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A
call for a code of political conduct
By Dan Amor
For a nation that is apparently obsessed with its own
history, it is all too easy to assume that the future will be like the past.
This is a long-standing Nigerian tradition. For the last fifteen miserable
years of wanton military gangsterism, Nigerians had thought that the return to
popular democracy would turn the tide and the country would bounce back to life
politically, economically and socially. In May 1999, when the old brigade of
looters took over the mantle of leadership from their compatriots in uniform,
those that mounted the saddle did not appreciate that a new era had dawned all
over the world. Thus, Nigeria entered the new millennium in a cusp of misplaced
priorities, a deepening crisis of identity and leadership myopia. Rather than
constitute a formidable think-tank of men and women of considerable
achievements and nobility of outlook to design a masterplan with which to
rebuild what the nation had lost in the years that the locusts ate, the new
rulers saw their (s)election as an opportunity to continue with business as
usual.
Bismarck it was who said that if one wants to retain
one’s respect for politics or sausages, one should not know too much
about how either is made. Paradoxically, many people are sure that Nigerian
politicians are not doing their job properly, but few are sure, or can say
clearly, what the job of the average politician is. Yet, it can be easily said
with vehemence that it is hardly easier for Nigerian politicians to be
exonerated from any blame, regarding the enormous calamity wrecked on Nigeria
through mindless mismanagement of the very essence of our commonwealth. Aside
from the incidence of improvised national economy, resulting from government
policy inconsistencies, the poor exercise and outright abuse of political
mandate by our politicians have eloquently portrayed them as the real villains
of our stunted political culture and national failure. The fact that the
euphoria of Nigerian politicians does not go beyond winning elections attests
to the engaging reality of our present condition. This leaves us in no doubt
that intrigues, treachery and greed, are the catchphrases with which to
paraphrase the official character of our politicians. This is why it is hardly
unimaginable that Nigerian assembly houses now have slapping sessions.
If individual politicians have failed to rise above their
condemnable conduct over the years, the magnitude of political irresponsibility
exhibited by the political parties is all the more lamentable. It would be
recalled that a number of credible Nigerians and even newspaper editorials had
expressed disenchantment with the way the parties are conducting themselves
since the emergence of the present democratic dispensation. In the first place,
the manner of their registration was manipulative and exclusionary to the
extent that several better heeled politicians were pushed to the sidelines of
the political process. A tragic denouement was reached during the last
presidential election when almost all the political parities returned retired
military officers who raped the nation and eroded our national values, as
flag-bearers. This shows that the biggest political party in the country today
is still the military while the civil politicians constitute the women’s
wing of this military party. To confirm people’s worst fears about the
absence of autonomy and creativity among the existing parties, none of them has
offered clear-cut and comprehensive alternative policies to the
counter-productive ones being implemented by the Obasanjo government.
Therefore, there is very little doubt in the mind of the average Nigerian that
the political parties have failed the nation ab initio.
This show of unseriousness and lack of self-comportment on
the part of Nigerian politicians has been monumental. It is therefore not out
of place to call for a unified code of conduct for politicians in Nigeria.
Probably, our scholars should be commissioned to choose a few of the grand
themes of political theory- justice, order, rights, felicity, progress, freedom,
to formulate this code since politics is an all-comers affair in this clime. In
more advanced societies, there is always a time-tested code of DOs and DONTs
designed to checkmate the politician’s unbridled quest for power. And
because in Nigeria there is no machinery to instil sanity in the system, terror
has assumed the toga of a political weapon with which to intimidate or even
eliminate elected officials from power. Thus, justice leads to an account of
the ideas of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and ‘freedom’ to the chain
Rousseau-Kant-Hegel-Marx-Lenin. Anything less than both critical and
expository analysis of our present predicament will not do for the development
of our political culture. And since the politicians decide the fate of the
national economy that affects everything else, this matter must not be left to
politicians alone. Unarguably, the political reflections of Plato and
Aristotle, though written at the very end of the classical Greek period and in
some measure provoked by the evident failure and confusion of Greek city-life,
have endured as masterpieces ever since, constantly renewing their influence
down the centuries and of value to later thinkers precisely because they cannot
be reduced to mere commentaries on the contemporary Greek political scene.
In fact, the specific problems and difficulties faced by the
citizens of classical Greek cities, the quarrels of Athens and Sparta, the
internecine conflicts of oligarchs and democrats are indeed remote from
present-day concerns. But it was because Plato lived through experiences of
this kind, because of the shock he received when the Athens of which he was a
prominent citizen judicially put to death his friend and master, Socrates, that
he was moved to reflect on the purposes involved in social activities and to
try to distinguish the good from the less good. In doing this, Plato
penetrated the local and ephemeral events of his own times to discover
principles and methods which have significant values wherever men come together
and are faced with the inevitable problems of their co-existence and contrary
purposes such as Nigeria is passing through. Plato’s particular answers
to the questions he raised are less important for later students of politics
than his insistence that men are intended by nature to live happily together in
harmony and peace. That they fail to do so stems from a lack of knowledge on
how to attain this end and that it is possible, by systematic reflection to
discover the proper path to follow, if not necessarily to make sure that
everybody follows it.
It is this critical and reflective attitude to social
affairs that has distinguished subsequent political thoughts. Later thinkers
such as Hobbes, Rousseau and Marx, have remained in this sense in the Platonic
tradition. They differ about the cause of disharmony; they offer diverse
suggestions for reorganising social relations in a more satisfactory pattern
and they have various specific proposals for the proper institutional
arrangements to achieve the desired end. But though provoked by other
imperfections than his, they all follow Plato’s example in critically
reflecting upon man’s plight and the most efficacious plan for his
rescue. Nigeria, our beloved country is in a terrible mess. There is looming
anarchy in the country. Our great thinkers, men and women of noble disposition
must wake up from slumber to save this country. We have no other one.
Nigerian politicians should also accept this hard fact, or else, the monster
will consume everybody.
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