The Nigerian political landscape is one of the many malodorous political landscapes we have in the world today. In a country like Nigeria, power, status, and affluence guide and direct whatever goes on within its political landscape. This is similarly obtainable in many 3rd world countries, most especially in Africa.
Whenever elections of any magnitude are conducted, those who emerge victorious are not the ones who merit these positions or possess the ideals that can move a nation forward, but those who have dubious means of financial wealth and political connections.
Politicians have to spend heavily before they can even think of scaling through a popular party’s primaries successfully. One has to buy most of a party’s delegates into voting for him at the primaries before he or she can even emerge as a party’s candidate, and talk more of what needs to be spent at the rallies, on campaigns, and other things. How possible would it be for someone who has a burning desire to move his community, state, or country forward to stand a chance, when his dreams can’t come to fruition without engaging in the massive spending.
Recently, a presidential aspirant, Kingsley Moghalu lost the presidential primaries of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) to his counterpart, Dumebi Kachikwu, due to his refusal to partake in the corrupt act of buying delegates. People who are familiar with Moghalu know that he is a meritocrat and technocrat per excellence. What would be the fate of such people like Moghalu in a corrupt political system like ours? We have a long way to go if we continually tread this path.
Financial Inducement in the game of politics reveals that we have a faulty political foundation, and this is one of the major reasons why meritocrats don’t scale through easily in this political climate, and also another reason why Nigeria has been progressively retrogressing, which is also due in part to the set of megalomaniacs we have.
The people also form a part of the problem. They fall so easily for the politicians who play the politics of double-dealings, money, and stomach infrastructure. Their long-sought transition from underdevelopment to development fails to come to fruition due to their little selfish interests, which allows for this set of nefarious and unprincipled politicians to get into power. Some Nigerians also vote based on sectarian interests which is part of the reason why we are where we are today.
However, this politically-backward behavior of a segment of the Nigerian populace can also be attributed to the unwillingness of our leaders to give political orientation and education to Nigerians. They have failed to invest in voter education. Of course, our leaders trying to gradually overhaul the political climate would mean them trying to do something that makes them lose out in the game of politics.
My piece of advice to all readers of this article is to deviate from voting for politicians based on sectarian interests or based on the impression of altruism they give us which may be faux. Instead, we should vote for people who can give us an achievable roadmap to a better Nigeria.
