EVERY NIGERIAN MUST HAVE THE SAME GOAL

  The Nigerian political institution is not well defined along ideological lines like is expected in a democratic dispensation, so because of this and coupled with the fact that our leaders are not tested and demonstrated leaders who had undergone leadership trainings and proved their leadership mettles in tested fields before being ascended into public offices, the idea of voting a party into power in Nigeria is absurd. Because no one party in Nigeria is different from the other in terms of ideologies and the real predisposition to apply its manifestos.

  What Nigerians should be concerned about are the individuals being presented to them, especially the possibility and ability of these ones to be able to deliver the dividends of democracy to them, it is unfortunate that Nigerians are not used to asking questions and their leadership is not responsible enough in most cases to be accountable to Nigerians. It becomes almost forbidden for a Nigerian to raise up his hand at any public function and formulate a question before an elected public servant and expect a clear response to his questions especially if it is a question that makes the public servant a bit uncomfortable, there will always be other Nigerians present at the same occasion who will quickly want to oppose the person asking the question, then also would be the teeming group of sycophants usually gathered around all public servants in Nigeria like flies on a rot who too will be preventing any access to the man whose office naturally obliges him to be at the service or better put at the beck and call of every Nigerian.

  Sometimes, one risk even physical aggression in the hands of the many thugs, official bodyguards, aide-de-camp… and even security forces all paid from our public funds but who out of ignorance and selfishness act as unnecessary encumbrance to our elected public servants. How many political parties in the history of Nigeria have stuck to their manifestos on getting to power? What makes any Nigerian political party different from the other? If you take a detailed look at these questions you will discover that unlike in the developed nations where democracy is practiced on the bases of at least two alternative ideological choices; one conservative, the other progressive, one right wing, the other left wing, right center, center left and all that….. Signifying what to expect from any elected one amongst them, in Nigerian we only have a conglomeration of mostly dubious persons without any ideological bearing, who have formed a party lacking any form of ideology simply for the purpose of contesting an election because a candidate need to contest under the auspices of a party.

  But then, it is still not all bad news as it eventually depends on the practical outcome of the party in the hypothetical case that it gets to power. The truth is this, Nigeria as a nation cannot afford to be divided into just two interest groups as we normally see in most advanced, democratic societies, our problems are multifaceted, in fact, no under-developed nation can afford itself the impudence to do that. Nigeria therefore by its nature should have parties with the same ideology which is no other than speedy development. If you ask me, I do not think that Nigeria needs politicians as much as it needs patriotic technocrats, we need a blue print and persons committed to pursuing the outline developmental agenda with all urgency and vigor. Take for instance that a government comes into power in a nation like Nigeria, following a pre-tabled and underlined major problems facing us as a people in the scale of their preferences and decides in its 4 year tenure to fix two very major and outstanding of all the underlined problems rather than diversify its energy in dealing with a million problems that we have and eventually carrying it over to the next government worse than it was before he inherited them.

  What I am trying to say is this; the key problem in Nigeria today and always has been corruption and mismanagement of public funds, what if we have a government that makes this its major agenda and works vigorously to uproot the existing impunity characteristics of our government in recent times as regards this issue of corruption. What if the only success of President Goodluck Jonathan in his tenure was efficient and constant electricity supply? Imagine if in the 4 years of any president in office in Nigeria, there is constant power supply for 4 years; Nigerians will no longer mark the Xmas or the Id-el Kabir festivals but constant electricity day.

   On a more serious note, I think that we are continuously and helplessly left as a people in the hands of those who play politics with our well being as a nation rather than those who are really willing to sacrifice themselves for the growth and progress of our nation. We all know what our problems are in Nigeria, our leaders should begin to face and resolve these problems and stop once and for all this useless game of bamboozling Nigerians and unnecessary time buying. Nigeria is a nation endowed to be great, mediocrity should therefore not be an option.