Last Thursday, on December 12, voters in the United Kingdom went to the polls to elect a new government. They passed brutal judgement on the politicians, mercilessly punishing those they believed stalled the implementation of the 2026 referendum decision to take the UK out of the European Union. They also overwhelmingly rejected the party, Labour, which offered a radical socialist agenda of massive tax-and-spend and nationalisation. Instead, they rewarded Prime Minister Boris Johnson, of the Conservative Party, who promised to “get Brexit done” and to combine robust free market economy with social justice. They gave his party a large majority of nearly 80 seats in parliament.
The outcome of the general election is a clear evidence that the British people cannot be taken for granted or treated as dim, gullible and easily biddable. Each of the 650 members of parliament that were elected following last week’s election owed their success entirely to the genuine will of the people, not to a godfather or to vote-manipulation. Surely, when you have such a competitive politics, with a very enlightened electorate, politicians will show respect, not disdain, for the people, knowing that they are their servant, not their master!
But that’s the case in Nigeria. Truth is, in this country, the politicians are the master; the people, the servant! Nigerian politicians are hubristic, self-interested, ferociously self-entitled and unbelievably arrogant. Sadly, because Nigeria’s politics is not genuinely competitive, and, thus, not responsive and accountable, it lacks the moral or ethical force to safeguard the common good and embed the right values.
Let’s face it, Nigerian politics is utterly broken, beset by a deep crisis of legitimacy. Indeed, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2018 Index on “Trust in Politicians”, Nigeria ranked 130th out of 137, meaning that trust in Nigerian politicians is among the lowest in the world. Is that surprising? Of course, not. The behaviours of Nigerian politicians are so appalling that in civilised climes they would face public opprobrium. In the British election, politicians were electorally ostracised for failing to carry out a very complex decision of the people: Brexit. Nigerian politicians have no such restraints!
Let’s take two of the current appalling shenanigans of Nigerian politicians. The first is the jockeying for the 2023 presidential election barely six months after this year’s poll. The second is the manoeuvrings by some politicians to plot a tenure extension for President Muhammadu Buhari. These two issues – the jostling for 2023 and talk of a Buhari third term – are a clear evidence of Nigerian politicians’ utter disdain for the people.
Take the first. This country had a presidential election just over six months ago. How could any politician with even a scintilla of respect for Nigerians be manoeuvring for 2023 now? Yet, that’s what politicians, particularly from Buhari’s party, All Progressives Congress, APC, are doing. Indeed, some have attributed the recent travails of the vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, who was stripped of his previous roles on economic management and social interventions, and whose close staff were sacked by the president, to the politics of 2023. Several prominent APC politicians are manoeuvring for 2023. Recently, the former Ogun State governor, now an APC senator, Ibikunle Amosun, had to dissociate himself from those circulating 2023 presidential posters on his behalf, saying: “There is a time for everything. The time to address 2023 is clearly not anywhere close”.
Of course, the time for 2023 is not anywhere close! Surely, the focus of the APC and President Buhari’s government should be on making a difference in the lives of ordinary Nigerians in his second term. Yet, as the Financial Times said in a recent editorial, “So far, (Buhari) has disappointed”, adding that “Nigeria is going backwards economically”!
Truth is that Nigerians continue to experience harshness under the Buhari government. This country is the sixth most miserable in the world, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, the “poverty capital of the world”, according to the Brookings Institution, and, as the World Bank said recently, Nigeria could account for 25 percent of the world’s total extreme poor population by 2030. Yet, the Buhari second term administration is strongly political in nature, with career politicians harbouring political ambitions holding sway in the cabinet. As a result, real policymaking and governance would take second place to the politics of 2023.
Let’s face it, it’s a display of absolute disrespect for Nigerians, an utter disdain for their intelligence, that politicians of the ruling APC, instead of governing, are prematurely jockeying for 2023. They are scornful and complacent, making themselves the master, rather than the servant, of the people. Politics is a demand and response process, where politicians identify and respond to the needs and aspirations of the people. But Nigerian politicians are only in it for themselves; they are selfish careerists!
Let’s face it, Nigerian politics is utterly broken, beset by a deep crisis of legitimacy. Indeed, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2018 Index on “Trust in Politicians”, Nigeria ranked 130th out of 137, meaning that trust in Nigerian politicians is among the lowest in the world
Which brings us to what is certainly the most appalling of the politicians’ shenanigans: the manoeuvrings for a third term for President Buhari. Any talk, even in jest, of a third term for President Buhari debases the people of this country. And if it’s a serious proposition, then it must count as a heinous crime against the Nigerian state. Any politician who advocates a third presidential term is thus an enemy of Nigeria, showing utter disdain for this country.
Yet, that’s what some members of President Buhari’s party in the National Assembly are doing, attempting to amend the Constitution to allow him to run for a third term. Indeed, one of them, Charles Enya, asked a federal high court to annul sections 137(1)(b) and 182(1)(b) of the Constitution, arguing that the Constitutional provisions “infringe on the fundamental human rights of the president and the governors who might wish to seek a third term in office”. Really? So, a third term in office is now the human rights of a president and a governor. It’s utterly preposterous!
But that’s how disdainfully Nigerian politicians have always treated the people, putting their self-interest above the public and national interests. In their book “Too good to die: Third Term and the myth of the indispensable man in Africa”, Chidi Odinkalu and Ayisha Osori insightfully narrate how politicians, driven by selfish motives, attempted to amend the Constitution to allow President Olusegun Obasanjo to run for a third term in order to “continue the good work”. Similarly, selfish politicians want Buhari, who they see as Nigeria’s “saviour”, to have a third term so that he too can “continue the good work”!
Of course, President Buhari has denied having a third term plan, saying: “I am not going to make the mistake of attempting a third term”. But the question is not whether he wants to “make the mistake”, but whether he allows, even tacitly, others to make it for him. Given what this country went through with the Obasanjo third term agenda, which reportedly cost “in excess of $500m”, the APC should regard any of its members advocating a third term for Buhari as enemy of Nigeria and expel him or her from the party. But President Buhari is increasingly authoritarian, and few would vouch that he wouldn’t cross any line to retain power in 2023.
Surely, what all this shows is that Nigeria’s politics is utterly broken, not fit for purpose. If Nigeria were Britain, where the people are the master, not the servant, of the politicians, such reckless shenanigans as the premature jockeying for 2023 and talk of a Buhari third term wouldn’t happen. Which is why Nigerians should envy the Brits, but also copy them. They must let their politicians know who the boss is: the people!
