YOU can’t make omelette without breaking eggs. But in
current Nigeria, some think we can – at least in our governance and politics.
This is unfortunately our doom.
Hold-Easy, Lose-Easy
Watching as dead bodies of innocent children were being
drawn out, one after the other, from the rubles of the three-storey building
that collapsed in Ita Faaji area of Lagos Island, Lagos State last Wednesday,
got me devastated. I saw mothers, siblings and fathers weeping uncontrollably.
One emotionally chattered woman, reportedly had four of her children in the
buried school.
Beholding the scores of the victims that one would describe
as lucky being pulled out of the ruins with several degrees of injury was
farther harrowing. Creche, kindergarten and primary school pupils being
excavated from heaps of concrete, rod and rubbish. Children in school uniforms
who only a few hours before were seeing the world with hope, only rejoining the
same world with bruises, broken bones, horrifying memories of passing hours of
torture of being buried alive under the wait of the building they innocently
called their place of learning not knowing it was actually a facility meant for
their mass killing and unlearning. I saw the terribly befuddled kids who we
call, lucky and pondered how their lives have been badly adjusted forever as
they will always live with the trauma of that incident, and wonder what a world
we, their elders and parents set for them. Eight pupils, a pregnant woman and
over 10 other occupants of the ill-fated building died. Over a score were
injured. Many are still missing. Possibly asphyxiating under the choking heap
of concrete.
When the governor of Lagos State, Akinwunmi Ambode, arrived the scene and it was
disclosed that the school had been operating illegally, and had received earlier
warnings on its status, I shuddered and exhaled in disgust. I pondered how that
development fits the narratives of a typical Nigerian society where politics
and governance is expected to be an endeavour in pleasing people and not
hurting a fly because some misguided opinion holders want the people to assume
that good governance is doing nothing but pleasing everybody -one reason why we
have had over 50 reported incidents of building collapses across Nigeria in the
past two years with 60 per cent of that happening in Lagos.
I do not envy Gov. Ambode. His Lagos has struggled hard to
prosecute some building collapses with almost no headway or near deadlock. From
the internationally reported fall of a huge hostel complex owned by Prophet
T.B. Joshua’s Synagogue in Ejigbo area of Lagos which killed people from
several nations to the embarrassment of Nigeria to the collapse of a high
profile multi story structure in Lekki, all to no significant outcome yet. One
can bet that this week’s event in Lagos Island, a political fortress and home
of his political godfather, Bola Ahmed Tinubu with whom he is currently not in
good terms would end up like the others and the children would grow up in
askance how they got to enter the world through such a country.
Same Wednesday, there was a fatal accident in the Upper
Iweka area of Onitsha, Anambra State. According to reports,the driver of an
articulated road tanker, loaded with kerosene ,lost control and ran over a lot
of people and vehicles on the road side. News reports of death toll state over
20. Scores were injured. This was the second of such huge fatality at the same
Upper Iweka in four years.
Far be it from this piece, blaming the dead. May God accept
their innocent souls. But will it be wrong to berate the deaf who has refused
to heed the orders of state authority against lining the busy roads to sell all
manner of wares? Will it be wrong to note the misdeamenour of commercial buses,
tricycles and motor transport touts among others who set up ‘shops’ along the
roads, obstructing free flow of trafick and putting theirs and others’ lives in
danger? If Anambra State government had not had a strong stance against street
hawking and banned motorcycle commuting (Okada) in Onitsha, the level of
casualty would have been gargantuan.
Only last month, a cooking gas laden tanker skidded of track
at the frontage of St. Jude Secondary School, Ihiala, along Onitsha/Owerri
expressway, dismembered and caught fire. The blaze torched a Celestial Church
on roadside, killed the resident cleric’s wife and three children, among other
casualties, in broad daylight.
Anambra State government has repeatedly urged against
roadside businesses but some folks, for whatever reasons that can never be
altruism keep working the communes with falsehood. The real issue from these
developments in Lagos, Anambra and other places is that government cannot
sacrifice governance and the people’s good for just the lure of currying some
fat folks’ favour. Indeed, Anambra government has re-emphasised her stance on
roadside trading and set up a high callibre panel of inquiry on the Upper Iweka
saga. Anambra State Physical Planning Board ANSPPB has also issued a ‘final
warning’ on citing gas plants in living areas. No one makes omelette without
broken eggs.
Sadly, many in our country have bought the lie that
governance is about letting everything be as it used to be. This mindset which
does not help a developing society especially has contaminated our
understanding of everything about governance and politics, not only safety
matters. We need sagacious politicians
with vision, bravery and balls. For them to lead us well, we have to arm them
with a society that gives them latitude to express their gut instincts too. It
is such leaders that led hitherto backwater lands out of the doldrums.
Hardball Politics
Checking through the results of Nigeria’s 2019 general
election, and keenly appraising reactions from the streets, one cannot but note
a growing trend of celebration of political indiscretion. The saddening
settling for moans, air punching and a form of follow-the-crowd populism that
never cares to pause and ponder: ‘to what end should our politics head?’
baffles. It actually, turns the essence
of politics upside-down.
Politics is about getting, retaining, cultivating and
creating power with its attendant authority. Discoursed more technically, it is
the science of running states, effectively or ineffectively. Scholars like
Okwudiba Nnoli would describe politics as “all the activities that are directly
or indirectly associated with the seizure of state power, use of state power
and consolidation of state power.” In
other words it is the art and antics of acquiring, using and consolidating
power. Basic fact: The ultimate factor in the endeavour, concept, practice and properties is the
posesion of power and authority. Ask the man who runs a church, club, family,
business, school, town union, or whatever who can pause and articulate what is
grappling with, because all those ventures are politics in practice, he will
tell you this truth. So when politics is discussed as something akin to
aspiring towards sainthood or a smile-through popularity contest, it convolutes
the original goal of the enterprise.
Sure, with democracy, as the most popular modern concept of
running states there have been some infiltrating notions that politics is a
game aimed at entertaining some spectators. It is not. It has never been. It will
never be. And there is no spectator in politics. Everybody is either involved
or directly or indirectly affected by the endeavour. No one is isolated. That
is why the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle said every man is a political
animal.
In its real sense, It is not a game meant to please anybody.
Everybody involved strives to win something else some other fellow will corner
his own and keep as his laurel. It is a winner-takes-all contest.
Notwithstanding the persuasions and manipulations of contemporary activist on
democracy, it is still a zero-sum contest in which the loser losses and the
winner wins, outright. But its beauty is
that it is such a multi-pronged contest that there are several things to win or
lose for those who are discerning enough to spot what is up for grab and have
the guts and sagacity to go for it. May be that is why some still call it a
game. In reality, it is not. In fact, if it will be likened to any game, it
would be a hardball game. That is possibly why North Americans have two
definitions for the word ‘hardball’. One of their definition of hardball is the
rough heavily body contact sports of rugby in which participants hit one
another very hard in pursuit of an oval hard ball. Their other explanation of
the word is raw, hard core politics which pursues real evidential result not
minding whose ox is gored provided the end is good.
Hardball politics comes with discomfort when in play yet it
always makes sense at the long run, especially, when it successfully culminates
to a victorious cause.
Be it in the style of the current era Trump, a Berlesconi, a
Putin, a Netanyahu, a Kim Jong-un or even the yesterday’s Tatcher, Regan, De
Gual, Pinochet, Lee Kuan Yew or
whoever, hardball politics is an
effective art that distinguishes the astute leader from the naive one. The
politician who plays hardball has no time to mess around. His goal is result.
He keeps his eyes on the ball and deals frontally with the issue till he flogs
out a good deal from it. When shove gets
to push the hard-nosed operator employs hardball strategy to get things done.
But only the shrewd strategist and focused tactician can excel with the
approach.
Explained methaphorically, hardball politics is mostly an
American expression which refers to “the discipline of gaining and holding
power.” Very useful in many professions and social undertakings, it is often
practiced “most openly and unashamedly
in the world of public affairs.” An interesting hallmark of it is that it is
intriguing to a spectator and wholistically engaging to the operator.
When hard-to-sell but smart issues of governance or
development meet the conservative hunkers of hard-to-convince fat folks whose
views may not be right yet they influence a lot of the people, the one who is
sure of the aptness of his stance may need to play hardball politics – take the
risk and stir his society off harm’s way. However, it not easy to take such
lead and push through even if one knows that the verdict of history will
eventually, prove him right. It is an extreme risk that only the courageous,
selfless and boldly visionary leader can take. Many societies remain behind
because they do not have such leaders who can stick out their neck, stake their
comfort to go for the right political decision, especially when the move
initially appears unpopular.
The task before us in Nigeria, if we are seriously desirous
of leapfrogging into the fold of developed nations, is to encourage the handful
of such leaders we now have among us.
The Massachuset Institute of Technology (MIT) scholar, Lloyd Etheredge in his oft cited journal
article, ‘Hardball politics: A Model’ describes hardball politics as the ideal
politics.
Hurray Anambra
The Nigerian polity of today, like the Asian Tigers of the
1970s needs smart, visionary and brave politicians who seldom play to the
gallery or sacrifice governance to jejune frivolities like currying favours across
country. I see a lot of such ideal politics in the style of Gov. Willie Obiano
of Anambra State. He blends his with high faculty for the real politik of
issues. Almost like one gifted with a rare third vision on things he heads for
right mine in the field and strikes the gold. This is why his fifth anniversary
as governor, today throws up several references of eventually successful
visionary decisions and political stance that may not have been well received
by very influential folks when they came but have turned out wise and smart
with time. Within just a while, his projections are yielding positive results.
And Anambra soars under him.
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