WRITTEN BY SUNDAY EZEAKU
For some time now, almost from the time Nigeria came into being, the country has been at the sick bay. We have been groping along – rudderless, hesitant, unsure which foot to put forward first. It could be argued that the degeneracy and eventual collapse of our past governments was due to the style of politics of the political leadership
Some of them were flamboyant, self-centered, selfish, morally bankrupt and corrupt. Politics was seen more as big money-making business, than as a mandate to serve and be accountable to the people. Regrettably, some political aspirants of the next republic have started manifesting similar traits. Praise singers and court jesters, who flattered the discredited regimes to their graves, are at it again. They fail to learn from history; and unless we heed the lessons of history, we stand to forfeit the present and mortgage the future.
The effectiveness of a government is quantified in terms of how much it is able to achieve in ameliorating the general conditions of the masses in righting the wrongs of society which it met in office and in initiating better alternative programs aimed at translating the aspirations of the masses into positivity. Any new government must do better than its predecessor.
In other words, no civil government should expect confidence from the people if its ascendance to power is through rigging and manipulation of elections. Sadly, one notices the ever growing empty promises of paradise on earth by some of the political parties. Some of them tailor their manifestoes to what the masses will like to hear, which cannot be realized by even angels in politics. For instance, for years, Nigerians have been promised free education at all levels, free medical services to all, housing, electricity, pipe-borne water supply, tarred roads etcetera, but all to no avail. However, promises or no promises, the masses are the ultimate judges during voting. If the reports from various parts of the country, especially on some of the recent past elections, are anything to go by, one will conclude that we seem to have learnt very little from our political trauma of the past years.
Politics of antagonism, vote buying, mutual exclusion and annihilation were largely practiced during the past republics. Today, many political operators are political chameleons, sycophants and Hosanna chanters. They always aim at manipulating the body polity or the throne of political power in order to maximize petty personal ends or parochial subgroup ambition.
These people must be exposed for what they are in the overall interest of any progressive political system. Our society can never progress if we supplant one form of political wrong with another. Society can never progress by replacing one form of nepotism, improbity, immorality, injustice, oppression, hatred, malice, myopic sectionalism or chauvinism with another.
Nigeria needs a dynamic and selfless leader, a go-getter, someone who can deliver the goods in concrete terms; not in romantic phraseology, a result- oriented leader. Nigeria needs leadership by precepts. We do not only need human beings with human face, we also need those with human heart.
Politics in Nigeria is marked by instability, thereby making the task of nation building an arduous one, which had been jeopardized by the recklessness of the civilian political elite. In other words, only the force of unity and objectivity as well as team of leaders who place the interest of the masses above self, and whose social and political morality is beyond question, could save this nation from future national catastrophe.
It has to be pointed out strongly that unless and until the system can purposefully and effectively mount a counter-attack against lawlessness, violence and indiscipline through meaningful social programs, our fancied eschatology of the good life and the life more abundant to all and sundry would be a colossal farce.

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