INSIGHT: Getting our politics right in 2023 election

INSIGHT: Getting our politics right in 2023 election

INSIGHT: Getting our politics right in 2023
THE lives of people in every society are considerably shaped by the politics that obtains there, and the politics of every society is shaped by the characters of men and women the people elect to rule over them.

The above is true because the economy, social life, education, healthcare and other aspects of every society are determined by politics. It is through the political process that the quality of men and women who make the laws by which the people are governed emerge. The leadership of the arm of government that interprets the laws is in turn appointed by those we elect to execute the laws.

The politics of every country, therefore, is the foundation of the well-being of that country. Once a country’s politics is bad, it becomes a case of one bad apple that spoils the whole bunch. Show us a country with a rotten politics, and we will show you a country where nothing works. Unfortunately our country has often been likened to such a country.

Interestingly, bad politics begins from us – from the people, the electorate. In every constitutional democracy, even under monarchy or dictatorship, ultimately, it is the people that decide their destiny through the quality and characters of the individuals they put in power or allow to compromise the system and foist themselves on them.

All the countries we use today as benchmarks for good governance and progressive societies are blessed with people who at one time or the other rose to throw off the yoke of bad leaders, whether they be of monarchy or other forms of dictatorship. The French Revolution, the American Revolution, the Russian Revolution, etc., are ready examples. The lesson in these countries is that it was the people themselves that arose to say enough is enough.

This is why it is imperative to tell Nigerians that taking their destinies in their hands through the ballot in February 2023 is the only way out of the doldrums for them. We must carefully scrutinise the politicians who are asking us for our votes to ascertain their credibility, so as not to fall again into the trappings that have held us hostage from independence.

For how long shall we continue to sacrifice the general interests on the altar of personal and fleeting gains? Is it not high time we put our own house in order, if not for ourselves, but for our children who are hounded in other countries while searching for the good life that is within our power to give them?

With the February 2023 election at hand, let us heed Shakespeare’s admonition when he wrote that: “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.

“On such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”

SOURCE: VANGUARD 

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