BY ADEWALE AKANDE

A POLITICIAN’S  qualities are his attributes that are natural, while some of the qualities are as a result of external influences. Promising politicians’ qualities are often backed by skills, experiences, intelligence, integrity, with instincts -all combined- to achieve certain goals. First and foremost, the best quality of a politician is honesty, and he should be God fearing and loving. A faithful and effective politician is trustworthy and reliable. He must capture the essence of truth, display sincerity, candour and practice what he preaches. He makes decisions and accepts responsibility for his actions and his words. The same is true in his dealing with his people. He makes promises and keeps those promises. He’s a person to be relied upon and should be seen to love people with all his heart, might, mind, soul, while striving to help them.
Conversely, a fake politician will, after taking the oath of office with the Holy Book, use his power as an end in itself, rather than for public good, making them indifferent to the progress of the citizens. A good politician becomes the image of his creator. A good and responsible politician will give high regard for morality, must be law-abiding and shurn  corruption. The greatest strength of a good politician is the manifest joy in serving people and not to steal tax payers money. It is a fact that a fulfilling and meaningful life is created through service to others. To be an effective politician, your followers must have trust in you. And the very best way for a politician to build trust is to display good sense of character and qualities composed of values, beliefs, traits and skills.

Another important quality of a good politician is integrity and technical skills to handle those challenging assignments, fiscal matters, policies, plans, projects, ideas and initiative solutions to problems.Integrity is consistency of actions, methods, measures, values, principles, expectations and outcomes. It is doing what is right, both legally and morally at all times even when no one is looking. Since politicians play very significant roles in the administrative processes, especially participating in the making and implementation of  thousands of important laws and policies in their communities and country, they should be well-educated, modest, with experience in social welfare and should have done some good work for the society.

A politician should be knowledgeable and thoroughly informed about the constituency where he is going to contest an election.  Sir Winston Churchill, a famous British politician who served as Prime Minister twice (1940-45) and (1951-55) once said thus: “A politician must have the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen”.

Hence, a political career is meant for the people of high integrity and additional skills to achieve results and finding better ways of making life better for the people they represent. Politics is not meant for dropped-outs, area fathers, thugs, assassins, criminals, illiterates’ godfathers, inept, dubious and corrupt politicians. These persons, apart from being greedy, do not know the importance of education and can never invest properly in it. Good governance, transparency and accountability will be eluding states and nations where the above mentioned set of people found themselves in the corridors of power.

An incompetent and irresponsible politician will make people to hang around his house like bees to honey to feed them with amala, tuwo or ebajust for days. He prefers to give out expensive gifts, donations and bribes from tax-payers money to win elections. An achiever will not need to do such things to win elections or people to their side in all ramifications. That is why you will hear people saying “Politics is a bad game of deceit and hatred”, “Politics is a do or die affair”, “Politics is a dirty business”, “Politicians are very sick people” and so on.

It is those politicians of limited merits and capabilities that are bad and not politics. They cannot do more than their moral and intellectual capacity. A true democratic government is the best concept for the growth of any nation. A good politician enriches lives and provides for many people and not making them to become beggars, touts, kidnappers, armed-robbers and fraudsters.

A good politician should be of a well disciplined personality with selfless service to make life better for his people. This should be reflected in the community where he lives in all ramifications. Discipline is necessary for an orderly society and political life, without it, the social life would become miserable. A selfless service is putting the welfare of the people you’re representing before your own. Winston Churchill described it as “the first of all human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others”. A good politician firmly believes in taking care and maintaining the community of his people. He believes that community service is about giving back. According to Theodore Roosevelt, “the most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice”. A person or politician who is with criminal background, or has links with criminals or who has not been cleared of corruption charges by the law court should be disqualified to participate in elections.

Party loyalty is another quality of a responsible politician in a democratic state. A transparent politician is nearer to his people and regularly meets them to understand their problems. Only fake politicians are seen by voters when an election is near or change parties as footballers change clubs.