Godfathers + godsons = godless rulers

Let me begin by making a true confession. I am no great shakes at mathematics; even less so in matters sacerdotal. Algebra, pure and applied maths and the rest of my confusion in that branch of great learning are all pure and incomprehensible Greek to yours sincerely. Therefore, do not regard the above headline as a work of mathematical genius or the prophetic rendition of a new age man of God. The truth about it is less glamorous.

Here is the question that taxed my old brain and led me to the discovery of this mathematics of Nigerian politics: In a country of such brilliant men and women in all branches of learning, why do we continue to be led by politicians, most of whom have two left hands, in the executive and the legislative branches of government?

I set out in search of an answer, scientific or otherwise, to this great national puzzle for which few Nigerians bother to spare their precious time and thought. I proceeded from the premise that if you think hard and long about a question, you are bound to be rewarded with an answer, at least for your personal education.

In the ordinary run of human affairs, a country of brilliant men and women ought to produce, as a matter of course, brilliant political leaders who appreciate the challenges of leadership and public service. Leaders serve their people by leading them aright. Rulers impose on their people through the exercise of naked power. We are a nation of mediocre rulers, for ever passing themselves off as leaders who are given to the cosmetics of political leadership. We hear of men and women in other lands who move mountains to make roads where none existed to let their people pass through unhindered into the land of their collective national dreams; a land not flowing with honey but guided by scientific and technological genius. They make the great and envious leap from a third world status to a first world status.

In our luckless country, all we hear daily are mind-boggling stories of men and women who egregiously abuse our collective trust, corner our common wealth into their own pockets and those of their families and make the law look like an ass blessed with double foolishness. Court dockets throughout the country are filled with EFCC cases against former state governors who are today numbered among the wealthiest men in the land because, to borrow from the brilliant headline of a Newswatch magazine story, they became executhieves about whom public records of praise and adulation are waxed.

In a matter of six weeks, some of the government houses would have new tenants and some abject and failed thieving state governors would return to their seats as triumphant recipients of the people’s endorsement through the flawed instrumentality of the ballot box; an endorsement from the same people they misgoverned and cheated, of course. And life, as we know it, would go on, raising false hopes in the leadership quality of the new recruits into the government houses, most of whom, four or eight years down the line would face the cobra stare of Ibrahim Magu’s pikins.

The fault is not in these men. It is their luck to be where they are, thanks to their godfathers. The fault lies squarely in the leadership process that permits a powerful man or a group of men to pick, choose and impose weak and generally mediocre men on the people as their governors. Godfatherism has a long and disruptive history in our national politics. As citizens and as voters with the sacred responsibility of using the power inherent in the ballot paper to recruit men and women of our choice in the executive and the legislative branches of government, we are mere pawns on the chessboard of the political godfathers. We are not called upon to vote; we are called upon to endorse, through inducements and intimidation, the choices made by the godfathers. This is what it was; this is what it is; and this is what it will remain. And this country of potentially great political leaders continues to be hobbled in its progress by the contradictions in its DNA.

Nigeria is no stranger to the many contradictions that puzzle men and women in other lands about our country. We are an oil-rich. We are the leading crude oil producer on the African continent. Our national treasury boasts of enviable petro-dollars and a hefty foreign reserve. Yet, we managed to dislodge India from what we thought was its uncontested permanent position as the poverty capital of the world. A rich nation of poor people is a strange anomaly in human development. But we are where we are because we continue to contest with Bangladesh for the crown in the Transparency International Corruption Index annual report.

Agriculture was the main stay of our national economy in the first republic – the period of our national history before the intrusion of the khaki politicians came, experimented and dabaru our country in more ways than one. The magnificent groundnut pyramids in Kano demonstrated the genius and the productivity of our peasant farmers. We were the leading producers and exporters of cocoa and oil palm produce in the Western and the Eastern regions, respectively. It is painfully funny that we speak of the glorious days of our great country in the past tense. The groundnut pyramids are buried in the wombs of history; we import our oil palm products from Malaysia and Cote d’Ivoiran cocoa farmers laugh in the faces of our impoverished cocoa farmers.

Eighty per cent of our land is fully arable, able to support a variety of food and cash crops. And the rest of the world wonders why a country this blessed is unable to feed itself and instead imports rice from South Korea, a tiny country with only 13 per cent arable land.  We no get shame.

I have a sneaking feeling that the rest of the world is no longer bothered about our monumental national contradictions. They know we are making progress and, therefore, allow for the fact that a nation either makes progress through giant leaps or through pigmy strides along the treacherous highways of human progress and development. They do know too that Nigeria remains a potentially great nation because it is ruled largely by men blessed with mediocre capabilities; it is not led by men and women of great ideas who would not succumb to the temporary gains of rulership at the expense of leadership. Ruling a people is easy; leading a people is tough, taxing and complicated. The godfathers prefer the easy option. No, we are not doomed. Just condemned to crawling in circles. A depressing thought?