TO SAVE NIGERIA: What Our Politicians Must Do NOW

By Dan Abubakar

Nigeria has long seemed inured to bad news and disaster. But the recent sacking of a Kaduna-Abuja express train by terrorists, or “bandits” (in the lexicon once preferred in official quarters), the loss of innocent lives and the kidnapping of many others may be a disaster too much for our deadened sensibilities to shrug off.

The shock has stemmed not just from the brazeness and audacity of the terrorists thumbing their nose at the Nigerian state, but also for how it dramatizes even more than previous incidents our utter helplessness in the face of the depredations of these vicious terrorists.

Indeed we have had an unending stream of atrocities but this one conveys a sense of a fin de cercle and the end of any illusion about the ability of the state to guarantee the security of its citizens. Thus the ritual of security meetings after the fact together with the usual tepid response and assurances from official quarters have become stuff for gallows humour.

Coming only a few days after the impunity with which large numbers of  terrorists raced through Kaduna airport tarmacs, with a passenger aircraft at their mercy and the persistent long persistent  danger of plying the Kaduna-Abuja road which was again brought to the fore by terrorists who took over the road soon after the railway heist, it would seem that one of Nigeria’s major city, Kaduna, garrisoned by the most military establishments in the country, is being hermetically sealed up by terrorists who have free reign to unleash their terror.

All this puts in stark relief the ungainly state of our democracy that came in full view in Abuja last week when politics as  usual took no notice of the dire state of affairs in the country.

To be sure, horse trading, betrayals and dark conspiracies etc. have long formed the kernel of our politics, as indeed in many other climes. But it is rather self-indulgent to feature displays of cowardice and utter lack of principle and triumphantly market the end result as the forging of a  consensus as happened at the APC national convention. The prognosis is that the same kind of outcome is likely to be on display at the PDP convention – should the party manage to convene one.

The existential crisis which has long faced the nation has come to a head. It is only those in desperate self-denial who will fail to acknowledge this and the urgent   need to redefine the future for our nation. But the present evidence is that we continue to be saddled  with figures and practices from our failed past

A marked departure from the norm of naked horse-trading and unprincipled compromise may be too much to expect in an environment where naked self-interest is unfortunately what animates our politics, rather than the collective good.

A barometer of the state of play could be taken from the recent APC convention, when there was an absence of robust debate on the dire state of the nation to stir the people and give them hope. Is it too much to expect that we are  provided with  an indication of how aspirants to major offices would help steer politics and thus ensure the emergence of viable slates of candidates for political offices and appointments across the board?  Unfortunately there is little sense that we have a critical mass of politicians who  appreciate the urgency of the moment we are in and realise that the era of business as usual is long gone.

Awareness of who candidates are comes mostly from statements in the media that indicate absolutely no plan or programme and therefore inspire no hope. There are of course the usual banners and buntings that festoon streets and buildings – and give additional work to street cleaners.

In the absence of a principled stand on issues, protagonists easily fold when orders come from above asking them all to stand down and queue up behind candidates who also have a long history of making compromise, any compromise, a principle.

And this, precisely, is the point. Does consensus have to be handed out as an order from above? How much negotiation takes place among aspirants on such issues as party platform and manifesto, ensuring a level playing field for all candidates, ensuring greater internal party democracy and fairness, insisting on modallities to be in place for the emergence of viable candidates for higher office who not only appreciate the urgency of the problems faced but are also ready to sacrificially offer themselves to face up to them. Politicians themselves know such people in their ranks even in a political field  long barren of debate, of the contestation of ideas, of the enunciation of principles, programmes and objectives to tackle our challenges.

This is where principled negotiations ought to be ongoing to arrive at a general consensus on the way out of our quagmire and who in the multitude of aspirants, paying no attention to zoning, ethnicity, region, religion or even political party is best to drive such a consensus.

Fortunately, the story is not all bleak. Mercifully we have Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who has in  announcements before the expected announcement of his candidature, not just been regaling the public space with some quite impressive details of his credentials, but with substantial highlights of what he intends to do if he becomes President. We  have Peter Obi offering knowledgeable  and practical steps on what to do about the economy. Newly elected Governor Chukwuma Soludo has been setting the right tone about the commitment to public office which ought to drive any political aspiration. Here we cannot but note  how Anambra State, which has had quite some curious characters and bizarre experiences in its political space but has produced these two, could yet be a metaphor for the rest of the country.

The point is, having wasted decades practising the basest form of politics; of preoccupation with stomach infrastructure that is always on the verge of bursting the pot-bellies of the practitioners – while the rest of the populace carry lean and hungry looks that are now increasingly mean ( providing a ready recruitment ground for the terrorists) – our politicians should out of self-preservation, if nothing else, seek out the few in their number who seem best prepared and have the inclination to save us from the abyss and forge a consensus around them.

On the basis of past experience such an approach would be a forlorn hope. This is because our elite – politician or not – have had the penchant to go by the lowest common denominator, to choose a team player ( you know what that means) and to zero in on someone in their own image. The result more often than not has been the ascendancy of visionless, weak leaderships around whom their benefactors run rings.

It is time for our politicians to think of a world larger than themselves. And if they are disposed to compromise, to meet and agree on those among their number who should be thrust forward. It has to be those with a serious understanding of the peril the nation is in and have the knowledge, calmness and boldness to do a yeoman’s sacrificial job.

Were such a group to arise and articulate the reasons for their choice(s)even President Muhammadu Buhari, no matter his inclination, would find it difficult to say no. Now, that will be the ultimate consensus, arrived at through principled compromise.

Abubakar, a Political Analyst, wrote from Abuja