The day Onifade (a young man from Osun state) won the Students Union Government (SUG) presidency in FUTO Owerri when I was there, because he was the best candidate, I saw hope. Of course that ephemeral de-tribalization has been muted at the professional side of national politics.
Onifade mounted the podium and spoke how he would help the students. By the time he was to say “Great Futoites, aluta continua”, he had been baptized as the new SUG President. Notice that before then, Etim* (from Akwa Ibom, he later became president of National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS) ran the Students Union.
We enjoyed a school where your quality defined your ascension as no one cared where you came from. FUTO elected a young man from Akwa Ibom, and followed with another from Osun State, and at the national level supported him over other Southeastern schools for NANS Presidency. That was a school with more than 70% Igbos; no one remembered where Etim and Onifade came from.
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But upon graduation, I began reading about the demons of identity politics where simpletons became local or national leaders purely because of their tribes/clans. How can Nigeria have a reset?
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Ndubuisi, anybody can win as Nigeria’s president, the identity politics isn’t the biggest determinant, rather it’s just one of the cards politicians play, especially if it resonates with large number of people. Nothing is off the table in the political chess game, you are free to throw up anything, but if your opponent has a superior silver bullet, your supposed biggest advantage could disappear.
How did GEJ become president of Nigeria? He didn’t win because of identity politics, rather because he got the backing of ‘people that matter’. How did Buhari win? Fulani votes were never enough to make him president, so if it’s all about identity politics, he would have won long time ago. It was until he got the backing of ‘people that matter’, then his political base expanded beyond his clanish enclave, and he became president.
Nobody can become president just because he/she speaks well and had done some things in the private sector, no way, not here, not in the US; check past and present American presidents and see how the stars must align in your favour, for you to win.
The big question? Who are the ‘people that matter’ in today’s politics? It’s a moving target, but if you have your eyes on the ball, the chess game can begin…