Anyone who has been reading or has read Moises Naim’s The End of Power would come to one conclusion immediately: the political terrain is inundated with individuals with little or no idea how disadvantaged their ambitions for power will pan out. Naim has said that at the end of the last century, certain global situations and events have assisted more people, more circumstances, more institutions to unpack the very essence of what power truly is for the one seeking it. According to Naim, with more and more people moving from one point to the other in order to change their circumstances, with more and more people living better lives, and with more and more people upgrading their social and mental statuses, more and more asymmetrical tactics begin to emerge and challenge orthodox belief systems about power.
With the emergence of asymmetrical and centrifugal forces challenging the power superstructure, and with politics continuously becoming a situation where power becomes a chore and an infatuation, why would anyone still invest energy and time seeking to wrest and control power? Moreover, to what end in itself? There are many reasons why certain politicians still struggle to be there, and this is in spite of the fact of the erosion of the essence of political power. One, there are many politicians out there who seek power just for the nonce and for very, very selfish reasons. If the real ones do not challenge them, we will find ourselves playing out that certain quip which says that evil succeeds because the good sit mum and watch from the periphery. Second of all, most of the politicians without an inkling of the essence of power have often confessed that they were not really ready for high office, but it was thrust at them by godfathers who prop them up as business investments. Third of all, most have no record of accomplishment of community service or volunteerism.
All of this cometh at a time Nigeria is in dire need of men who have been consistent, and who have demonstrated that given the opportunity they will deliver and will respond to the clarion call of their people. They are men who have prepared mentally, physically and cultured themselves to realise that politics can still be the game of the great compromise. Take Muhammad Adamu Aliero, former governor of Kebbi State in Nigeria from 1999 to 2007. Prior to this time, he was a member of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP,and was appointed Minister of the Federal Capital Territory by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in December 2008.
This former FCT Minister is politically a well-baked bread. Born and bred in Aliero Local Government Area of Kebbi State, Muhammad Aliero Adamu received his primary education at an Islamic school and proceeded to build a solid academic foundation in 1965 and at that time in Nigeria when elementary education was not considered prerequisite for future leadership. From the Aliero Town Planning School, he got admission to the Government Secondary School in Koko and graduated in 1976with flying colours.
But from May 1999 with civil rule, Nigeria found herself inflicted with an unready and ill-prepared crop of politicians who often made Nigeria move one leg forward but three legs backwards. Most blamed it on the ‘learning processes’. But not Adamu Aliero. He had prepared himself for the tasks of future governance with a degree in political science from the prestigious Ahmadu Bello University in 1980. That act of foresight has separated the distinguished Senator from the many wannabes and charlatans who without relevant training and tutelage are seeking to call the shots today.
Many are wont to point fingers at Senator Aliero and accuse him of political prostitution. They do this because the Senator seems to understand, more than his contemporaries do that politics, rather than a dirty game, is the fine art of the compromise. He decamped to the PDP after spending about a year in CPC in early 2012 and moved from PDP to APC in 2014. But these traducers must recall that our betters in the US are the greatest defectors ever if we consider political interests as against the mundane interest. Recall that two very prominent American politicians – Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell – the one, the first Black female US National Security Adviser & Secretary of State and the other the first Black Secretary of State and Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff under Republican administrations. Powell was a very well-known Democrat who had been put forth as potential Vice President nominee in the 1992 US Presidential election. However, in 1995 Powell defected to the Republic party, and was touted as possible Republican opponent to run against Bill Clinton. Powel once said that leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible. For Senator Adamu Aliero, this is the mantra and doctrine of political reasonableness. Look at Rice too. She was a Democrat until 1992. She changed her political affiliation, defected to the Republican Party first out of respect for her father who was a Republican, but mostly after a disagreement with the Jimmy Carter administration which she served.
In the coming days, intense political activity would trigger an effervescence of political movements. Our constitution allows freedom of association, as long as that freedom does not break the law. Senator Muhammad Adamu Aliero, a well-informed political scientist who knows his political onions has indicated his interest to serve his people at the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for the third time. With that expression of interest, the Senator aligns himself with heavyweights like John McCain of blessed memory who served his people at the US senate for more than two decades as a detribalized politician. His people, and especially Nigerians, best rally round him with the Kebbi Central mandate.
Written by Efemena Okpolokpo, a programme officer with the Civil Empowerment & Rule of Law Support Initiative, CERLSI, Abuja.
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