Opinion: Nigeria Politics following the presidential primaries in PDP and APC

[Emmanuel Udogu]

Opinion: Nigerian Politics Following the Primaries

Why Most Political Systems in Africa and the Global South Tend to Lack Political Legitimacy Amongst the Intelligentsia and Some Members of the Informed Public

AFTER LISTENING AND WATCHING the activities leading to the presidential primaries, commentaries and outcomes of the major two parties, on Channels Television and Arise News, my views as to why most political scientists prefer being political spectators to gladiators were reinforced. If you are like me, I have been asked by my students and ordinary folks: “why aren’t you running for a political office as a political scientist?” Afterall, isn’t politics your area of expertise? 

My crass answer is that I know so much about the political game and shenanigans in practical politics defined operationally as the struggle for power. The operative word is the STRUGGLE for power which–in the politics of the global south and especially in Nigeria–could be deadly. Some would argue that they did not spend years on end studying, teaching and writing on politics to place their lives in jeopardy given the nature of political brinkmanship in the polity. Besides, it is too expensive for most political scientists–anyway.

 I saw political actors before the just completed primary doling out millions of Nairas to governors in return for a quid pro quo. Indeed, I saw one of the “cash-strapped” governors from the north praising his benefactor profusely, and “privately” promising to deliver his state’s electoral votes to him. This is one reason why we are recycling the same caliber of politicians–i.e., the moneybags and politicians of yesteryear who should serve as mentors to youthful and “new breed” politicians. I am afraid that we may be witnessing the revival of Louis XIV, and his L’etat c’est moi fame, in our politics. So, there is a need for a new thinking about the “National Question” and restructuring the country after over 60 years of home rule!  

Former President Jonathan’s inspiring and relevant political rhetoric to the youth of several years ago (and reproduced at the end of this submission) is noteworthy–at least in my view:

 “Nigeria belongs to the YOUTH. We do not want old [and reactionary leaders governing your generation]. In truth, you do not need leaders like myself who should be looking forward [to the end of his life’s journey] governing you. Look at the development of our country today vis-a-vis what we were promised after independence. Nigeria belongs to the youth [with visions like those of Brother Dangote and others of his generation and caliber].”  

I listened to VP Osinbajo and his brilliant and well-articulated platform, and I said to myself this is the quality or kind of leadership Nigeria needs at this juncture. I must add, too, that I appreciated  Bello’s presentation. Lamentably, neither Osinbajo nor Bello made the cut in the APC primary. This development, in my opinion, is in part why the political system lacks legitimacy amongst most of the country’s intelligentsia and some members of the informed public.

Former President Johnathan’s plea to Nigerian Youths. This entreaty is likely to spur Nigeria’s industrial revolution and to galvanize our youths to explore outer-space!

https://www.facebook.com/optimistic.guy.58/videos/579716386634762/?sfnsn=wa

 

IKE UDOGU

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Osinbajo was deeply inspiring. I also enjoyed Tien-Rich.

Why, then, am I likely to vote for Tinubu?

I want a person who can decivisely address the Boko Haram and Fulani supremacist terrorist problems, Nigeria's greatest security challenges and perhaps its greatest problems, problems fed by Northern Muslim extremists who do not identify with Nigeria as a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious nation, but who want religious and ethnic dominance of Nigeria from Fulani hegemony and from Islam. 

If not for people like Tinubu, Wole Soyinka, among others who had been strong Buhari critics but who turned round to endorse him because it suited their ends, we would not have the disaster of a terrorism enabling President today.

How realistically may one expect a political opportunist as I understand Tinubu to be to address a problem he was central to creating, a problem the existence of which he has refused to acknowledge?

Who, among all the Presidential candidates, may one expect to address this problem?

Tinubu seems the one person who both has a good chance of winning and may also be expected to possibly address the problem, with the support of a region, which, after Ortom in Benue, has been the most vigorous in addressing the problem though doing so only after years of foot dragging and even then in a muted manner.

I'm not excited about Peter Obi, who excites so many, because I doubt if he has the balls to do the kind of thing represented by Tinubu's Abeokuta Declaration, a stance of self asssertion of the kind required to face the right wing mentalities dominant in the the Muslim North and which want to swallow the nation.

His region, the SE, seems to have the most cowed crop of governors, people so hungry for Aso Rock that they are even more confused than others about what to do about this war being waged on Nigerians.

I understand Obi's focus is on the economy. That is beautiful and vital. But life and security are fundamental to the economy. Farming is greatly imperiled  because of the dangerous greed  of violent Fulani herdsmen. The recent Kaduna air and ground attack makes it clear that the Fulani supremacist terrorists have acquired air power, a fact that the Kaduna state govt is eager to conceal though their incredible description of the attack, in which the chopper they claimed was from the govts forces was unable to kill or wound any of the numerous terorrists carrying out the attack or trail them back to their base, almost a clear case of collusion, in my view.

These are terrible issues  the Presidential candidates seem careful not to mention.

Why?

They know that the relationship between Islamic terrorism, Fulani herdsmen terrorism, Fulani militia terrorism,  Fulani bandits and kidnappers  and the Muslim North is one of ambivalence, in which identification with these terrrorist orientations, justifications of them and confusion about them, are mixed, so addressing those issues risks  alienating the powerful Fulani elite in whom these complexities  are deeply rooted as well as alienating people in the general Northern Muslim populace caught between these complexities.

Is that not a kind of slavery?

Your neighbours have created a savage culture, destructive  to you and to themselves, but you are afraid to address this savagery because you want to exist in your terrorised state in the belief that you have some freedom from the worst of it.

thanks

toyin

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Your & Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju's fulsome praise for V-P Osinbajo is in vile contrast with ( for brevity's sake) this  slight excerpt :

"The convention also aggrandised the limits and dangers of Yemi Osinbajo’s overt religionisation of politics. Osinbajo thought his most potent strategy to ascend to the presidency was to weaponise religion in the most vulgar way possible. But it was precisely his strategy that incinerated him quickly.

Had he transcended the easy lures of toxic religious particularism, particularly because he is a pastor in a religiously fractured country, he might have been APC’s presidential nominee today. He was the choice of many northern Muslim governors until I exposed his RCCG bigotry and theocratic fantasies with incontrovertible empirical fidelity." ( Farooq Kperogi)

I would hate to have to comment on this and adjacent matters...

[Emmanuel Udogu]

The button line, Toyin, is that the “law of self-interest” will always trump or eclipse political preachments. We have had political homilies from practically all of our “political messiahs” who promised they would fight corruption, insecurity, poverty and unite our multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multilingual society. Sadly, they have failed miserably such that folks of my generation are so nostalgic of the past with steady electricity supply, clean water and public safety to list a few. 

It might interest you to learn that political investors-cum-benefators in the parties–especially the two major parties–are already, metaphorically, bearing gifts of “Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh” to flatter the flag-bearers of their factions and to seek fabulous favors in return. 

Perhaps we might be able to salvage Nigeria, and other African countries, by returning to our traditional African culture that is analogous to the “organic theory of the state” in which collectivity is what matters–not individuals. This is so because we will all (despite our wealth and other personal vanities and political ambitions) die and the society and community will remain alive and vibrant. 

So, on this matter, my view is “a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.”

Ike Udogu

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

may God help us

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[Toyin Falola]

The Toyin here is Toyin Adepoju.

I always receive many private messages whenever his name is confused with mine.

TF

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