Factors against Nigeria’s Political Development

It will certainly not be outrageous to say that Nigeria has no clear-cut political party, but political platforms.

This largely accounts for the shameful defections from one political party to the other since 1999 when this political journey began. Those who will want to argue that we now have two dominant political parties: All Progressives Congress, APC and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP should take a critical look at the key political gladiators and their political linens.

A careful analysis of the situation will obviously point to the fact that most of our so called political leaders whether at the Federal, State, Local Government or even community level neither display political ideology or absolutely adhere to party loyalty.

History and evidences have shown that rather than making genuine political progress in terms of transparency and the people’s participation, which is the basis of civilian/democratic dispensation, Nigeria may be sliding downward.

There are several reasons why Nigeria may not be experiencing the much needed political development. The reasons include, but not limited to religious, ethnic, illiteracy, alliteracy, poverty, lack or inadequate information as well as promotion of mediocrity.

The average Nigerian politician of today tends to pledge his or her loyalty to those with the same ethno-religious interest(s) than his or her political party leadership. As if that is not enough, the political class has succeeded in brainwashing the governed as well as religious leaders for their selfish reasons.

Apart from ethno-religious tactics politicians use to blind-fold the people, illiteracy and poverty are two major impediments to our political development. Majority of Nigerians are either illiterates or too poverty stricken to make informed political decisions.

Even more worrisome is the factor of alliteracy. These are the category of Nigerians who are supposedly educated, but barely read or follow information in-depth so as to influence their political decisions or opinions. They form their opinions based on half information, distorted facts or ethno-religious inclinations. These categories of persons often mislead those who are not educated, because they made themselves opinion leaders in their communities.

Promotion of mediocrity in terms of candidates vying for elective offices against hard-work and merit is one other impediment against Nigeria’s political development.

The essence of this piece is that until we tackle factors such as religion, ethnicity, illiteracy, alliteracy, poverty and mediocrity, Nigeria’s politics will never record any development.

Editor-In-Chief

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