Nigeria Politics as a platform of self interest By Ishowo Malik Ayomide

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By:Ishowo Malik Ayomide

Nigeria is evidently big and diverse so much that the refusal to employ a good political ideology like federalism could be said as a tacit support for the eruption of violence. However the leaders are unaware of this because of their limited understanding about political stuffs or even because they are consumed by hopeless greed for self-aggrandisement and personal riches and accumulation of wealths as the case may be.

In addition, despite the growing concerns about Nigerian politics of the current economic situation, there is an adorn history associated with the country in the wake of independence and democracy, as it’s being celebrated today, the 12th Day of June 2022. However short-lived.

The advent of ethnic politics and crude partisanship has been submerged by the remarkable achievements that the founding fathers and mothers of the country recorded. These current relations have not only neutralized all the great efforts of the past heroes and heroines, but it has also put a fracture on the fragile unity of the people in the country and its state.

Although Nigeria is essentially diverse as we all know, being one of the countries in the world with multiple cultures, languages, and ethnic identities. It’s diversity should not become the motive for its recent perpetual defiance of orderliness if the necessary political structures are employed as I wrote in my just released article last week. Moreover, the Political systems such as unitary government, federalism, feudalism, and a host of others are available to suit societies, sociopolitical conditions, according to their formation or structure.

For example, a unitary system of ruling could be well desirable for expressions of human identity that are patrilineal or matrilineal. Such a system of government is mostly unsuitable for people in Nigeria, which is of diverse socio-cultural backgrounds. The incompatibility of this political ideology..

The incompatibility of this political ideology in the country is always manifested by the series of controversies and strives or contradictions that emerge in the Nigerian environment. For Nigeria, the suitability of federalism cannot be oversimplified and even overemphasized as the case may be. And, evidently because of the absence of the political culture of federalism, chaos is engendered.

The late Chief Obafemi Awolowo was a nationalist who believed strongly in the ethos of federalism, as he evaluated that the most effective way of moving a multicultural country like Nigeria to an enviable height is the employment of a flexible administrative system, without which would be no progress. According to a teacher, my Secondary school teacher, Mr. Oscar whom told me that Awolowo Dosumu recalled that Nigeria’s heydays as a country remain in the past when federalism, in its genuine sense, was practiced. During this time, countries like South Korea or Taiwan were not a match for Nigeria in every metric of development conceivable or in any index of progress that is measurable. It was the time the world cast its hope on the country as the messiah of the Black race. It was this period Nigeria also seems to be like a Father Christmas.

However, Nigeria political space is being occupied because of self investment or self accumulation of wealth.

ISHOWO, Malik Ayomide.
Is**********@gm***.com

Ishowo is a Student, learner and Political commentator based in llorin.