Editor’s note: Nigerians should change the way they look at the Nigerian politics if they want to change the attitude and ways of Nigerian politicians. Japheth Omojuwa, the Naij.com columnist, offers a recipe for that.
I don’t like the tag “wailing wailers”. Presidential spokesman Mr. Femi Adesina trended for all the bad reasons when he tweeted it in reference to what I believe he’d want to describe as irrational critics of the government. Before now, Dr. Reuben Abati had referred to the collective group of young people regarded as anti the then Jonathan government as “the Children of Anger.” If you have witnessed some irrational arguments on Nigerian social media, you’d be forced to use the term “wailing wailer” yourself. It at times borders on the line between being genuinely angry about the state of Nigeria or being angry about the electoral losses that visited a particular end of political twitter March 28, 2015. It still hurts, understandably.
The ideal scenario would be to have political conversations based on the many issues that arise per time. The prevailing reality is that Nigeria’s political conversations are first about individuals before being about issues. That is even if issues feature at all.
Earlier this month I took out time via #BuhariOptics on Twitter to point out areas where the new administration was slacking and what it needed to do to get things going. Now, that is what is expected of a citizen that cares, but the reaction from the two main political camps would have been shocking had one not been used to such irrational stands. One the one side, I got messages like “e be like say PDP don pay you,” on the other, “APC don dey delay your alert. Na God catch them!” To these ones, it had to be transactional.
One should not be too quick to blame Nigerians whose ability to reason out political opinions is simply based on who has paid who, and who has not been paid. Being paid was the culture instituted by most Nigerian politicians, the PDP entrenched it. Everything appeared available for sale. In a country where it is not abnormal for a newspaper publisher to tell their staff to seek their remuneration by making the best use of their identity cards instead of depending on salaries, the prevailing culture of engagement cannot be so far off your imagination.
With a sizeable number of young people on social media very much unemployed and largely unemployable, it would not be abnormal to see a lot of them make themselves available as expendable political tools. That is why they would naturally see others in that mold, carefully ignoring the fact that these ones have jobs that more than pay the bills. The real loser here is the average Nigerian.
A political office-holder who gets charged to court for monumental corruption will not be short of supporters on social media. Even James Ibori had a couple of people ready to trend hashtags on his behalf until it turned out the email to that effect was just to set people like myself up. While I rejected the request to receive what was about 2,500 pounds to post some favourable tweets for Ibori, there was at least one person who grabbed the opportunity. That is the prevailing culture and it is one that further places the power vested in the people through the deregulation of the media back to the previous owners of that power: the ruling class.
That is why those of us who still retain our rationality must stay at the forefront of the issues. Some accused me recently: “You supported and voted Buhari, now you are criticizing him, what is your problem, can’t you stay on one side?” This thinking is the popular thinking in our country now where political support has become like that of a support for a football club. As you already know, win or lose, most people stick with their club, whether or not they played the right way or played wrong way. But politics cannot afford to be like that. That one supported a politician to power is even the more reason why one must stay on the lookout to ensure the mandate continues to be respected and the goods of office delivered to the people and not some entrenched interests.
It will again start with this piece where most of the comments you will see will completely veer off the realms of rationality to the territory of irrationality and, in certain cases, outright insanity. This is where we are today as a country: divided politically, which is fine, but a division that often borders on people’s refusal to focus on what we all have in common. Nigerians have one thing in common, they want the country to progress. We can disagree about the ideas and the way to achieve the goals, but that disagreement ought not be permanent.
We can agree to disagree without being disagreeable. Our country needs us to keep the politicians on their toes. We cannot do this by taking sides permanently. That is the job of party members, and even party members know when to disagree amongst themselves. Nigeria deserves better.
Author, Japheth Omojuwa
Japheth Omojuwa is a renowned Nigerian social media expert, columnist and Naij.com contributor.
The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily represent the editorial policy of Naij.com.
The post The National Political Conversation: Why Nigerian Politicians Will Always Win appeared first on Nigeria News today & Breaking news | Read on NAIJ.COM.
The National Political Conversation: Why Nigerian Politicians Will Always Win
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