Where is the Third Way?

I thought of a few Nigerian politicians and their methods. First I thought of President Obasanjo, if he had not introduced garrison politics, no one would have seen public office as a do-or-die affair. Then I thought of President Jonathan. If he had been in the All Progressives Congress and executed the projects he says […]

I thought of a few Nigerian politicians and their methods. First I thought of President Obasanjo, if he had not introduced garrison politics, no one would have seen public office as a do-or-die affair. Then I thought of President Jonathan. If he had been in the All Progressives Congress and executed the projects he says he executed, cleaned the Augean stable, spread development evenly and was able to route the insurgents and #BBOG, is able to defend his policies with oratorical finesse, would he not have been praised as one of the redeemers of this country? What of Lagos State governor, Babatunde Fashola who happens to be a great orator and people-friendly? If he was not overshadowed by a self-centred, opportunistic power-monger in Lagos, wouldn’t he have been urged to run for president by his people? In the same vein I ruminated over Kano state’s Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso, the come-back kid, who is turning Kano into Dubai, but whose rhetoric is far from rational. Who would have rejected him if he had done the same things during his first term in office as he is doing now? And there is Ribadu, the cynosure of all eyes and subject of Dr Baba-Ahmed’s entry. He has the frame of mind of a reformer but has decided to ride on what Baba-Ahmed, a king pin of the APC, calls the wrong horse.
But where is the right horse? The untrained eye would immediately see the confusion in Nigerian politics as people who are supposed to walk on the third way are running parallel to the zebra-crossing because of the absence of ideology and cohesion.
This has invariably led to the concurrent breakdown of political, economic and social institutions. History is replete with a clear manifestation of this breakdown which is visible in our driving habits, our development strides, the state of our public-sector school system and the healthcare delivery structure which are all in a shambles.
Even the poorest amongst us do not send their children to government schools. They avoid going to government health facility as the popular belief is that it is inefficient and dysfunctional. This was not the case before. My generation studied at public institutions and is doing well in life. Government hospitals used to cure once upon a time and even the upper class went there for treatment and was satisfied with the services.
All that has collapsed.
Unemployment and inflation have escalated and eking a living is a huge challenge. It is bad enough in so-called normal times. In emergencies, as in the north east, it is the poor who are worst hit. Living from hand-to-mouth, they fear today and dread tomorrow and their normal economic activities are paralyzed.
Meanwhile politicians are busy showing off with stolen money. It all happens at the expense of ideology.
The World Bank classifies us as among the poorest in the world. Its development indicators put 70pc of us below the poverty line. The number of those needing help has risen as we are now a country of 167 million people. Initially, it was hoped that the oil money that the country earned in abundance would help build the economy and benefit those at the bottom of the bunch. But it confused the leaders, one of who said money is not the problem but how to spend it. Ultimately, it fuelled the corruption that has filled the pockets of the rulers. Nothing reached the poor. And the politicians continue to show utter lack of principles.
This state of the nation calls for the Third Way. In politics, the Third Way is a position that tries to reconcile varying synthesis of right-wing economic and left-wing social policies. The Third Way was created as a serious re-evaluation of political policies within various centre-left progressive movements in response to international doubt regarding the economic viability of the state; it brought opportunities to the doorsteps of the poor. It supported the pursuit of greater egalitarianism in society through action to increase the distribution of skills, capacities, and productive endowments, while rejecting income redistribution as the means to achieve this.
It is believed in many circles that reinventing the Third Way will return Nigeria to its nostalgic past, where equity and justice was gold. Where the age old jobs like the sanitary officials in the cities who carried canisters of disinfectants and sprayed gutters against diseases would be welcome; Where the price control officials who denied traders that arbitrary power of determining the cost of goods in the markets would re-emerge; Where the post offices, the train stations and even the motor traffic divisions of the police force would function like new. I look back at Nigeria with nostalgia and determine that all these services can only return, if the ego trips of our politicians and their selfishness are curtailed. These should not be viewed as a permanent poverty alleviation measure, however. But they can help.
Today poverty is rising. Every time there is a political crisis in Nigeria there is economic paralysis too. That translates into greater numbers needing humanitarian help because they are too poor to help themselves. What is worse is that the poor become victims of the political polarisation that grips the country. Of course, everyone claims to speak for the poor, but no one allows the poor to speak for themselves.