Can Nigerian political parties ever become ideological?

If you pay attention to the current electioneering in Nigeria (March, 2015) and listen to the two main political parties, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP and the All Progressive Congress, APC you would notice that neither party has stated its agenda; neither has told Nigerians what it wants to do for them. One talks about maintaining the status quo and the other talks about change. What are they preserving or changing to?

Nigerian political parties are not ideological; they do not state that they are conservative or liberal, socialist, communist, fascist, corporatist etc.; they are agglomerations of people who come together to capture the government and use it to gratify their desire for prestige and wealth.

Nigerian political parties are instruments with which politicians loot the various governments in Nigeria.

We know that Nigerian politicians, from the head of state to the local council member, are in politics for what they can get from the people not because of what they want to do for the people. All these notwithstanding one keeps asking: since Nigerians are human beings, or are they not human beings, they do see how politicians in other countries behave, so why don’t they imitate them?

British and American political parties state what they stand for, what they want to accomplish for their people as the motive for their seeking to be voted to govern. At any rate, the fact that they are ideological means that folks already know what they stand for.

If you vote for the American Republican Party you know that you are voting for folks who would work for limited government, cut taxes and discriminate against black folks.

If you vote for the American Democratic Party you know that they are liberals who believe in expanding the role of government in the human polity; they want to use government to do certain things for the people; you know that they would work to give poor people some handouts such as welfare for poor women with dependent children and health insurance for all the people.

The American polity does not tolerate socialists and communists so folks do not have to worry about such political parties. In France socialism is tolerated so there are socialist political parties who intend to achieve socialist goals (collective ownership of the means of production, public ownership of property) but do so through the democratic process, not by seizing government forcefully as the Bolshevists did in Russia in 1917.

In Britain both parties, Conservatives and Labor agree on what is good for Britain and pretty much do it; however, one does it slightly from right of center and the other from left of center.

The other European countries, such as Germany and Italy in varying degrees do what is done in Britain. The German Christian Democratic Party (currently led by Chancellor Angela Merkle) is equivalent to Britain’s Tory Party whereas the German Social Democratic Party is equivalent to British Labor Party.

In Asian countries the political parties tend to be corporatist in the sense that they aim at developing their countries; they work with the private and public sectors with one goal in mind, to modernize their countries. The Japanese Liberal Party is corporatist.

You get the point: Western political parties stand for something and seek office to achieve what they stand for. Nigerian political parties do not stand for public good and yet the people vote them to office and they naturally do not accomplish anything good for the people.

Nigerian politicians seek office for the opportunity it offers them to gratify their narcissistic desire to seem like they are very important persons and gratify their sociopathic tendencies by looting the national treasury and become wealthy. Nigerian politicians are not motivated to do anything useful for the people.

The question is this: when would Nigerians say that enough is enough and demand that their politicians show them their plans on what they want to accomplish for the country, and hold them accountable for accomplishing those objectives and vote them out of office if they fail in doing so and elect different parties that hopefully would accomplish useful goals of them?

At what point would the Nigerian electorate behave like people in the Western world and elect leaders who plan to accomplish some goals for them?

When would Nigerians transcend electing politicians who merely give them a few bags of rice to feed on for a month and then ignore them during the balance of the duration of their stay in office?

Don’t Nigerians have minds and, as such, know what is good for them? Why do Nigerians keep electing thieves into political offices and when those do not do anything for them they complain!

You do not place a fox in a hen-house and then complain that some chicken were eaten. If you elect sociopaths, as Nigerians politicians are, to office you must expect looting of the country. If you expect differently you surely are mentally challenged.

They say that insanity is doing the same thing, over and over, again while expecting different results. Criminals in political offices will loot the national treasury; to expect them to not do so is to be stupid. Is the Nigerian electorate stupid?

Mr. Badluck Jonathan and his PDP have been in office for six years (or sixteen years if you count from when they came to office in 1999). Throughout that time all that Nigerians got is poverty; Nigerians lives have not improved one bit from the day the chief-thief of Aso Rock began his tenure as the president of Nigeria.

To expect Jonathan and his gang to behave differently is to be a fool. If Jonathan and his cronies are reelected obviously they would continue stealing from Nigerians and getting away with it (appointing crooked judges and bribing them so as to get away with their thieving ways). When is enough enough?

And when would Nigerian political parties become ideological and have agendas that they want to accomplish for the people?

Is it true that Nigerians are thieves and since a people get the type of government they deserve get the thieving politicians they deserve?

One would think that after 54 years of self-governance Nigerians would have identified their problems and begun solving them.

Lee Kwan Ye of Singapore just died; that man single handedly transformed a poor city state into an economic giant; he made his poor people to now live at Western standards. But what do we see in Nigeria?

In Nigeria all we see is poverty; we see a few politicians like bandits making out with the people’s monies.

Are Nigerians, indeed black folks really unable to govern their selves? This question must now be addressed since no African country can be said to be well governed (except South Africa and we all know why… white developed infrastructure… we hope that Africans do not run them down).

Ozodi Osuji Ph.D
[email protected]
(907) 538-1086
Dr. Osuji specializes on management and leadership.