The multi-coloured face of politics in Nigeria

As Nigeria continues on the 21st year of its journey into uninterrupted civil administration and celebration of 60 years of independence from colonial rule, IMOLEAYO OYEDEYI, through expert lenses, examines the country’s political structure and how it has affected its development and growth as well as proffers solutions to its myriads socio-political drawbacks.

IN the First and Second Republics, it was easy to place identities on the main political parties in the country. It was neither a cloth of many colours nor the colour of the rainbow.  Then, one could differentiate between the progressives and the conservatives or better still, those politicians that could be classified as belonging to the ultra-conservative bloc. Names of political titans like Chief Obafemi Awolwo, the late Mallam Aminu Kano and their allies, associates and friends were inclined to the philosophy of welfare and progressivism as opposed to the avarice and exploitation of the other political tendencies.

The attempt by the military to foist a two-party system on the country by fiat in the march towards the aborted Third Republic instead of allowing the gradual evolution and sustenance of a culture of well-defined ideological inclination exacerbated the malady in the political space. The crisis has endured till date as the nation’s political space is bedeviled by lack of identity, values and direction.

Many, who should not have anything to do with partisan politics, have marooned and hijacked the political arena and structure with illicit fund and other resources at their disposal. They have polluted the proverbial murky waters of politics with odious antics and tactics. Violence, killings, vote-buying and selling, as well as politics of godfathers with insatiable appetite reign supreme.

From the 1999 general election that ushered in civil rule to the 2019 elections, hundreds of persons have lost their lives in politically motivated violence. Human Rights Watch reported that in April and May 2003, at least 100 people were killed and many more injured during federal and state elections held in the country. It also observed that many people were killed in subsequent elections, including the 2019 elections in the country.

Similarly, money has become a dominant factor in shaping the form and outcome of elections in the country. Many, including academics, professionals and institutions have attested to the frightening dimension it has brought to the politics of the country. One of such experts is Billy Joseph Dudley, who was quoted as blaming the situation on a warped perception of partisan politics.  Dudley said: “The reality was that Nigerian politicians perceived politics and political office as investment and as an avenue for the acquisition of extra ordinary wealth (through corruption) which they think is not possible through other forms of legitimate vocation and enterprise. Thus, in Nigeria, the shortest cut to affluence is through politics. Politics means money and money means politics…to be a member of the government party means open avenue for government patronage, contract deals and the like.”

Stark realities

“The contentious season beckons again and expectedly, the polity is heating up as political foes get at daggers drawn. With tempers fraying, verbal shots are flying left and right, characters are being smeared, names dragged in the mud as propaganda pieces of machinery are fine-tuned, firing from all cylinders. And for spiritual fortification, by now, nearly all herbalists and ritualists’ dens have suddenly turned a Mecca of some sort. Welcome to Nigeria, a land of grubby politics run by desperate political gladiators.”

This was how a political commentator, Lanre Oloyede, described the sickening face of politics in Nigeria in an incisive piece at the threshold of the 2019 presidential election. In his blinkered commentary, he noted that the most populous Black nation in the world has become “a land where politics is a do-or-die affair where you either take it by hook or crook; while winners take it all, losers lose it all.”

His views accentuated similar dispositions of many observers and stakeholders towards the unwholesome twists and turns in the nation’s political environment with the incursion of a lot of weird characters, whose main reason for going into politics is everything but altruistic. According to Oloyede, many of such so-called politicians have consistently polluted the partisan politics with corruption and violence in their grand design to subvert due process. He added: “Like a sour grape in the mouth, electioneering in Nigeria is sadly characterized with such ignoble incidences as killings, kidnappings, maiming, intimidations, harassments, dollarization and vote buying all cast into one block of psychological mind frame glued with do-or-die syndrome.” He added that regrettably, “money, compromise and desperation have become the lubricants that turn the wheels of politics in the country.”

Retrogressive culture worsened by neo-colonialism

A Google scholar at the University of Southampton, United Kingdom, Abiodun Komolafe, also lamented the incredulous decline of standard in the conduct of politicians and their hirelings in the country. He decried the unbridled abuse of process and utter disregard for democratic ethos and general impunity because of their madness to capture power and not to win an election in a free, fair and credible process. He asserted: “Nigerian politics is one filled with retrogressive culture while most Nigerian political parties are not built on real people-oriented ideology or principles, but on multi -layered, multi-dimensional, multi-faceted and multi-partied platforms stuck together with the sole purpose of capturing and retaining power but not the art of building and sustaining a virile society.”

His dissection of the average Nigerian politician is instructive. It illuminates the mind on what Nigerians are missing and losing, due to antics of the set of politicians that have held the nation by the jugular: “Most Nigerian politicians share similarities with the butterfly; they want to taste all the powers available on the political ground but have no political ideology to pursue. They move like the wind with no definite direction, genuineness of purpose and integrity as most of them only follow the path where their riches can multiply without concern for society.”

He said this self-seeking act explains ‘why many politicians in the country often jump from one party to another without any explanation to their supporters because in the Nigerian context, the voting majority live with slavery mentality and are used to the excessive acts of godfathers in politics.’ Just as he added that, “Nigerian politics thrives on the annoying culture of master to slave.”

However, there appears to be a few exceptions such as the governor of Kaduna State in the Second Republic, Balarabe Musa.  He acknowledged the absence of global standard and practice in politics in the country, which he partly blamed on historical antecedents.  His words: “The nature of Nigerian politics is neo-colonialist. And this is the root cause of our problem. Just like us, there are some African countries that passed through colonialism. But after their colonial periods, they gained independence and there were some measures of stability and credible governance. But in the case of Nigeria, it was different because immediately after colonialism, we started our independent rulings with crisis. We got our independence in 1960. But we could not manage our national sovereignty and this led to the 1966 coup. It wasn’t the same in so many countries in Africa including some Asia climes.”

He contended that, “Since it is the Britain that colonized Nigeria, it is expected that the most populous black country takes after the British style of politics and ideologies. But it is different. We are degenerating in our own politics. We are running a system which is not as good as that of Britain. For instance, there are some elements of human indignity that you will find in Nigeria, but you can’t get such in Britain.”

“Secondly, looking at the high level of poverty and unemployment in Nigeria, can any Prime Minister in Britain survive under such high underdevelopment indices? It is no! But today in Nigeria, many governments in Nigeria have got away with it. So, our standard is lower when compared to that of the British who have learnt to respect and look after the peoples’ interest.  But it is different in Nigeria. Once a Nigerian politician is in power, he or she doesn’t care about any other things except how to preserve the power and his position.”

“So qualitatively, our politics, economic progression, cultural standard and social lives are of lower standard. Countries such as Egypt and Ethiopia also experienced colonialism; yet, the quality of human dignity in their climes is higher and better than that of Nigeria,” he added.

No clear-cut ideology

From time immemorial, fervent research has identified defection, which is generally referred to cross-carpeting in the country, as one of the skin-deep exclusivities of Nigerian politicians, but based on empirical evidence. The seeming butterflying acts exhibited by the incumbent governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki who was recently, re-elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for a second term of four years and his arch rival at the poll, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), will remain evergreen in the minds of observers. It is not only for the atypical way their pulses played out over the last five years, but for the barefaced roles played by the immediate past national chairman of the APC and former governor of the state, Adam Oshiomhole who like a surreptitious father has had skimps with the two men politically regarded as his godsons not until he fell out with the former who by emerging victorious in the September 19 poll, has made history as the man who perhaps may have asphyxiated the gleams of godfatherism in the state.

Exactly five years ago, Obaseki who is now involved in a simmering hostility with Oshiomhole, was undisputedly the apple of the comrade’s eye. Despite being widely considered an ‘outsider’ in the ruling party and in the politics of Edo since he was recruited into the Oshiomhole’s administration as a technocrat from the banking sector, Governor Obaseki was foisted on the party by the sacked APC boss, who used his entire political ammunition to nail Ize-Iyamu to a fallen cross. It was unknown to him that in less than three years later, the man he (Oshiomhole) was mooting to begin his godfatherism reign will later rise to strangle all his interests in the state.

Like an average Nigerian politician will do when pursuing egoistic interests, Comrade Oshiomhole went as far as mot adding value to the bid of Iyamu.  In a bid to canvas massive votes for Obaseki during the 2016 election, Oshiomhole described Ize-Iyamu in unimaginable terms.  In an undated video of a 2016 APC campaign rally in Benin, Edo State, the former Edo State governor said, “It is true we found ourselves in the region of politics working together, but I never gave him a government job. I kept him (Ize-Iyamu) busy, let him be holding midnight meeting which he is used to. Ask him, since he was the DG (of my campaign organisation), why did I not appoint him into government?”

Contrastingly in the same video, the erstwhile APC national chairman praised the current governor of the state, Obaseki describing him as one who used his “brain” and “creativity” to work for the good of the state and the people. He even raised a song that said Mr. Obaseki was “a winner and not a loser.”

But fast forward to four years later, the political cadences wholly changed as the three players: Oshiomhole, Obaseki, and Ize-Iyamu swapped roles. Obaseki surprisingly became the worst political enemy of his deposed ‘godfather,’ Oshiomhole who deployed all political weaponry to ensure the former banker became governor at the detriment of Ize-Iyamu who was reportedly the preferred candidates of the APC for the 2016 governorship election not until the adamic stature fell him from grace. And having been degraded and almost ejected from the ‘Garden of Adanic power’ by the adamant warlord, Ize-Iyamu, out of frustration, defected to the PDP.

But earlier in 2020, the pastor cum politician returned to the ruling party, where he was disqualified four years ago while the same man who buried his governorship bid in 2016, Oshiomhole also tried all he could to market Ize-Iyamu. But perhaps, the intensity of his eraser was not as thick as that of the black ink with which he could achieve his overall goal.  Hence, his newly found son and he were defeated by what many have described as ‘the Obaseki’s master-class.’ The seedy acts of cross-carpeting exhibited by these three gladiators appraised, according to watchers, is one of the idiosyncrasies of Nigerian politics and it appears to be endemic in the 21-year-old democratic history of the nation.

Mentality of an average Nigerian politician

But amid the entire juiceless tales, what exactly is the mentality of an average politician in Nigeria? Sani seems to have the answer. “The mentality of an average politician in this country is that politics is an avenue to get rich quick. To many of them, politics is a zero-sum game where winners take all. Many of them do not see politics as call to service but means for attaining socioeconomic status. Hence their scant regard for political parties which they see as mere avenues for winning elections,” he observed.

Sani said based on the undignified acts of Nigerian politicians, he agreed with those ‘who posit that politics players do not know the place of political parties in a multiparty democracy’, noting that, “As a result of this, multiparty democracy has become topsy-turvy in the cockpit of Nigerian politics” and that, “The democracy is never bettered by the Judiciary that relishes delivering technical justice at the expense of substantive justice that comes with natural justice and common decency.”

Money politics

Then, there is the polythene bag of money politics. According to Komolafe, “When we talk about money politics, we are talking about how money in ounces affects our political engagements and participation. To be sure, a robust understanding of the basics of the negative effects of money-politics gives meaning and intelligibility to the greed and Modus Operandi of most governments.”

He stressed: “When people, who are apathetic to democratic ideals, development and Public Administration, come together as a formidable force, it then becomes problematic for the society, adding that, “Most political gladiators and public servants are aware of this, but, unrepentantly, always acquiesce. Thus, impunity comes in; accountability becomes a problem; and transparency is a non-issue!” He added:  “There and then, party hierarchies will remain what they are because people will not be responsible to the party but only to their bellies. Once this happens, it goes back to what Sanusi has already addressed because money politics ensures that people begin to have a feeling or belief that money answereth all things.”

“Today, if you ask anybody who is a member of a political party in Nigeria how much he or she has contributed to the purse of his or her party, the response will certainly shock you. That is why carpet-crossing thrives; and why commitment to party ideology and manifestoes is superficial at best. This is a very critical challenge but, unfortunately, it has not been addressed because Nigerians are not paying attention, the Google scholar further observed.

The way out

“Our politics is not based on reality. But to make it based on reality, we have to attack five problems. We must do everything possible to establish peace as well as equality and dignity of human beings in the country. We must also do everything to ensure justice and a progressive even development of the entire country so that no section can be deprived when compared with any other zone,” Balarabe further submitted.

“We have to change the social, economic, political and cultural system controlling our own developments. From capitalism to socialism, we must pursue socialist reconstruction of Nigeria to ensure peace, equality, justice, dignity of the human person and progressive even development of the country.

“We can make it even better by bringing about true democracy where free, fair and transparent election will lead to effective governance at all levels. We can also ensure this by providing free and efficient primary and secondary education at every level in the country and easily accessible post-secondary education. If we can do this, in the next 20 years, with the resources available to Nigeria, the country can become the sixth most developed country in the world, a position Britain currently holds,” he added.

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