By MC Asuzu

There have recently been discussions in this country concerning Nigerian politicians who have no political structures and those who had them, as the veritable determinants of those who will be able to win elections in Nigeria and otherwise. It was a very interesting discussion indeed. But what kept coming back to the mind of some of us who are incapable of any partisan political persuasions and/or memberships and participation is this: what structures are the people saying these things thinking of?

What does political structures by a single politician mean? Is it individual politicians or the group of people who wish to work together under specific political ideologies that develop such political structures? These organisational groups of people are simply called political parties, is it not? So, when politicians are talking of personal political structures (but not those of political parties), it becomes necessary to examine what these people may be having in mind and what it is that they themselves really have done in those regards.

This discussion is the result of my personal study of what these people are talking about and what they themselves have done in those regards. Three or four prominent politicians in Nigeria have taken part in talking about this matter of their owning of personal political structures, among many of their lieutenants as well as others; or of others not having it. Interestingly, all of them were talking only about one other top political contender who according to them, does not have such personal political structures.

So, obviously, this discussion of my findings in this regard will largely be about these 3 or 4 political persons. On the whole, my searching has shown me that what individual politicians need for the success of their political careers are good relationships with all men and women of good will as far as lies in their power to do. The others are good educational qualification, good track record of their political life, competence and integrity. It is their political party, especially at the regional and national levels, that need what may actually be called structures as physical organizations according to the electoral laws of the land. Without such structures, such political parties will not even be registered in the first place; and so, there will be no issues to discuss at all in those regards.

So, what are these personal political structures that these funny Nigerian politicians were talking about? A very careful study of these structures that I have done has revealed to me the following as the components of these personal political structures of the politicians who have brought us to this state of complete national collapse that they are talking about: 1. Structures for political god-fatherisms; even up to planting and supporting their puppets as leaders within their immediate localities and even regions!

2. Structures for hiring and paying for the political thugs and other gangsters (including the literary, mass media campaign, ones) that abound in the country, in the class lower than the political godchildren.

3. Plutocratic marriage arrangements between themselves, their sons and daughters for nationwide collaborations in the political ruining of the country that we are all suffering from now.

4. Nationally spread relationships that were established by using state money under them (not their own money, of course) to give humongous “gifts” to other states and bodies while in power as the fake “powerful men”, “political performers”, “philanthropists” and “people-lovers” that they wish to be taken for.

5.The creation of private agencies, including business companies in their names or those of their colluders when in power, through which they not only siphon the state or nation’s wealth while they were in power, but also of other states where thy had used their god-fathrism to install their stooges in power therein. These are the agencies and the structures by which all the American dollars and naira to be used to bribe us all and to buy and sell our votes at every turn and level of the elections are made from. It is from it that the money to pay the thugs and other hired agents (including the literary/mass media ones; the bark dogs) of these political warlords are made.

6. The creation for oneself, of the image for themselves as the leader, owner, messiah or saviour of their state or ethnic nationality in Nigeria, which tribe or ethnic group must either believe itself to be the owners or (have become) part of the owners of Nigeria, to the exclusion of all the other ethnic nationalities. Such people boast that nobody in their state or ethnic group will vote other than they will prescribe or indeed, dictate! What a silly state!

7. The creation for oneself, the image for themselves as the leader, messiah or saviour of their bigoted and fanatical religious group in the country, which religion must be the supreme religion of all, while undermining all the other religions by all tools possible, including even unjust legal ones!

Now our very dear compatriots, all these seven items are the elements of the personal political structuring that these fellows have been talking about and which anybody with any eyes at all can see, all over them. They are the very structural elements of the systematic and systematic corruptions that we suffer as a nation; or are they not? Who does not see or know it? We should all know how these structures have helped to bring us to where we miserably are now as a country. Should we continue with these structures as we have been doing or should we (as the attemptedly marginalized individuals and ethnic nationalities and other such groups) ensure that the people who continue or collude in those criminalities are charitably educated out of them?

Otherwise, should these our political underminers and their collaborators by word or silence not be meted with the greatest community and national actions necessary to bring them and these dastardly unhealthy political maneuverings to their necessary ignoble ends? These corruptions are the very things that have produced revolutions all over the world.

However, the Nigerian political warlords (as obviously people who do not work for the common good) will tell us gleefully that revolutions will never work in Nigeria. They say so from the advantages they believe that their impoverishment of us all with their easy petty bribing, the tribalisation and religious fanaticisation of a large number of us will not allow such to work.

It is obviously the responsibility of those of us who have received the privilege of some good education as well as sound spiritual formation to undertake the grassroots education of the rest of Nigeria that these past structures are the causes of this present state of insecurity, poverty, lack of love for one another as of hell itself, of broken homes, of no health care, destroyed education, of our children running out of the country so desperately, etc.

We must encourage new political parties beyond the two that have harboured these people to get up and develop their political ideologies and cultures so well that they will not only be unable to admit these our past killers; but be able to retain genuine people with such political ideologies, that anybody that leaves it thereafter will be seen most easily as the political harlot that he is.

All these will need to be done as charitably as possible knowing that in most cases, these people have tried their best as they know it; only that these bests are not good enough for us. May God Himself help us to deal with these structure of corruption this time around and for this once and for all; as other now progressive countries have done! Amen. Asuzu is a professor of public health and community medicine at the University of Medical Sciences, Ondo.