The results so far released by INEC have shown that political dark horses will emerge on the political scene in the next dispensation writes BODE OLAGOKE
This is a season of results following last Saturday’s general elections. The election was keenly contested and the results are proving that new faces will dominate the political scenes across the country. Election is about choice of candidates, parties, programmes and policies, all represented by faces of actors. Behind any face are antecedents.
So, in the emergence of any electoral candidate, the questions that will be normally asked are:
What are his antecedents? What interest does he represent? What is his experience? In totality, what can he offer? For us in Nigeria, we must ask, for what are the faces we project for public offices known? Ideally, antecedents, interest and experience should be enough to sell a candidate.
Irrespective of the political, the purpose of government remains the same: providing services and ensuring that all socio-economic deliverables are distributed justly and equitably. Also underlying this imperative is the notion of the social contract: the agreement between the ruler and the ruled. There is only one way of meeting this social contract: ensuring distributive justice in service provisioning and access to privileges and opportunities.
How well this seemingly utopian objective is achieved will be dependent on the quality of elected leaders at the executive and legislative arms of the government strengthened by the professionalism and impartiality of appointed judicial arbiters. But this also depends on the leadership training, recruitment and selection process of the nation.
When we harp on leadership, we are not concerned with just the political leadership. We are rather interested in leadership recruitment in all its ramifications, because in the final analysis, the various state institutions sum the totality of players who are all involved in the governance framework as critical stakeholders of which the government is just a driver.
Therefore, the quality of choice, representation, participation and contribution in public management in any country, the effectiveness and the efficiency of the service provided by its public managers, the reach and the impact as well as their relevance to public and societal, needs are underpinned by some fundamental values and require rigorous training.
Central to this notion is the idea of providing service for the greatest good of the greatest number. By the greatest number, we do not mean just the majority, but inclusiveness.
Even those that would not be beneficiaries or justifiably excluded from the service will have some understanding and sympathy and are, therefore, carried along in the decision making and implementation processes. To attain such height, we must begin to reevaluate our values and practices in public management.
Here, we may ponder to ask: What is the depth of our understanding of service? How do we arrive at the resolve to provide one service and not the other? What yardstick should we use to exclude one group and include another? What factors were considered in the determination of the timing and delivery of the public goods or services?
The advanced countries of Europe and North America are today at an enviable stage of development, with higher standard of living and encouraging life expectancy, enjoying the best and most efficient infrastructures as they also utilize and manage their resources and endowments in a way that does not compromise their existence now nor jeopardize the needs of the future generation.
That is as they meet today’s existential needs, they are also aware of the danger of over exploitation of their natural habitat without re-investment in conservation or preservation of the environment. This is the kernel of sustainable development.
Therefore, if our service delivery must assure sustainable development in the country, satisfying the needs of the citizenry and at the same time mitigating unavoidable negative externalities, patriots and professionals have to rethink their approaches to managing the nation’s resources with a view to arriving at the most effective, efficient and economical strategies of service provision.
The truth of the challenge of saving the dying conscience in Nigeria, it seems to me, has to begin with enlightenment on our shared humanity. The death of anyone should, as the great quote goes, diminish us. The death of so many should crush our spirits and inspire action. The abduction of so many innocents unto so uncertain a fate should force us all to lose sleep“.
It used to be said that a conscience can become seared. As I watched a country carry on after more than 200 young women were abducted by anarchists who use terror as their signature tune and the powerful carried on as if nothing was troubling, and most of us as if it were a distant irritation, I felt rage in my spirit and a sense that in Nigeria, man’s humanity had been crushed and conscience had passed from being seared to suffering death.
To reflect on the death of conscience is a grave thing. As conscience is the inbuilt compass that enables the human navigate between good and evil, if it dies, I wonder if we can truly call who is left, human. Yet, as you look around, you see conscience in a frightening state. How can so many young people face a fate worse than terror attack and the institutions of state function as if nothing happened?
Much has already been said about the President celebrating and dancing in Kano and Ibadan the day after the first Nyanya bombing left nearly a hundred citizens dead and so many more severely injured. Many have compared Aso Rock’s response to that bombing with the response of The White House to the Boston Marathon bombing in which three lives were lost. Those comparisons lead me to recall a similar incident I commented about several years earlier.
In the same week that a cable car accident in Austria resulted in three deaths, a tanker truck Byte crashed into a traffic jam created by a roadblock near Ibadan caused more than 200 deaths. Austria went into national mourning; flags flew at half mast, broadcasts appealed to the national spirit.
In Nigeria, the President, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, did not even bother to ask the media officer in the Villa to issue a statement.
I asked at the time what a Nigerian life was worth. But we know that the Federal Executive Council can suspend sitting if a sibling of the Vice-President dies. Is it a matter of relativising the worth of people?
My friends who teach ethics will tell you that once you relativise the worth of another, you have made your own worth relative. This is precisely why people in power are worshipped and the day after, they are out of power, are treated like dirt by those people who the day before said they were the greatest thing since sliced bread.
The truth of the challenge of saving the dying conscience in Nigeria, it seems to me, has to begin with enlightenment on our shared humanity. The death of anyone should, as the great quote goes, diminish us. The death of so many should crush our spirits and inspire action. The abduction of so many innocents unto so uncertain a fate should force us all to lose sleep.
Instead of leaders closing ranks in advance of the common good, everything is reduced to partisanship and some are even questioning that the abduction took place as some people question that the holocaust took place. This cannot be our way.
Again, it is important for those who think it is something happening to one remote part of the North-East to be reminded of Rev. Martin Niemoller and Dante’s inferno.
Niemoller reminds that they first came for the Jews, and the object kept quiet. Because those Jews were troublesome anyway. Next, they came for communists but he stayed mute because he was not a Communist, then they came for the Catholics but he kept quiet because he was a protestant. When they came for him, there was no one left to speak up.
To this I would like to remind that in Dante’s inferno, the hottest part of hell is reserved for those who in a moral question take refuge in neutrality.
We cannot go on with consciences that leave much to question. We saw a country cheer on as power raped the banking system, stealing people’s property and ordinary Nigerian shareholders lost their life’s savings and investments but we failed to speak up. Those that tried to point to truth were shouted down. Now, the wound is open.
