Nigeria needs bloc votes of the youths, the poor and others to enthrone responsible leadership, writes Victor C. Ariole
“We are all separated from one another and from the world by the fact that we inhabit a body that is distinct…But there is also the contrary experience of the world revealed by consciousness…it appears to melt human souls, like waters reaching finally the open ocean from their distinct ways, and they become one with the ineffable, the ocean” – (A Tour of The Calculus)
The opposite of ‘the ineffable’ – the convergence of souls for the ultimate best – is the ‘bloc vote of beasts’, either in the form of coups d’etat happening in Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso or the rigging of elections by politicians. ‘Waiting for Bloc Vote of the Beasts’ is how an African Francophone, Ahmadou Kourouma coined the title of his novel just to prove that elections in Africa are decided by what a group of people he prefers to see as beasts approve of. They could be a minority whose interest is not necessarily what the populace want. With what happened in Kenya that ushered-in a Nigerian brother-in-law, William Ruto, as the President, it is evident that the beasts are facing great challenge.
And Nigeria with its current tripod parties – APC, PDP and Labour – there seems to be a possibility of such outcome come 2023. However, as expressed in the cited quote above, Nigeria, in its present and soul desecrated moments, needs bloc votes of its youths, its poor and its authentic citizens that could translate to an expected INEFFABLE vote, congregation and convergence of multiple layers of its disenchanted populace, as melting souls towards enthroning crops of leadership that could change the wrong direction of the State for the ineffable – realms of prosperity and equitable justice for all. The resources are there, the human capital is there waiting for the right direction for getting everyone having their hands on the plough for a greater harvest. Like MKO Abiola once said, only bad managers could claim that their workforce is redundant. Hence only bad political party or wrong crops of leaders could claim that Nigerians are not productive and reduce them to a level of being the most poverty ridden people in the world. How do you propose a budget below 10% of what the world estimates to be the GDP value of Nigeria hence a sign that the governance process in Nigeria is lacking in competence, imagination and creativity. For a GDP of $400billion, anything less than $40billion shows a weak performance capacity.
Understanding the basis of underutilisation of both human and material resources of Nigeria should be the concern of the three parties seeking to rule Nigeria come 2023. Justice, equity and adequate reward system is needed to prod Nigerians to work. Down with monkey dey work baboon dey chop.
APC, as the party in power for almost eight years, is clearly a party for selective and negatively discriminating welfare dispenser, an ATM for the powerful, compounded by its borrowing spree as if Nigerians unborn must come to live in slums. Their claim is that they have done well in building Nigeria’s infrastructure. And great infrastructure for living country, not the one expected to die, are carried out by the trust inspired leaders and great creditors who are ever ready to spend money for the deferred benefits/interests that is accruable to their retirees projected for over 30 years period. Investors are all over looking for good terrain to invest their money. For example 1970 was a year that saw the beginning of the transformation of Yamoussoukro from the status of village to that of new Ivoirien capital and investors quickly bought into it trusting the then President Houphouet Boigny and within 10 years it happened. Certainly payment was not based on annual budgeting process. Investors are only interested in quick money making in Nigeria as they exploit and explore and damage Nigeria’s environment, plucking oil and metals as if the human beings there are useless. How one could wish that such crave for oil and metals had translated to better well- being for Nigerians for over 60 years now. Instead more insult is added to the intelligence of Nigerians as NNPC wakes up to start claiming it is now making profit as if for 60 years it has been sleeping. So, it has been a white elephant project all along channelling Nigerian wealth to its Cash Call Ventures’ associates. As far as my limit of costing goes, NNPC monthly remittance could just be seen as part of cost component of their resource pilfering and profligacy or as ‘human and environmental cushioning cost’ in the shade of ‘let us just pity Nigeria’. No amount of payment can restore the environmental and human damage occasioned by non- respect of exploration ethics as observed in saner climes. And, that is all feudalistic minded APC rely on in the governance of Nigeria with no respect for Nigerians yet unborn and no human development package for the youths and tomorrow Nigerians. So, is PDP that had once ruled Nigeria and failed going to prove repentant and show greatness in its avowed liberal economic disposition.
PDP believes in privatisation for its approach to governance as if it works in Africa that has great number of its workforce as youths between the ages of 15 and 40. Once in governance, Nigerians had seen how PDP sold Nigerian assets and uneconomically liquidated Nigeria’s debt with no further interest in attracting trust from international investors for greater infrastructure pool. It also contributed in making more billionaires with no serious enterprise attached to their wealth except capital flight and phony investment in other countries, later becoming looted funds. So, will Labour Party understand these pitfalls and help rekindle the Nigerian spirit in the joy of exercising their head, mind and physique to work for a greater prosperity.
Labour Party is the current greenhorn of politics in Nigeria, though it proved competent in the hands of Mimiko and Oshiomole who out of oppression by the big parties decided to use it as platform to get to power. Luckily the new electoral law frowns at such moves and could help in strengthening Labour Party. Labour is labour and must remain labour in providing jobs for the youths. At worst it could adopt Private-Public Participation approach in its economic development disposition.
Whoever wins let jobs be made available to the youths as the current budget office claims that there are about 20,000 projects to be executed in 2023 which could involve over 60,000 youth entrepreneurs and over 20 million other youths who really want to work. Those people should matter for Labour Party as its virtual structure base and they are in all the nooks and crannies of the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. Practically Labour Party could construct a great polynomial function with multiple variables to capture the interest of these people. Like David Berlinski would say, search for them as poor people living in creeks or archipelagos, as they are seen in Nigerian slums, mining hideouts, almajiri spots, crack joints, underbridges, sex-hawking joints, village farms, etc., and assign numerical values to their interests and demography and plot an equation that must be greater than zero so as never be a zero-sum game in which the loser or gainer still have to gain and lose respectively with greater accrual to the collective wealth of Nigeria for future generation gain.
Poor people turn foolish, like Nelson Mandela said, when no one makes effort to organise them so that they avoid dividing themselves into gender, religion and ethnic groups. The politicians who have for over 25 years exploited Nigeria are united in their wicked wisdom to make the poor remain foolish.
Hence the votes of these poor people in all their polynomial function values coupled with greatly entrepreneurial youths could be the new face of politics in Nigeria and Labour Party could make it happen. Those votes could enable the flow of waters from different water ways into the ocean of prosperity as The Ineffable Bloc Vote countering The Bloc Vote of Beasts. Africa with 30 million square kilometres can get each African including Nigerians to occupy at least five football fields for tilling and ploughing the field so as to banish poverty in Africa. Nigeria must show the way. Let the Bloc Vote of the poor count and political beasts will hide their faces.
Ariole is a Professor of French and Francophone Studies,
University of Lagos
