Can Politics Deliver

Can Politics Deliver?

Abdullah Musa

Of course it can, and will deliver! But the basic question is: to whom will it deliver? To those who invested the most. It is a peculiar business venture. Its predominant mode of investment is pure CASH! Those who engage in it; that is those who consider it a business, invest to the best of their ability; and are very competent in protecting their investments. Those who work according to the rules and regulations believe that politics is even public service. It should not enrich those who are engaged in it. It must not be a do or die affair.

But even those who take it to be a business venture know that in business you may sometimes lose. But in this business loss is catastrophic; for you do not go to the banks to get a loan to augment your lost working capital. The working capital is derived a hundred percent from either elective or appointive political office. When budgets are made, the astute politicians know that the projects are not really appraised for their beneficial effects to the public. They are appraised, executed, or even abandoned for the effects they have on the war chest of the office holder and his or her party.

Are governments really rooted in the people? If yes, then who are the pillars, or more appropriately, the tap roots? These should be the ones that will ensure that governments live and thrive for the attainment of the principles which brought them into being. But what happens when no principle brought them into being? Governments will then simply run to satisfy a clique who somehow has the capacity to attain and hold power. In the Nigerian context, governments usually live to serve the powerful. Any goodies that descend on to the commoners do so out of sheer necessity not out of any altruistic motives.

But it is the masses that vote. But votes do not usually count. Votes that should count should not be available for sale. And as we noted earlier to those who consider politics as a business, their only tool is CASH. And they will surely not want any vote that they cannot purchase to count. They must therefore thwart the will of those who do not consider politics as a business, or those who do not take it as a do or die affair.

Thugs are supposed to be outcasts. They of course are. The hate their society and their society despises them. That being the case, they do not share the values of their society; that what made them outcasts in the first place. It then goes without saying that those who consider politics as a business should keep company of those who despise mainstream society. The ordinary folks do not like violence. Once past a certain age bracket, many loathe violence because they are not physically and mentally attuned to it. Those who consider politics as a business want to rob people of their rights to choose the leaders they desire. Thugs usually rob the citizens in order to survive. Those in politics as a business thus hire thugs to scare people away from their rights. Where outright thuggery is not feasible, then manipulation will be resorted to. And in this form of theft, there are many options which only a devious mind can conjure. The attempt to scuttle opposition parties from fielding candidates, to denying them space to campaign due to sponsored court cases and so on, are all forms of thuggery.

Our politics is immature or even venal because of the nature of our society. The intelligentsia has not been able to define the society in ways that people can understand and fit into. The civil servants do not feel the organic bond between them and the society. When they collude with politicians to ruin the economy, they do not see the people or the society being ruined. What they see is the house they are able to buy, the car they are able to ride, the bride they may want to acquire, or even a life style which the salary structure was not created to satisfy.

For years the citizens of Nigeria have yearned for some basics which should be available in a civilized society. And for years that has eluded them. These basics are usually provided by governments even though privatization might be resorted to. To explain our nature better, even when privatization is imposed upon us by the likes of IMF and World Bank, the firms that are sold fail; or are stripped down and shipped out by the Indians as in the case of the Ajaokuta Steel Company.

If we want to make our politics to deliver, we must raise our statuses as voters. We must define our interests, establish CSO’s, and work on deviants so that they do not thwart our civil life. The universities and the Press have great roles to play, but they seem unable to do so. Majority of the universities are government-owned, so their heads are obedient to any politician who controls the purse strings. Private newspapers are mostly Southern-based. Their incapacity is that they are still having the mindset of the first republic: South versus North. Building a virile Nigeria is never their agenda. Even Jonathan Goodluck today is Southern agenda. So he might spend 2011 to 2015, if he wins, whittling the North down both politically and economically. Can an Eagle Square, ala the Egyptian Tahrir Square solve our identity crisis?