The next administration must not look to the opposition for policy guidance, because opposition over the next four years will be about everything but policy debates. The feral disposition that is being deployed during and after the campaign will not suddenly give way to clean and rational conversations on public policy and government’s choices. That is bad news for the government and those who understand the place and essence of a sound opposition. Government must evolve a new response mechanism to the opposition to stay productive and on top of its own essence for being.
It is not surprising that this is the case. We cannot witness this mass delusion yet expect that things will suddenly return to normal post-transition. This is the new norm and good luck to everyone involved. For the sake of Nigeria, the government must look to set up a self-correcting measure to help ensure its agenda is on track. It will not get that from the opposition because the conventional opposition that primarily disagrees based on ideas, policies and even politics is long gone. You’d hope it makes a return in the future but the world that Donald Trump helped to birth is not going to disappear soon. Social phenomena often take time before they give way to another order, if at all they do. And even when they do, the social fabric, once stretched never returns to its previous state.
Donald Trump insisted he won the 2020 elections, his influence remains telling around the world. Photo: WSJ
The PDP, the de jure main opposition, cannot compete on this front as it is not accustomed to this new type of political phenomena. The sort of politics — if one can call it that — that prefers for the suspension of logic and common sense, creates its alternate reality whilst trusting that its tech wielding followers would pick it on and give it a semblance of reality, derivable from repetition. That if they posit an alternate reality and then repeat it well enough, it will become real. Especially in an atmosphere where those who would otherwise disagree prefer silence for the sake of their own sanity or for fear of getting dragged by a mindless mob. Prof. Wole Soyinka tasted some of that vitriol.
Expecting the PDP to be the main opposition would be an expectation in denial of the prevailing atmosphere — even though they finished second. Whilst they have gone about their post-election agitation and legal business the usual way, that way has been relegated by a vociferous way that has inspired calls for a military coup, an interim government and anything that would upset the transition as designed by the constitution. That this has not descended to something even worse is credit to the rational mass who have refused to get sucked into this social miasma.
Some would say it is what it is and in a certain context, I agree. It is indeed what it is and as a government you’ve got to work within the means and situation afforded you. Opposition as it used to be may not be dead but it will not be the prevailing order in the coming years. Gone will be the opposition always there to disagree on policies and politics, in comes a new one that will centre drama and demand a gravitational force like pull on attention in a way that any government would get itself sucked into, if it does not design a system that doesn’t prioritize distractions.
In the absence of an internal opposition mechanism helping to centre the government, it would get forced into a wild goose chase, engaging and being dragged into controversies that have little or no bearing on national development. There should be no underrating that this could go on for three years until the next election season when it’d get ramped up. Over time, it will become evident that this approach will not lead anyone to win the presidency. However, their leaders will come to realise it brings other benefits, assuming they do not already do. Those rewards offer enough motivation to sustain the mob because even a headless mob has its leaders and if the leaders have use for the mob, they will provide more than enough meat to sustain it.
Nigeria’s development path cannot afford unwholesome distractions. This unusual opposition will always do its best to throw the governing party off its focus and in this case, including deploying unwholesome and unusual means. Those with the responsibility to deliver the goods and dividends of governance to the people cannot afford to get carried away by those who care for nothing other than any end that satisfies their expectations, however that end is achieved.
It was Eric Hoffer — the longshoreman philosopher — who said, ‘every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket’. He said that of causes that turned out anything but great, I wonder what the transition would be for causes that were always founded on lies and denial of reality.
Nigeria as a country cannot afford the usual distractions offered by even politics as we once knew it. There is far too much at stake for this country to address and get on sound footing. Whilst those who argue that there has been progress on certain fronts can be allowed to have their say, the truth is, whatever progress you can argue for has not been enough progress for our population growth. It is not that we are not growing at times, it is that we are not growing at par with our population rate when we ought to be growing faster than that to speak of progress in the absolute sense.
We have our work cut out as a people and country but those who would have their way do not care. From the look of it, there is no moving forward until a certain end is achieved. Enough has been said and done to show they do not mind extra-constitutional means to achieve this end. What the rest of the country cannot afford is to get sucked into that distraction.
This piece was published in the THISDAY Newspaper on the 21st of April, 2023
