Re-understanding political opportunism

One mystery that amused, just as much as it confused, me was the audacity of the political aspirants who join the race for elective positions aware of the impossibility of victory. Not because they’re unqualified. Neither is this about political or social discrimination. This is, without mincing words, in consideration of the marked absence of political structures to sell them to the electorate and also resources to appeal to our prebendal politics, matching their notoriously generous and more popular opponents. Some call this breed of emergency politicians ‘jokers’,  even while excusing such bids for power as exercises of their franchise, but I had never paused in my sympathy for their misapplication of wisdom.
I had my opportunity to hear from one of the ‘unwise’ politicians some weeks ago. Having listened to his reasons, over a lunch, for his ambition to vie for an elective position, and why he needed the supports of the media-savvy indigenes to legitimize the project, I had to express a concern. For he is a man I truly respect, and consider somewhat politically awake, and also immensely intelligent. But these are not the credentials of a typical politician in this space.
“You know,” I began. “The odds don’t favour you in this election. First, you’re not really popular there, and you’re also not close to the kingmakers. They may not even like your name. They go for the bigger pockets, not for the progressive.”
I couldn’t be patronising even though he was an older man. He deserved this honesty, this unusual reality check. His political bid, without analyses, is a waste of money, time and energy. I was surprised that he didn’t, or pretended not to, see through the prism. And for a man whose wealth, which maybe a chicken feed for his legendarily extravagant opponents, is hard-earned, lacking political sociability, and also not a son of a big man or famous family, my fear for his disastrous ambition is legitimate.
“Gimba,” he said, wearing a smile, a mocking smile, the smile of an all-knowing prophet. “If somebody comes and tells me that you’re this naive, I will dismiss that.”
That preamble is his style, his way of diminishing a challenger’s ego. But, well, I was ready for the education. He continued:
“Why do people contest in an election they know aren’t in their favour? You need the honesty? Many do it for the social relevance that comes with it. You step out of the blues, and suddenly you’re dining with the high and the mighty. As a contractor, this aspiration will boost my business.”
At that moment I was conditionally dumb to comprehend his justification of how ‘wasting’ the chunk of his savings could redeem his business enterprise, so I muttered a faint “how”, sure that would inspire a summary of the boring lecture, registering my intensified curiosity.
“How? Let’s look at it this way. Do you know the opportunities that come with being addressed as a onetime governorship candidate in our society?”
I pondered his theory of political contests, and for once I began to connect the dots, realising why the Chris Okoties of this world waste their Church’s money in an aspiration that isn’t achievable. Even Obama would consider as blasphemous, reference to their seeming delusion as an audacity of hope. This is because Obama doesn’t know the trappings of Africa’s Big Man syndrome, doesn’t know that membership of the establishment is an invitation to join the scavengers in feasting on the treasury either as contractors or undeserving appointees.
Aside from self-serving politicians like this lecturer of political opportunism, there are party-designed scam known for the members’ obvious disinterest in struggling to win an election, only in keeping their party as beneficiaries of donations, and these political parties exist simply to hobnob with the the ruling elite. Our multi-party system is simply a diversification of shared interests, for there’s no reasonable way to explain the existence of about 56 political parties formed by citizens only interested in being addressed as, say, Chairman or National Secretary of this-and-that parties, citizens only interested in the connections that comes with such formations. For, yes, the chairman of a party that has an indecent shop in an unknown slum as its headquarters considers himself a political mate of the chairmen of big-spending parties, hence the connections!
But political opportunism is already an enterprise in which every ambitious citizen is a potential beneficiary. At least that’s the indictment I got in another interaction with a friend from a famous family. In our heart-to-heart conversation on the state of Nigeria, he observed how he owed all he had accomplished to his being the son of a Big Man, and that, whether we both agree or not, 10 to 20 years from now, we both may be a variable of the nation’s power game. “I’ll be there for being the son of my father, and you will be there either for our friendship or for your social relevance and a little favour here and there. You know what I’m talking about.” We laughed. That’s a joke that should actually be a reason to cry. May God save us from us!