This heathen dialectic

The current enthralment with the politically-correct aspirant will end in a splash of spittle and a curl of the tongue, inwards. No doubt. But this minute, vistas of the 2019 elections unfurl like a fragile fiction of ‘Change.’

Amid the racket, dreams of progress bloom like a fictional retreat. An elaborate simplicity. A Nabokovian invention of rarefied detail, as Gardner would say.

Incensed by the fiery mantras: “Change!” and “Change the Change!” citizens march to both real and taught indignation, unabashed arrogance, to stretch their necks for a leash of cash, bigotry and sound bites.

Soon afterwards, they will howl from dawn through dusk, threatening litters of tumult atop the soapbox, forgetting that the storms they incited would eventually consume them and weaker, wretched compatriots. But they will make good their threats anyway and increase the swell of trodden demise a la IPOB and Boko Haram.

The press would sensationalise the tragedies they incite via reportage that stretch beyond the photographs of civil deaths.

It’s all part of a recurrent script. Some would call it the Naija-theory of things. I would call it the therapy of the breadlines; the deputation of evil from one social class to the other.

The heathen dialectic of Nigerian politics depicts electorate mind and nature. Nigerians vote for tribe, money and random bigotries. Many vote to actualise established and latent hostilities thus the voter’s card becomes a weapon to torment a rival ethnic group and religious divide, seasonally.

The 2015 general elections, for instance, assumed a landmark in the country’s celebration of hate and bigotries. The electorate, severely divided, along religious and ethnic divides, voted for Muhammadu Buhari and Goodluck Jonathan in fulfilment of ugly stereotypes.

Few voters could convincingly articulate their reasons for choosing either Buhari or Jonathan.  True, a depressed economy, sky-rocketing inflation and embarrassing corruption across tiers of government, substantiated the debate for and against either candidate.

For most voters, however, the decisive factor was the religious affiliation and ethnic root of the contestants. The malady subsists till date; as Nigeria prepares for the 2019 general elections, the electorate separates into two factions, spawned on ethnic and religious bigotries.

Even though Buhari and his supposedly strongest rival, Atiku Abubakar, both hail from the north and are both Muslim, large segments of the electorate do battle in the candidates’ names, guided by even more dangerous bigotry, intolerance for the anti-corruption fight.

Several folks are supporting Buhari and Atiku by default, having been led to support their running mates, Yemi Osinbajo and Peter Obi, whose religion and ethnicity they prefer.

Many would argue, that, Buhari and his team have made a mess of the much vaunted anti-corruption fight but the president’s apologists would argue otherwise; the latter would rather Nigeria re-elects Buhari, guided by his sparse victories or semblances of ‘Change’ instead of a baggage-infested Atiku.

The electorate, in turn, devotes too much attention to the presidential candidates. A crinkled fascination with presidential and to some extent, governorship aspirants, has often led to a situation, whereby, candidates vying for lesser offices enjoy a smooth ride to victory, not by merit, but by the strength and political capital of their parties’ presidential and governorship candidates. This also denies their offices crucial attention from the media, critics, and electorate.

Many would vote for Atiku and his People’s Democratic Party (PDP), in protest against Buhari’s refusal to ‘share the money,’ translatable as his refusal to run the government – like his predecessor – like a bazaar, where shady characters pocket unearned profits via treasury looting.

And while the social media pulsate with bickering for and against Buhari and Atiku, the traditional media pulses with the vitriol of certain prominent lawyers, journalists, and activists, who turned staunch critics and cynics of the Buhari administration, having failed to land plum positions as cabinet members and ‘contractors’ of the incumbent government. The latter has equally let loose, bands of apologists, to repel the propaganda and outright lies of pro-Atiku/PDP groups.

At the backdrop of these shameful realities, youthful segments of the electorate display political illiteracy that is embarrassingly far-flung and subsumed in sentimentality. In response, rival parties have learned to re-invent a political devil in the opposition, to exploit their ignorance and intolerance.

The youth rant across media that they have been excluded from power, at the state and federal levels yet they have populated Nigerian politics for 59 years as thugs, murderers, arsonists, vote buyers/sellers, and rhetoricians. They are deployed every political season by aspirants – who previously identified as youth five to seven decades ago – as unthinking muscles, emissaries of death and destruction.

Nigeria’s current dilemma is a consequence of bad choices and perversion of governance. There is urgent need for Nigeria’s enlightened youth to seek each other out in wisdom, and coalesce into more definitive roles.

Since elder politicians, whom Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, aptly described as the ‘Wasted Generation,’ have failed to grow up and make progressive choices for the nation, the onus rests on informed youth to answer as the adults the ruling class would never become.

The Presidential Aspirants Coming Together (PACT) assemblage is already a failed enterprise; driven by self-seeking egoists, the platform could not assume the prized role it set out to perform, thus leaving Nigeria with limited choices.

This calls for urgent, proactive steps by the youth. The first is to provide a foundation for the unity of ideas and cause, and to do it very quickly. The second is to evolve a social agenda that strengthens the ideals of a higher education, common progress and commonwealth. It is not too late to undo ruling class malfeasance but 2019 is gone. Hence strategic efforts should target the 2023 electoral season and beyond.

At the moment, familiar predators have regrouped into familiar camps. From the 2019 polls’ date, their political paradise will persist; governors will rule for two terms (eight years) and afterwards, compensate themselves with outrageous pensions and senate seats.

The malady subsists in real time. At the expiration of their eight-year tenure, for instance, certain outgoing governors, with unabashed arrogance, struggle to choose their successors, and other crucial public appointees. Some have waged war, to turn government into their family inheritance hence their frantic struggles to install their sons-in-law and siblings in government quarters.

Ultimately, they seek to impose stooges as successors. The latter are expected to cover up official fraud, embezzlement and other atrocities that they committed during their tenure.

This is the result of junk politics, where nothing changes, meaning zero interruption in the processes and practices that institutionalise corruption and inefficiency in governance, according to Hedges.

Junk politics “redefines traditional values, tilting courage toward bluster, sympathy toward mawkishness, humility toward self-disrespect, identification with ordinary citizens toward distrust of reason and intellect.”

At every turn, it seeks to obliterate voters’ consciousness of socio-economic and other differences in their midst, and it is the major indoctrination of Nigeria’s most prominent political parties.

Its about time the youth established a platform, unlike PACT, where more humane aspirants would foster politics as everything but a by-product of a diseased culture that seeks its purpose in characters, who are, as Boorstin writes, “receptacles into which we pour our purposelessness.”