As Nigerians are dragged towards next year’s elections with a mixture of hope and worry, there has been some concern about the emergence of offspring and spouses of powerful political players as candidates for different elections. What started in earlier iterations as a slow trickle has become a veritable flood, and we are seeing the children of powerful people winning party tickets to challenge for executive and legislative elections in different states.
While the current Niger State governor, Abubakar Sani Bello, is probably the most high profile example of the child of one of the “Owners of Nigeria plc” getting to high office, this time around, the children of people like Sani Abacha, Alao Akala, Nasir el-Rufai, James Ibori, Sule Lamido, and Ifeanyi Okowa, just to name a few, have actually won tickets to contest in the elections next year.
The topic of political dynasties is a hot one anywhere in the world.
George Bush Jr and Justin Trudeau are noticeable examples of individuals who have become Presidents of the United States and Canada following the footsteps of their fathers George Bush Sr and Pierre Trudeau, so the past local examples of the Saraki family and the Tukur family and the likelihood of future examples of scions from other Nigerian families being politically successful are not incidents that are strange phenomena elsewhere in the world.
Far from being unpopular, it’s actually a rather common occurrence. According to a study published in the Historical Social Research in December 2018, 10 percent of world leaders came from families with political ties.
The Nehru-Gandhi family has produced three Indian Prime Ministers.
The Aquino Family has produced three presidents in the Philippines.
Benazir Bhutto became President of Pakistan and was assassinated just like her father Zulfikar Bhutto who was a president that was also assassinated while in office.
The Fujimoris, Yudhoyonos, and the Lees are other examples in other countries.
In England, William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, was Prime Minister for two years from 1766 to 1768, and his son, aptly named William Pitt the Younger, followed in his father’s footsteps twice, first from 1783 to 1801, and then to 1806.
So this is nothing novel. Nearly 50 percent of democratic countries have elected multiple heads of state from a single-family and this is because political structures are being inherited over generations and grown.
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Whether we like it or not, this is going to be a factor in some places and we are going to have to consider the possibility that a good number of people want these things because there are societies where certain families are entrusted with responsibility by the locals.
Does this mean that some worthier individuals are not getting the opportunity to get political positions just because they don’t come from the “right” families?
Quite possible. But a Nigerian middle-class that has refused to aggregate into a formidable political force is going to have to take whatever it gets. It is unrealistic to expect that Nigerian politicians are going to spend 20-30 years building political networks and structures and just hand them over freely to those they don’t have affection for and trust in.
At this point in Nigeria’s evolution, a solid statewide political structure is a machine that generates millions of dollars in profits yearly. Expecting Nigerian politicians to hand over their networks freely is really like expecting the key shareholders in companies like GTB, Glo, MTN, etc, to hand over their holdings to strangers when they are much older.
This leaves us with three options. We can choose to just complain eloquently and passionately to no avail. Another option is to build political structures that are competitive enough to checkmate attempts at building unproductive political dynasties.
A third option exists which would have us working on developing useful connections to the heirs of political networks to get them to use those platforms in ways that are beneficial to the country.
People rarely turn out exactly like their parents. In my earlier example, William Pitt was a great orator, who fought for the rights of the colonists in America, but most importantly, was known as The Great Commoner for fighting for the rights of the common man. His son, William Pitt the Younger was seen as aloof and arrogant.
We have to at least entertain the possibility that the scions of these dynasties could be made to adopt goals that serve the societies they are in. Most of them have considerably better education and professional profiles than their parents did and could be open to ideas their parents were simply too hidebound to accept.
The dynamics around political dynasties are not set in stone and can be taken advantage of. Are we ready to even attempt it?
Nwanze is a partner at SBM Intelligence
