Sometimes, an intellectual discourse invested in the etymology of its keywords is sine qua non to a fruitful palaver. As such, to discuss political leadership demands some forms of redireadfontem(back to the source). Politics is unseparated from the polis, the city-state. It is about human organizations within the polis. Those dedicated to such service and its science are the politicians. For Aristotle, the politician is like a craftsman. He is not only responsible for crafting the laws about order within the city-state, but he is also required to be invested in the order within the city-state.
The demands on the politician require s/he possesses intellect and nobility. Since politeia (the constitution) must reflect the natural and universal law, the politician requires reason to translate the natural law into particular laws. Thomas Aquinas concurs and advances Aristotle’s postulation that reason is required to glean the natural law from divine reason. In other words, reason and intellect are required to know what is right and what is prescribed by God,and to make them into a principle of governance and human relations within the polis.
However, to practice what is right, that is, practical reasoning, demands the yielding of the appetitive nature to reason. Doing right is when there is a seamless relationship between the appetite and reason. In Aristotelian and Thomistic logic, this is the meaning of nobility and integrity. Integrity is the ability of our intellect to think right, our appetitive nature to agree with the right thoughts, and our actions to reflect the right thoughts. For Aristotle and Aquinas, this is a nonnegotiable requirement for a politician.
Our intellectual space has been inundated with literature that accounts for the lack of above pollical qualities in many of our politicians. There is hard evidence that this narrative is not concocted. Rather, we have witnessed despicable and embarrassing dramas in the so-called hallowed chambers. We have been despondent by the imprudence of our state and federal executives. While precociousness and gumption define 21st-century leadership in other climes, ours appear to be defined by Precambrian instincts.
Moreover, the pandemic has exposed more concretely our deficit in political intellection. While the infrastructural deficit is sadly no news, the lack of adequate human data shows that our country is decades away from restorative development. What could display a nation unprepared for serious development other than ignorance about the number of its citizens? Our claim of 200 million people is not even based on any evidence-based data. More sadly, we lack standardized inventories on the most vulnerable people in our population. So, how do we plan?
We have been trapped within a vicious circle of poor leadership since the dinosaur roamed the earth, despite the fact that the door to leadership has been revolving around different men. So, why the same outcome despite different men? The answer is the problem of social memory.
There is the ingrained consciousness in many Nigerians to act in a particular way in a particular circumstance. As such, when the circumstance is overt, the consciousness is instinctively triggered. At this point, the reasoning goes on hibernation, instinct and impulse govern the human frame. This is a social problem because people have learned it, it has become a habit and a culture, and it enjoys cultural rationality. Since leaders are products of their environment, they replicate the ordinarily repulsive activities that have become a permissive culture, This means that the so-called cluelessness and political inanity of our leaders is a reflection of our society. Greed and impropriety are not exclusive vices of the Nigerian politician; they are problems of the Nigerian community. An apple doesn’t fall far from its tree.
A recent viral video showed how a bus filled with palliatives to a part of Lagos was stampeded and looted by the same people the philanthropists came to support. An unbiased analysis of that incident and similar ones will come to one conclusion: avarice. It is contradictory and vacuous when we ascribe agency by hunger to an indecent action of people we consider to be disadvantaged, and greed to those we consider to be privileged. Although there may be situations that may justify such “situation ethics,” but objectively, an action that is intrinsically bad cannot be good because it was performed by a different agent.
Evidence that we are incentivized towards impropriety in matters of public or “free” goods can also be located in our festivals, parties, “Owanbe” mannerisms. Those plastic cups, spoons, umbrellas, jotters, etc. that are snatched from the ushers or collected even though we do not need them are evidence of our avarice. The disposition to taste all available delicacies and beverages in a party is motivated by the appetite to have more than needed, which is, greed. Our leaders are products of an environment where such indecency has been normalized. Sometimes, people deserve the type of leaders they get. A sedulous leader can only be produced by a conscientious people.
Father Fidelis writes from
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN via
