F
rom the content of Hernando
De Soto’s book; The Mystery
of Capital: Why Capitalism
Triumphs in the West and
Fails Everywhere Else, a book about
the transformation of dead capital
into live capital through the institu-
tion of formal property rights, capi-
talism is in crisis outside the West not
because international globalization
is failing but because developing and
former communist nations have been
unable to ‘globalise’ capital within
their own countries-as most people
in those nations view capitalism as a
private club, a discriminatory system
that benefits only the West and the
elites who live inside the bell jars of
poor countries.
Similarly, leadership in Nigeria is in
crisis because too many politicians
and public officials have exercised
power and responsibility not as a trust
for public good, but as an opportunity
for private gain. Making the problem
worse is their endless quest to get
hold of more at all cost without con-
sideration to the general well being of
the entire Nigerians.
Admittedly, it is a very natural and
common thing to acquire more and
when men succeed in this, they are al-
ways praised rather than condemned.
Of course, as humans, we are all in
this together. ‘If we look calmly and
honestly at ourselves, we will discover
that we too have the same basic de-
sires for recognition, for importance,
that desire for attention and the desire
to be first’.
But it becomes a challenge and a
reality to worry about when public
office holders instead of taking steps
that will better the life chances of the
people, get preoccupied with embez-
zlement of public fund in forms that
diminishes the masses socially and
economically while the privileged
political class continues to flourish in
obscene splendour as they pillage and
ravage the resources of our country.
Certainly, a striking human tragedy
deepened by the awareness that it was
avoidable.
Indeed, this is the kind of leadership
crisis that is bound to happen when
‘lust for power prevails over granting
people the love and care they deserve,
and when the interest and destiny of
one individual becomes more impor-
tant than those of the whole nation.
This is also what happens when the
interests of some groups and cliques
benefiting from certain leaders are
served instead of those of all the
people; in order words, when you
put the people at the service of the
government, in sharp contrast with
the norm’.
Without loosing sight of the present
myriads of sociopolitical contradic-
tions that have conspired directly
and indirectly to give the unenviable
tag of a country in constant search of
social harmony, justice, equity and
equality, this malfeasance at all levels
of governance has not only led to the
destruction of social infrastructure
relevant for a meaningful and accept-
able level of social existence for our
people and consequentially visits the
nation with broad range of socioeco-
nomic issues which covers -poverty,
health, sanitation, education, climate
change, water, energy, environment
and other challenges. Life in Nigeria
quoting Thomas Hobbs has become
nasty, brutish and short as the coun-
try turns a hotbed for all manners of
violence.
However, various commentators
have attributed the type of leaders we
have to the people’s decision given the
fact that democracy makes everyone
equal on Election Day. The signifi-
cance of election, they argued, is that
it serves as a means of implementing
the principle of popular sovereignty.
And popular sovereignty means that
the people have the final say.
Fundamentally, even if, every vote
carries exactly equal weight, consid-
erable room for inequality remains in
the electoral system. To a large extent,
political parties in Nigeria for exam-
ple, are being privately financed. And
it may well be that those who contrib-
uted money to a party or candidate
expects to get something in return.
Thus, those who have the resources
to help finance elections are likely
to have more influence than those
who merely vote. Beyond Election
Day itself, tremendous inequalities,
political influence begins to emerge,
such as advocacy groups and lobby
activities. Such disparities may lie
outside the scope of political equality
as bare ingredients of the definition of
democracy, but they are of concern to
many observers.
The average Nigerian is worse of
now, economically and materially,
than he/she was in 2015-or even 1999.
We are at present living through the
worst social and economic crisis since
independence; poor leadership; poor
strategy for development; lack of ca-
pable and effective state and bureau-
cracy; lack of focus on sectors that
will improve the condition of living
of citizens such as education, health,
agriculture and the building of infra-
structure; corruption; undeveloped,
irresponsible and parasitic private
sector; weak civil society; emascu-
lated labour and student movement
and poor execution of policies and
programmes’.
