by Ayisha Oshori

 There is so much we could and should be doing; instead, much of what we see and hear in preparation for 2015 is stale and typical.

We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light a candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future. For the world is changing. The old era is ending. The old ways will not do.

— John F. Kennedy

After a week in Philadelphia, the 2013 Eisenhower Fellows were finally cut loose. We had spent the first five days of the programme discussing our frames of reference through personal haikus, facilitative leadership and effective communication.  It was intense in the way that spending time with motivated and purpose-driven people can be – high on learning, sharing and the resulting internal reflection. And as the bus taking 14 of us to Washington, DC, pulled out, it was hard not to wonder about what opportunities those who lead and who want to lead Nigeria have to re-assess what they think they know and learn from brighter, non-conflicted minds? How do our government officials and politicians refresh and re-energise themselves and their thinking?

Soon, I stopped gazing out the window at the parts of the city I had been too busy to see and buried myself in ‘Game Change’ – one of the books recommended by staff of the Eisenhower Fellowships. It is a book about the 2008 presidential elections from stories of the campaigns of Obama, Clinton and McCain-Palin, and while its reviews are mixed for the gossipy tone, it is undeniably a must-read for anyone interested in politics. I gobbled it up, pausing every couple of pages to think about what I was reading in the context of Nigeria. Everything seemed to home in on one issue: how do we use elections to ensure the most competent, driven Nigerians committed to sustainable development end up in government?

There is so much we could and should be doing; instead, much of what we see and hear in preparation for 2015 is stale and typical.  The trajectory of the party holding power with its installations and purges; the orchestrated issues around the registration of various political parties with the same APC acronym; the emergence of another Governors’ Forum; the flourishing insecurity; and the increasing commoditization of the conscience and support of regional and religious associations, most recently the Oodua People’s Congress and the billion naira contract to protect oil pipelines in the south-west are all calculated steps towards pre-determining the elections.

It might be a painful morsel for many to swallow but the mere proliferation of new political parties or the stitching together of old ones is not going to matter unless we dispense with the old ways.

One: We need to find a national cause because ‘it is devilishly hard to run against a cause’. Despite 50+ years of politics centred on dividing Nigerians along ethnic and religious lines, there is still room to begin to change the narrative we have about ourselves and find a common cause which unites the majority. The difficulty with this strategy is that, whatever cause is chosen, the persons who lead it have to be fair embodiments.

Two: Money politics won’t work. Those who genuinely want a better Nigeria are never going to be able to outspend the people intent on preserving the status quo. It isn’t trite in Nigeria to say ‘money is the root of all evil’. The corrupting influence of money is the reason why the Nigerians sell their votes cheap and why it is increasingly difficult for citizens to organize without the incentive of money. However, the fuel subsidy protests of January 2012 are a clear indication that there are still many who cannot be bought, but they must own and buy into the cause in order to create a movement. The catch is: although the movement needs money, moneybags cannot drive it – at least not visibly.

Three: Refusing to be even remotely interested in doing anything new is dangerous. The draft party documents of the merging parties are Siamese twins with the establishment. Instead of the tunnel vision driving the focus of zoning the next presidency to the north, is anyone considering fielding the most competent and untainted Nigerian from the south-south with the same religious beliefs as the president? This saves the fragile emotional and immature psyche of Nigerians from dealing with another pseudo ethno religious war masquerading as an election and automatically dictates that the elections must be issues-based. Besides, every blade of grass in Nigeria knows that the north has not been spared the abundance of bad management even at the familiar hands of its ‘leaders’. The Federal Ministry of Finance says, for example, that Niger and Jigawa states and local governments got N475, 269,767 and N454, 622,254 respectively in January 2013 alone as their share of SURE-P subsidy savings. This is not part of their monthly federal revenue allocation and, one year after, are citizens of these states or Nigerians genuinely better off?

The simple truth is that the desire for change has to translate into more than wishful thinking and flaccid strategy. The stakes are high but then so are the possibilities and that is the best news. We have time to adjust our frames, prepare to lead and follow properly and change the course of our country. But the old ways won’t do.

————————-

Read this piece in Leadership newspapers
 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.