Nigeria – Our Politics In Bold Reliefs

The Comedy Of Our Current Political Leadership Recruitment

Our current practice of leadership recruitment will make a block buster Nollywood movie were it not to be our reality;

We typically canvass, sponsor and elect a ‘trial-and-error auto mechanic’ for position of a ‘chef’, who would have enthralled us with ‘fantabulous’ stories of his uncommon continental meals culinary abilities and how we will all be so sated with his meals and lick our plates afterwards to see the ‘made in China’.

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We usher him into the kitchen in ceremony, where the first thing he does is to adorn the white chef’s paraphernalia complete with the long cap which we catch a glimpse of, when he cracks open the kitchen door to beckon on the ‘panel beater’, ‘rewire’, ‘vulcanizer’ from his previous workshop, to come and support him to prepare the meals, while we wait patiently outside, salivating in anticipation.

When we don’t smell even the aroma of boiling meat and grumble, he tells us that he is organizing and that we should be patient and admonishing us that ‘good things come to those who wait’, meanwhile all he and his crew are doing inside the kitchen, is prancing around the kitchen and helping themselves to soaked raw Garri and Groundnut with sugar and milk and unbeknownst to us that they have not even been able to figure out how to turn on the gas stove.

At the interval when we need to change guards, they emerge with now distended stomachs and acquired gaits, regaling us with excuses and how contact has now been made with the manufacturer of the gas stove and some foreign investors and how they will now operate the gas stove with new technology to get the food ready in ten percent of the required time and as such, we should allow him one more term in the kitchen to complete his ‘good works’.
When we begin to grumble at our fate, they toss some ‘pure’ water and Garri and ground nuts at us, exhorting us to remain calm and that ‘better go soon land’.
When his second term ends, he emerges with the story of how the gas to the stove was sabotaged by ‘detractors’ denying him the opportunity to display his ‘culinary’ skills etc. etc. He further showers us with more Garri and Groundnuts and with a further story of how his anointed assistant should be allowed to take over, since he is apprised of all ‘the great preparations and menu etc. etc.’ Meanwhile, in all of this time, the frozen foods have all gone bad because of power outages and other condiments well past their ‘best before’ dates, denying us all of the opportunities, gone forever.
The intelligent people that the rest of us are or are supposed to be, still oblige him or them, especially when he starts the story of how it is the turn of the zone to which his anointed assistant belongs, that needs to be the next ‘chef’ so that the zone can get a ‘sense of belonging’. We, against all logic buy the story and even some of us who are now so famished, with little energy left, support him because the next ‘chef’ is supposed to come from our zone, forgetting that amongst us are people from his zone and they did not get any material benefit whatsoever.
All the while, as if in a trance, we never even ask the questions; ‘You sure say this our ‘chef’ even sabi cook sef’?
‘Where him cook before’?
‘When him be ‘chef’ how the people from him zone feel belonging’?
The above questions are supposed to provide us answers that will guide our selection of the next ‘chef’. But since we don’t ask and rather accept the packaged Garri Groundnuts Milk and Sugar that he has provided, we oblige him and his excellent assistant ‘chef’ now substantive ‘chef’, who was a panel beater or vulcanizer working side by side with him in their days of humble beginnings, and our experience comes round full circle, with some unable to wait any longer, devise means of boring holes into the kitchen store walls to help themselves to some Garri etc. etc.
We must going forward ask the above three questions of anybody aspiring to political leadership; The first two refer to the job description and experience and the third to disabuse our minds that no matter which zone a person comes from if he doesn’t know how to cook, he doesn’t know how to cook, period and that the person we should support is anybody from whichever zone who has the experience for the job at the time.
Our ‘imperfect’ constitution in sections 14.sub 3 and 4 and 15.sub 4 already has provisions to prevent and safeguard the participation opportunity of all stakeholders and prevent the domination of any zone over the other.

We Have Created Robinhood Politicians
By the way I forgot to mention that before the trial-and-error auto mechanic, transformed to political leadership, he had to call in debts owed him by the car owners in the community, for whom he had rendered services on credit and who were the ‘big men of voices’ in his community, that the folks listened to, and some of whom he had even lent money, when they needed to make up the fees for their children in private schools. These men of ‘voices’ also led the folks to the mechanic’s house for pollical meetings, whence they were entertained with pounded yam and palm wine and merriment and thus demonstrated ‘capacity’. Please don’t laugh too loud.