Between politics and governance

Of course, politics continues even in the process of governance but the nature, character and content of politics that accompanies governance differ radically with the type that is played outside of government. That is why for instance the opposition which often loses power under free, fair and credible elections retires to critical assessment, observation and critiquing of the party in power.
In the case of the party in power, the onus is turned on the desire and capacity to provide good governance through effective project initiation and implementation in the economic, social and political dimensions. In the process, what is done is the deemphasizing of crude politicking since the allocation of the resources of the society is within reach. Government in power work towards effective allocation of these resources as the centerpiece of its politics and not shadow chasing.
What I mean is that when a party wins political contest, it assumes both assets and liabilities of victory. No elected leader returns to the people with escapism and reasons even if genuine to legitimize nonperformance. No elected person hides under the toga of any cleavages to explain inability and incapacity as we have in our clime today.
For example, those who argue that the social crises that we have in Nigeria today are borne out of the dissatisfaction of the so called majority especially in the North working against the success of the president who is from a minority stock in the Southern part of the country are only being clever by half and exposing further the inherent weaknesses that such elected leaders are made of.
If President Jonathan hails from a minority Ijaw clan from Bayelsa state and yet he enjoyed the tremendous support that is claimed from the 2011 elections. An election where such a category gave a ‘good beating’ to those who are from the so called majority groups in the country, i.e General Buhari and Nuhu Ribadu, why would anybody come up now and try to project this minor fault line of numbers as responsible for the inability of the government to deliver the dividends of democracy to the Nigerian people? This is what I mean when I say that at present, there is major disconnect in the understanding of the relationship between politics and governance by the government in Abuja today.
Let me propose that what the campaign agenda would be in 2015 must go beyond region and religion. Yes, they are realistic factors in our being but they are not more important than the desire, thirst and quest for good life which Nigerians from every section and every faith are desirous and yearning for. When politicians come with the regional and religious cards, it is important that we ask them certain basic questions.
I agree that religion, region and electoral malpractices were the cardinal determinants of the 2011 polls. One question which I keep asking all and sundry is who the losers are and who are the winners in that election? Certainly they are not the ordinary Christians and or ordinary Muslims of Nigeria but the cabal of less than 1% of the population who are both Muslims and Christians.
When Bamanga Tukur stands on top of his 80 year old voice and insists that Jonathan must be, he is not doing that because he is a Muslim or a Fulani man from Adamawa state but basically because a Jonathan presidency puts him at an advantage of having access to national resources. That happened even in the count down to 2011 elections.
My take is that it is imported that those who control state power must know that the positions acquired have both assets and liabilities. It does not end with the allocation of societal resources. It also has to do with the baggage in the system and therefore the local act of piling blames on imaginary reasons must seize if the polity is to be the better.
I hear the Governor of Akwa Ibom state the other day say that those who are throwing bombs all over the place should stop because this man is a President by the will of GOD. I don’t argue with the fact that Goodluck Jonathan is the President of Nigeria by the grace of God, but what the governor is missing is the fact that bombs are not thrown because the president is from the south but because he inherited a social structure that was severely weakened and hasn’t shown or exhibited any serious tendency of improving on the basic social lapses that Nigeria suffers from.
It is certain that if you keep up to 70% of children who are supposed to be going to school out of it, and little or nothing is done to address the menace, then, you should be prepared for even greater social explosion.
Yes, the state governments are there but I share the thought that they are unable to address the menace due to its magnitude in relation to the quantum resources available to that level of government. When Abuja controls 52% of the national resources and does very little, it is certain that the states and local governments are not in good stead to deal with this social epidemic.
The problem with Nigeria is to a large extent premised within the short sight of those who ought to see afar. Those who chose to be in positions of authority must learn to draw a line between politics and governance. Between service and servitude and face issues on their merits and not be clouded by pseudo sentiments whenever very crucial issues of failures become visible.
Why ‘my oga at the top’ became an issue was squarely due to deficit of humility on the part of the officer to own up to the fact that he didn’t know either the website of  his organization or even that the organization has any website at all. A simple I don’t know would have saved him and the organization the monumental embarrassment that they were subjected to.
It is good that Nigerians are gradually coming to terms with the fact that what they need is neither a Christian nor Muslim, Northerner or Southerner but he who is capable of lifting them out of this state of poverty, backwardness and incessant insecurity in thse land.