I HAVE been into activism since 1985 having served the late Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti, the younger brother of the great revolutionary musician, the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti as a printer/activist from 1985 till he died in 2006; we, together with other patriotic Nigerians, fought the military that ruled our country for 29 years without our consent, to vacate power for democratic governance to emerge.

The military vacated power in 1999 and the civilians took over from them. But for 12 years of civil rule we have nothing to show for it, except institutionalised corruption, high unemployment rates which had led to the high crime rate we are presently experiencing in the country.

It has also forced many of our youths to voluntary enslavement in many countries of the world, loss of thousands of lives every year by motor accident as a result of bad roads, our educational institutions have become mere assemblage of youths without a future.

On graduation, thousands of them waste years looking for jobs that are not there. They subsequently turn to embrace all forms of vices, including armed robbery, prostitution, fraud, cultism and so on.

The health sector is also in a deplorable condition and had resulted in the loss of thousands of lives every year which could have been prevented if the reverse was the case.

For many months l pondered day and night on a violent free approach to find a lasting solution to 12 years of misrule by politicians, many of whom are either retired military officers or civilians that served under one military government or the other.

It was then that the following questions came to my mind. Why is it that our leaders do not bother to be accountable to us? Why are they not transparent in their day-to-day activities in government? Why are they apportioning stupendus allowances/salary to themselves without concern for millions of ordinary Nigerians across the country who are ravaged by poverty?

My conclusion is that the political parties that produce them were more or less business ventures; politicians also see politics as a highly profitable business venture.

Due to the fact that the present political parties were hurriedly established by moneybags, they lack clearly defined political ideologies; they are also highly monetized and unrepresentative of the people of this country.

We could also attribute haste in the establishment of these political parties to the short stay of General Abdulsalam Abubakar in power which was for just one year, during which he, ordered them to establish parties and get ready to take over power from him within one year of his rule.

Today, for one to qualify to run for elective offices, the person must have plenty of money (which ever way you have acquired it) or 100 per cent loyalty to political leaders or godfathers of the political parties or both. You need plenty of money to settle the party leaders at all levels depending on the office you are running for. You need money to engage thugs and arm them to protect you, intimidate or even eliminate your opponents, you need money to bribe voters to vote for you, you need money to buy rice, salt, sugar, milk, clothes, even cars / motorcycles etc, for distribution to the gullible individuals in our midst whose number runs into millions.

By the time the few lucky ones among them get into political offices, the first thing that engages their brain in is how to recoup what they have spent and how to make more money to pursue their future ambitions. By the time they are done with the looting of our collective resources through all sorts of shady deals and attempting to cover traces of their misdeeds against future prosecution their tenure would have ended with little or nothing done for the people if compared with public money he spent during his tenure.

l do not feel too disappointed in them, because l do not see them in the first instance as leaders. I see them as opportunistic, selfish and greedy business people who do not have the love of the country and its people at heart. Doing business at the detriment of the betterment of the country. Capitalizing on the ignorance of the people and their inability to come together and demand for good governance due to the long military rule which has killed the zeal in many Nigerians to ask questions and demand for good governance.

To reverse the bad trend

We the people of like minds will need to come together to begin to educate ourselves about Nigeria, on how we started and how we got to this sorry state. This will afford us a better understanding of Nigeria’s problems.

We can then proceed to finding solutions to them which to my point of view is to kick-start the process for the establishment of a truly peoples political party with a defined political ideology, a party that will truly be representative of the masses.

Mr. AKANNI IROMINI, a social activist, wrote from Abuja