Members of the political class, who comprise power-brokers and those governing, represent the soul of any country as they are the building blocks of leadership recruitment. By virtue of their calling, politicians are expected to show leadership and live up to their promises. They are also obligated to uphold and promote fundamental national values concerning political, economic and social imperatives.
Part of these imperatives are representative democracy, good governance, popular participation, political stability, national unity, peaceful co-existence, law-abiding and dutiful citizenry, constitutionalism, due process, the rule of law, separation of powers, respect of basic human rights, social justice, sense of inclusion, equal opportunities, thriving economy, sustainable development, human welfare and international respectability. Furthermore, apart from being upstanding, politicians should be inclined to develop a more open and pluralist society. And they should be averse to suspicion, distrust, treachery and hostility in the political arena, which could torpedo the democratic process.
More importantly, members of the political class or elite should stand for national cause at all times, notwithstanding their party, ethnic, religious, cultural or ideological affinity. In this case, unifying and stabilising factors like pan-nationalism, patriotism, statesmanship, national unity, corporate existence, nation-building, national integration, multiculturalism and bi-partism (or even multilateralism) should be their watchword. No doubt, these factors and similar ones encapsulate the spirit of the guardian class whose enlightened members are driven by the impulse of national interest, which is paramount, not personal or sectional interest that has been the bane of politics and governance in many developing countries, including Nigeria.
Interestingly, it is such spirit of a deep and abiding feeling for one’s country that made the Conservative Party and the opposition Labour Party and Liberal Party in the United Kingdom (UK) to converge under the auspices of Better Together coalition to save their union from dismemberment in the face of the much-heralded referendum on Scotland’s bid for independence last September. This is in stark contrast to the conflicting perceptions by many politicians in Nigeria on the way out of the conundrum of our mounting national challenges, including the dreadful one of Boko Haram’s terror campaign that has claimed about 13,000 lives and made more than 1.5 million people homeless since 2009.
Being a crucial factor in the realisation of the Manifest Destiny of any national society, it is expected that members of our political class would be vibrant, dynamic and visionary, as well as have the passion to change things for the better in Nigeria. This is considering that since the inception of our present democratic dispensation on May 29, 1999, some of them have displayed behaviour and attitudes that are totally incongruous with the necessity to build a viable and sustainable state.
These include ungodliness, selfishness, greed, personal aggrandisement, lack of integrity, dishonesty, corruption, nepotism, cronyism, money politics, false promises, intolerance, violence and sectional rabble-rousing – unsavoury acts that have not only made them appear discreditable, but have also dwarfed the prospects of our fatherland. Going down memory lane, our nationalist heroes and founding fathers who featured prominently in the politics of the First Republic (1960-66), such as Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo (all of blessed memory), in spite of their human frailties, set a shining example of what is required of a model political class like selfless service, human touch, national fervour and integrity.
For example, Dr. Azikiwe (the Great Zik of Africa as he was fondly called) was a tireless exponent of dignity of man, national unity and pan-African co-operation. On the other hand, Sir Tafawa Balewa was a grassroots and self-effacing political leader who espoused unity in diversity in Nigeria, just as Chief Awolowo (Awo as he was popularly known) saw the future of the country as being inextricably tied to true federalism. During the Second Republic (1979-1983), Dr. Azikiwe, Chief Awolowo and Alhaji Shehu Shagari (a man of meek and humble mien who was then the President of the Federal Republic) were, relatively speaking, politicians without guile.
They established their credentials by, amongst others, not playing politics replete with primitive accumulation, mismanagement, nepotism, cronyism, elitism, exploitation, oppression, extravagance, flamboyance, sectionalism, intolerance, hatred and confrontation. The late Mallam Aminu Kano of the same political genre will be kindly remembered for devoting his energy towards emancipating the Talakawas or wretched of the earth of his society. In the northeast of Nigeria, specifically Bornu State, which is today bedeviled by carnage and mayhem of Boko Haram, Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim was revered for his lofty principle of politics without bitterness, which was in chime with the philosophy of non-violence propagated by great activists of international renown like Mahatma Gandhi of India, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. of the United States (US) and the Dalai Lama of Tibet.
If truth be told, the aforementioned personages had shown through their laudable feats that they were in a rendezvous with destiny as they strove to shape the future of their expectant people. With our fatherland now at a crossroads in the face of dire political, economic and social challenges, members of our political class could be said to be in a race against time. Irrespective of their affiliations, they are called upon to soften their rhetorics and close ranks for the sake of the Nigerian future that is currently threatened by intense political wrangling, violent religious extremism and ethnic militancy.
This is not the time for blame-game, name-calling and mutual recriminations by our politicians, but the time for them to relate with one another on good terms in order to save the ship of our national state from capsizing under the severe storms of political, economic and social crises and their underlying causative factors.
Against a backdrop of such developments, it is incumbent on our politicians to get along and tie all the loose ends in our embattled federation based on friendly, mundial spirit of democracy. After all, the rise or fall of any national community depends on the way and manner members of the political class handle its affairs. Stemming from this, it could be asserted that united our politicians stand, and divided our polity faces the dark prospect of falling like the proverbial pack of cards.