Leadership failure and gullibility of electorate

Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa and we are proud to describe ourselves as a giant with all kinds of superlatives. But we lack leadership, which drives society to fulfil its destiny, and the essential societal management qualities that will navigate us on the road to development. This discourse focuses on leadership failure and gullibility of the electorate. It proposes the need for a discerning electorate who vote on the basis of existential issues as we move towards the 2023 general elections.

There is an unfortunate mindset prevalent across Nigeria where excuses and apologies are converted to a mantra of faith, which fuels a race to the bottom instead of a race to the top. There is this idea that we have all the time in the world to mess around as a nation, kill ourselves, steal the available public resources, convert them for private use of a few and still believe that “we shall get there.” We are quick to recount the hundreds of years of the British or American democratic models, and by that calculation prove that we are still infants and toddlers who should have the liberty to muddle up our democratic or civil rule experience. We often cite the differences and disagreements between different parties in these countries, and their political policy summersaults after elections.

However, we fail to appreciate that these countries have developed their economic, social and political fundamentals. They have systems built on the supremacy of the rule of law and institutions that can withstand pressures. Their economic fundamentals can endure stress; they have technology and productive economies where value addition and service delivery are the norm. This is the background of their political gymnastics and disagreements. Many of the things that the citizens of these countries take for granted constitute the reasons the average Nigerian may go to a church or a mosque for thanksgiving.

Unfortunately for us, we seem to be a people left behind in time and space. An uncaring leadership leading an undiscerning followership is a recipe for the disaster and arrested development that Nigeria has become. Democracy anticipates an educated and enlightened populace that understands the import of policies and the link between policies and political action and their lives and livelihoods. Democracy is about a politically aware electorate who vote based on their reasonable and enlightened interests. Every decision of the leadership in this scenario will be made against the background of the reward or punishment it gets for the political party and its leaders. If you please the majority, you get rewarded with re-election, while the kind of policies prevalent in Nigeria today automatically attracts rejection at the polls.

Democracy is not nurtured by docility and absence of political discernment. It will be recalled that the Academic Staff Union of Universities has been on strike for about five months now. One would have expected students and young Nigerians at the receiving end of an uncaring government to speak out, organise themselves and hold the leadership of the country to account for their future and their right to education. But sorry, not the present crop of students and young Nigerians. Even the protest strike and rally called by Nigeria Labour Congress did not witness the massive support of the victims of the strike. They stayed home and watched the rallies on television just like others who could claim that they had no immediate and direct stake in the ASUU/ Federal Government palaver.

Leaders in Nigeria claim and swear to take steps and actions for the development of the country, but most of their strategic endeavours are aimed at undermining the integrity and sovereignty of the nation, and calculated at pauperising the majority. These days, you witness politicians contesting for very high positions announcing to Nigerians that discussions in the popular media will not affect their chances because the bulk of their expected supporters/voters are either illiterate or ignorant, or are not on social media, etc. They deliberately keep the voters in their catchment area ignorant, without education, etc., so that they can lie to them, manipulate facts and use ethnic and religious sentiments to get the vote.

Even among the educated voters, the conscious decisions made on the basis of ethnicity, religion and or the proposal to teach a candidate, a political party or a section of the country some lesson, provide an ample basis for the claim of a right to stupidity or a right to idiocy. Fortunately, in jurisprudence, there is no right to stupidity, and unfortunately for the purveyors of this mindset, they hurt themselves the most in the attempt to despise others. Now that we have an economy that has virtually collapsed and insecurity that is decimating lives and property, is anyone or any section of the country spared? We made our decision in a four plus four presidential campaign in 2019, and we must abide by that decision. Is there a special market where persons who shouted the four plus four get discounts on the prices soaring over our economic roofs?  Is anyone spared by terrorists upon proof that he supported four plus four?

To even imagine that a presidential candidate has promised to build on the foundation of this manifest presidential failure and to deepen the imagined successes is a nightmare. To dream of another four to eight years of insecurity and clueless economic mismanagement means an agreement to decimate the population of Nigeria, and should be met with a “God forbid” and “not our portion” response. There is nothing more to steal but our blood and the human being as a commodity, which is already manifesting in kidnapping for ransom.

If it is possible for some Nigerians to be allowed to exercise their democratic rights that will ordinarily jeopardise the lives and livelihood of the majority of the population, but the effect of their decision will be limited to them, their families and those who agree with them, then we can continue on the exercise of this democratic right not founded on reason. But if the votes of the unreasonable will affect reasonable Nigerians, it is time that all reasonable persons come together to shout down these unreasonable fellows who do not understand that the dance party is over-considering that the drummers and flutists have packed up and gone.

Nigerian citizens should work to position the country to take care of their needs and their right to live a life of dignity. Only after we have crossed this threshold of survival can we now continue to claim to be the giant of Africa. We can only assist others to stand if we are standing on our feet.

Democracy is not nurtured by gullibility. A vote based on gullibility and the exercise of imaginary right to idiocy is a vote in support of the massive violations of the right to life and livelihoods after 2023.