WHILE our stay as undergraduates at the university lasted, we were constantly reminded of two things by this regimented communications professor. One: Don’t be a Robert Mugabe, a Saddam Hussein, a Gnassingbe Eyadema, an Idi Amin, or an IBB when we go into politics. Two: Be a Nelson Mandela, an Abraham Lincoln, or a Bill Clinton when we do.

These words resonate when one is all alone at home in the evenings, appraising some political events and developments in Nigeria. I begin to wonder how we do certain things in this country and expect our problems to just melt away like ice-cubes kept in the sun.

My rumination took me to the recent PDP primaries held in Bayelsa State- my immediate constituency. The complicated tales of the convoluted plots of how some aspirants emerged victorious to fly the flag of Africa’s putatively largest political party and how some went home licking their wounds. Having been manipulated out, some of the aggrieved losers ran off in rage to the national secretariat (of the PDP) to trundle out their laundry lists of irregularities spotted before, during and after the kangaroo primaries, as if they don’t know the character of the party they belong to.

I don’t blame the first-timers in the game, though. I blame the lot complaining now, who have been forced out through the very door they were forced in, in 2007. Why scream blue murder? Was it not the same jaguda the PDP used in 2007 to force you on the people? So
he dey pain eh?

We keep saying day and night that everything should be done righteously in this country so that merit and credibility can take the centre stage in our politics. Once that is achieved, even the orphans and the children of the indigent fisherman can have hope, that the
content of their character and education would some day take them somewhere. Righteousness is the vehicle that can make our leaders value the Nigerian electorate, whose counterparts in developed democracies decide the fate of governments.

It should be noted that the toga of responsibility to the people is conspicuously absent in the paraphernalia of our obsolete
brand of democracy. This is because the elective power to vote out a badly performing political party in power and to vote an alternative party into power is being wielded by some few strong men in the land.

These few men, who fit the mould of the Robert Mugabes, the Laurent Gbagbos and the IBBs, decide who becomes our councillor, chairman, house of assembly member, senator, governor and even president, whether we like it or not. It doesn’t matter whether these persons imposed on the people are unpopular in their constituencies, or that some of them are idiots and dunces. This way, they keep the people in political bondage, while they smile to the bank as their political children (read investments) whom they have invested in as political entrepreneurs make weekly, monthly and yearly remittances to them.

These remittances run into several millions and even billions, and consequently, societal development suffers.

One outstanding feature of these godfather politicians is that they discourage public office holders from dragging projects to their areas, preferring instead to share projects funds with government officials and contractors.

These men have hijacked the political space from ward to national level, and have over the years exercised the power of life and death over the polity. But their ways are crooked and they have a pathological hatred for true democratic practice, particularly free and fair elections. Their strength had always rested on the impoverishment and disenfranchisement of the Nigerian masses. Violence, thuggery, rigging of election results, intimidation and blackmail remain their tools for manipulation.

It is now glaring that these “political idols” have foisted on the nation a class of political leaders who can’t even define what politics is, and makeshift “democrats” who don’t believe in democracy and its principles.

The only way to rescue the beleaguered Nigerian nation and save it from the claws of its predators is to do away with the culture of impunity and entrench righteousness in everything we do. If we can’t change ourselves, our political parties and our homes, how can
we then change this country for the better?

Like I said earlier in this piece, yesterday they employed dog style, abi na fox style, to plant you there and you felt satisfied and vindicated in the illusion that you are the “choice” of the people.

Today, you condemn the very system you applauded yesterday because you have become a victim yourself. For is it not written in the Scriptures that with what you measure to others, you would be measured to also. I think it is a fair game. But don’t you think we should torpedo this malarkey and do things properly so that our country can rise to the true meaning of its greatness as a powerful
regional leader in international affairs?

Let us begin to see politics not as an end in itself butas a means to an end in these parts. Let us discard this wuru-wuru politics stuff we have been strutting all our political existence as a sovereign nation so that for once, the global community can take us
seriously and treat us with appreciable respect. Let us think deeply; oh yes, let us think more deeply in this direction so that our
elections would edify Nigeria and not bring her shame, contempt, ridicule and embarrassment. Let us put an end to this undemocratic,
oppressive and development-hobbling idea of few men deciding the political destiny of 150 million people in the comfort of their
bedrooms.

I think the time is ripe for that, by keying into the principle of one-man, one-vote. When one-man, one-vote stands, the leaders that
would emerge from the electoral process will treat the people with respect and love, realizing they owe their responsibility to not a
venal mafia of godfathers but their electors – the masses.

Mr. DENNIS  ALEMU,  a commentator on national issues, writes from Lagos.