Politics in search of politicians: A re-visit

Thomas Mann once declared that ‘the destiny of man presents its meaning in political terms’. That is to say that, in our contemporary experience, it is difficult to make clear separations or distinctions between the politics of life and the life of politics. Once we agree to hand over the day to day running of […]

Thomas Mann once declared that ‘the destiny of man presents its meaning in political terms’. That is to say that, in our contemporary experience, it is difficult to make clear separations or distinctions between the politics of life and the life of politics. Once we agree to hand over the day to day running of our business of living, the structure of our society to people of politics, it is difficult, therefore, to keep out the politicians, by which I mean those who make their living from partisan politics; those who run our governments through political parties. It is equally difficult, as well, to keep others who appear too busy or too ‘clean’ to dirty their hands in the bloody political jackal game out there. For, as Kenneth Minogue argues, ‘politics is the activity by which the framework of human life is sustained’—though it is not life itself.

Most of the time, when people in other businesses, other than partisan politics, enter or ‘intrude’ into politics, it has ended, mostly, in misery. Minogue enumerates further that  these category of externals—the ‘sceptical philosopher, the moral relativist, the rancorous academic social critic, the religious visionary, and the artistic seer– have their place in society’. But when they as much as ‘dabble’ into politics, ‘their intrusion’ has not been happy.’ I believe it s a result of this experience of non-politician’s unsuccessful fray into the rough waters of partisan politics that most professional purists and gifted men and women in diverse spheres of human experience flee, like from a plague, from murderous political battlefield of our societies. Many times when I recall the very sad end of great men like Professor Awojobi—perhaps Nigeria’s most ingenious and gifted engineer—partly  as a result of his political venturing, I tend to find good justification for men of knowledge an vision who run away from politics. There are numerous others in the Awojobi frame, who gave politics a chance with tragic consequences. People who are palpably moved by the recurrent and vicious circle of wrecked hopes and dashed dreams of our nation many years after independence, and who believe that they can lend a hand to rescue the ship but who get drowned, or are shipwrecked in the process, leave no thrill for those coming behind with a similar turn of mind.

I am not talking of the fair-weather, any-government-goes academics and professionals who quit the classrooms or the professions and ran into party-politics—moving from one unprincipled party to the next—from PDP to CPC to ACN to ANPP to APGA and back to PDP–, waiting for that to collapse so that they can move on to the next available option. They are too numerous, out there, to merit counting. Look at our big political jobbers and see how they misinterpret for convenience the escapist saying that interest, not ideology, not friendship, not friendship, is the permanent thing in politics. There are ship-jumpers; they call them carpet-crossers. Some carrying as many as five party cards, depending on which is most expedient, at a given time. Think of the big political wigs and their numerous years of sojourning in the corridors of power, watching the ship sink deeper and deeper in the morass they help create?

Saying a thing like this is certainly not the same as saying that good men, men of vision, tested revolutionaries and fighters should win the battle of democracy and then withdraw, handing the baton to dim-wits, opportunists and people who certainly have nothing to offer in the work of transforming our society from its present wreckage to triumph. The people who fought the NADECO battles, the June 12 wars from all parts of the country are not, even at the slimmest fringe of our politics today. Well, except for a few like Asiwaju Tinubu. Papa Enahoro has left the shores. I hope not in regret of what has become of the nation whose independence he moved, in his early twenties. The beneficiaries of those battles did not know its worth and have made a complete mess of it all. All of those who offered service to the vanguard of struggle in the eighties, fighting the military despots and the inheritors of civil democracy after 1978  and 1999, have no known voice (or muffled once) in the political affairs of our society today. The Fawehinmis, the Bekos, the Olaonis, the Onimodes. Are they turning in their graves?

This is why it must be obvious to public intellectuals, progressives and radical voices that the business of running democracies anywhere in the world is hardly left in the hands of political jobbers or business men who see politics as business ventures which they must invest money in and make profit from their investments. People without the foggiest of transformative visions that can bring growth and development out of democratic institutions are now the god-fathers of our partisan politics. This is why some of us believe that those among us who have the credibility, the vision and the patriotism to go into politics or to take critical positions that can begin to lead us out of the precipitous edge of social collapse cannot wait—should not wait—a minute longer. This is why we believe that people of moral fibre, honour, name and integrity, who dare to take political appointments, or public offices, deserve our support and encouragement. We once wrote, when Attahiru Jega accepted to run the Independent Electoral Commission at this crucial point of our national life that he deserves our critical push and encouragement. I wrote then that “our sympathy must not be one of pity or aloofness, but of robust identification, constructive and bold guide when he misses a step. Having known the enormity of the task, its double-edged-ness, we must not wait for him to fail. We must put all the needed pressure on those who run the State now to create conducive environment for the conduct of credible elections through the INEC under a credible leader. At count-down to the April Elections, we all have a responsibility to confront the reality of our immediate politics with screaming bouts for the right things to be done so that our democracy does not get derailed again. Nations with little or no resources but with men of vision and compassion to lead have made the critical difference and leaps for their nation.” Now, over a year after, as Gubernatorial re-runs recently took place in Sokoto, Adamawea, Bayelsa, Cross River, recently in Kebbi, we ponder what is really wrong with our politics and our politicians? Elections will, on the surface, appear free, fair and credible. INEC would have put everything possible in place to forestall irregularities, yet, the politicians will still have their way. There will still be a frightening difference between observed low turnout at the polls, voters’ apathy and all that. Yet, the figures declared will be huge, unbelievable high, leaving the impression of wide participation in electioneering. Still, we cannot pity Jega. We should pity the nation, whose political genes defy dependable polling. Good men must still stand up and serve, because it could have been worse, if left in the hands of crooks.

As Henry Kissinger once said, with reference to Lee Kuan Yew, the man who virtually singularly transformed his tiny country, Singapore from a third world, poor country into a first world, internet economy, ‘his vision of a state that would not simply survive but prevail by excelling’ through superior intelligence, discipline, and ingenuity’ that would substitute for resources was what made the difference. Yew ran a tiny multi-ethnic, multi-religious state and transformed it into a developed nation. Somewhere in our society, with an intimidating demography and abundant, stunning intellect, such men like Yew, Mandela, Guevara, Cabral, Castro, and so on, abound. We must begin to seek such men out rather than being bogged down by tired mediocres and mimics of Caligula–manipulators who have been active participants in our present doom and who will spare no looted lucre to further ruin it more.

But if, instead, we languish in unrelieved cynicism and relieved escapism—such that will dampen the morale of the able and the willing, then we are a far-cry from redemption and regeneration.  It is probably not too early to start thinking of the next round of elections, even of 2015, whose calculus is already on the drawing board—so early. Indeed that future seems near, as political tom-toms are deafening out there. The future is not a distant echo.