Google it if you are not already acquainted with the word, kakistocracy, and you will find that it is “government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state.” It might appear subjective since it would require someone sitting somewhere to judge and declare the government man suitable or competent, or not. Where there are established standards, though, the litmus test would be how much the government man has been able to manage affairs of government or the department under his care with minimal rancour. It has been established that the government is like our stomach, if it is fine, we hardly take note that it is there. But if it begins to rumble, every other system gets agitated.
Let’s discuss the trending behaviour of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s star boy, Nyesom Wike, at a construction site in Abuja, the capital city of which he is minister. Minister Wike had gone to the plot of land to effect recovery of the land from a purported owner who happens to be a retired vice admiral in the Nigerian Navy. The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) demolition team was already on ground to level the job so far done on the land. He met with military resistance, which he, apparently, least expected. What ensued was an altercation between the Minister and his team on one hand and a young naval officer, Lt. A.M. Yerima who led a guard team at the site. Wike called the officer names, but the officer was professional, never got equally abusive but merely replied firmly that he was not a fool the minister called him. He insisted he was not going to shut up when the minister hushed him to “shut up!” The minister and his team had no choice but to beat a retreat.
Arguments have been on in the social media and national televisions as various persons debate whether the minister was right or wrong in his conduct. In all sense of decorum, Minister Wike had no business enforcing a revocation of land or supervising demolitions personally. The democratic system which we claim to be running has the courts where issues of ownership of land could be trashed. In all respects, the minister acted in a manner unbecoming of a highly placed government official. Either he was ignorant of what to do at that moment or he relied on his brashness to pull it out for him – two evils that must not afflict a high ranking public officer of that nature.
Worrisome is that the FCT minister had been caught in the centre of major controversies in the polity. In the protracted power tussle in his home state, Rivers, which eventually led to a contestable state of emergency and suspension of an elected governor, Wike loomed large as a central character. He fought Gov. Siminalaye Fubara to a standstill. His grouse was that his successor, Gov. Fubara, had breached an undisclosed agreement between them before he helped him to power.
Forward to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to discover that Wike is leading a group toiling daily to bring the party down. Ultimately, he was declared sacked. Rather than quietly join the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in which he has found favour all along, he chose to remain in the PDP for the wrong reasons.
Wike is only an example of so many characters in Nigeria’s body politic. They claim to maintain political structures in their enclaves, structures comprising people who remain loyal for what they gain personally from the political iroko. These loyalists do the dirty work for them during elections and make them gain access to power. The idea of political structure is warped in the sense that a popular candidate ought to see the masses as his structure. To test their popularity, they should gauge the comments in the social media and measure the positive against the negative comments on their actions.
In the nation’s political life, hardly had any election produced the best candidates to fill positions of leadership in all tiers of government. This is evident in the manner the elected persons and their appointees had handled their responsibilities. It now dawns on us that kakistocracy is here with us. Maybe the electoral laws we make throw up politicians who are only interested in their personal aggrandizements rather than the common good of the people they lead.
Our political play field is left to businessmen and the jobless. The zeal with which many, including the national legislators, discuss and decide on their personal matters depict them as representatives of selves rather than constituencies. The round pegs for our round holes abound in the universities as dons, in the industries and professional organizations scattered in our land, even in the army. The problem is that we have excluded them from the soap box by the electoral law that insists that candidates should resign their appointments before standing for elections.
Rather than make way for good candidates, it keeps away those in gainful employment who, though possessing full leadership qualities, are afraid to gamble with elections. Owing to the uncertainty involved, they feel financially safer retaining their positions. Couldn’t there have been a situation whereby a university lecturer or civil servant takes a leave of absence to contest in an election and readily comes back to his position if he fails or if he finishes his term should he win?
His performance could be tied to his end-of-service entitlements. If he embezzles public money, he gets the boot, is discredited and is denied pensions. Every worker values safe pensions and would not mess up.
The other advantage in this is that when the candidate has in mind that he could get back to his job after all, he would not have the urge to amass wealth enough to last him for the rest of his life. Also prominent among the impediments to our getting real leaders we cherish is money which has largely occupied the centre stage in our electioneering. Money, rather than good credentials, has remained a major determinant of a politician’s success at the polls. We have continually witnessed cases of horse-trading and vote buying. The latent leaders, because they do not have money to buy votes, keep away from active politics. And so, the scene is abandoned to moneybags, and to the jobless persons, sometimes the layabouts who could simply be sponsored by moneybags.
In a political situation where selfish and parochial interests rather than the common good are emphasized, there is always confusion, chaos, robbery and bribery which do nobody, the seemingly successful and the unsuccessful, any good. If we desire a good government, we must not be reluctant to create a fertile ground on which it could germinate, grow and bear fruits. We must stop sowing weeds in our field of politics and expect to reap fruits.
Dr. Odu can be reached through [email protected] or SMS +2347064052031.
