months to the polls just like how the ruling party, APC emerged in 2014 to deceive the gullible to believing falsehood.
Most of the group’s members are often led by desperation and grudges against a system that rendered them irrelevant or “shortchanged” by their initial platforms.
Nigeria is in dire need of a new class of political leadership, but the people must seek first mental freedom; a new class of citizenship must emerge to actualize this that gives credence to the ongoing struggle in several federal constituencies to change the claimed changers particularly in Wase federal constituency of Plateau State.
Frantic movements like the TNM were initiated and built to fail. Its immediate past predecessor, the defunct Presidential Aspirants Coming Together (PACT) initially showed promise, until its members began to speak in a selfish, private dialect that obscured meaningful communication with the citizenry segments whose votes and support they needed to upset the status quo and gain a foothold.
Greed and covetousness stifled rationality and judgment among their elitist divide. Eventually, they failed to convince the people, let alone their mandates.
To rescue Nigeria back from the vice-grip of its plunderers and oppressors, a new class of political leadership must insert itself in the lives of the ordinary people similar to what the Baba Maikada Political Movement is doing in Wase Federal Constituency, including street urchins, commercial transporters, the armed forces, students, shanty communities, and the unemployed, whose votes and base sentimentality the ruling class consistently exploits at election time.
In the wake of the 2019 elections, these characters constituting the “third force” could have gone to work. They had ample opportunities to woo the people, the voter segment, in particular, but as usual, they retreated into their fancy fortress, deigning contemptuous glances at the boondocks.
How visionary it would have been of the PACT collective, for instance, to remain intact while launching a humanitarian effort to distribute justifiable palliatives directly to the citizenry segments impoverished by the pandemic, maladministration and abandonment by their leaders among other efforts.
This, of course, could be misconstrued as a variant of the manipulative character often deployed as part of the political class’s article but it would be of a disarmingly milder tenor.
There was ample time for the self-styled “disrupters” and “people’s liberators” to upset and re-order the political space. Most successful revolutions are fundamentally non-violent. The Russian Revolution was victorious once the Cossacks refused to fire on the protesters in Petrograd in 1917 and joined the crowds. And the clerics who overthrew the Shah of Iran in 1979 won once the Shah’s military abandoned the collapsing regime. A similar scenario can happen anytime in Nigeria going by daily occurrences.
The superior force of despotic leadership is disarmed not through violence but through conversion which is on in Nigeria. The electoral ideal, by which many vote for a candidate without reflecting over the import of their votes, is utterly wrong and must be repudiated. In Nigeria’s case, the revolution must be achieved via ballot box not via violence or through sponsored banditry and insurgency.
There must be a renegotiation of norms and concessions around Nigeria’s nationhood. In the new deliberations, negotiating parties must come to the table as equals. Those human segments usually exploited as pawns by the incumbent political class must be wooed by offering them more dignified and pivotal positions at the table. This would excite their confidence in the hypothesized epoch where the government is humane and leaders truly serve the interests of the citizenry.
The TNM would make no impact on the forthcoming elections just as the APC would make no impact in Wase federal constituency for failure to deliver the expectations of the electorates over the years. And like their kindred spirits in the defunct PACT collective, they would fail to rise from the ashes of electoral defeat and their dormant platforms, to re-engage with the citizenry, after the elections.
Beyond their hastily-convened town hall meetings, corny platitudes, and revolutionary chants at election time, the aftermath would offer them wonderful opportunities to reconnect with the grassroots, the youths, academia, pensioners, and market women of the sidewalk, among other broad segments of the electorate in realistic terms. But they would eagerly pass.
After their ill-fated outing in 2023, the APC, TNM and cohorts must stop trumpeting off the perceived failings of the electoral process; they must avoid obsessive preoccupation with anticipated failures of the victors. If they are truly broadly cultured patriots as they claim, driven by love to nurse and rebuild Nigeria into a prosperous nation, they’d actively collaborate with the new government in addressing our social crisis, outside the toxic perimeters of thought.
Currently, we suffer the lack of honest and broadly cultured men endowed with patience, humility, good breeding, and taste. It’s about time we practiced truly progressive politics and espouse it as a culture beneficial to all.
Until and when we attain a broad, busy abundance of such understanding, not all the finest crumbs of the proverbial national cake can dull the affliction of the predatory political class.
Lest I Forget, the issue of lingering banditry bedeviling Wase federal constituency in Plateau State needs discreet investigation going by some weighty allegations flying around targeting certain personalities and their highly placed cohorts within the embattled district. Wase federal constituency is one of the most underdeveloped by any standard as testified by the report of Tracka. And now, the peace enjoyed by the impoverished people is under serious threat. There is desperate need for a thorough investigation to save lives and properties of those hapless citizens languishing in penury. One hopes the authorities concerned are listening. Allah de!
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues
