2023 Elections in Nigeria: Elites and the rest of us

POLITICS is the realm of irrationality. It is not the realm of morality. It is the realm of no permanent enemies, no permanent friends but permanent interest. It is the realm of intrigues, treachery, horse trade, manipulation, betrayal and above all, conspiracy for the coveted treasure - the throne and power. It is not a pool to swim by lilly livered and chicken hearted. To succeed in that realm, you must be made of sterner stuff probably ironclad heart.

Mischief is the elementary class to attend to survive in politics and power game. Actors in the ring of power politics can play politics with anything including God if they ever have the opportunity. The success of average politician is his or her ability to either play the game or survive it! Hence, no matter how democratic the rule of the game appears to be, the ordinary people are mere spectators and sometimes mere cannon folders for the real actors, politicians.

However, the most intriguing about politics of the politicians that defies the logic of ordinary people, the spectators, is how they (politicians) who were bitter adversaries in the morning of Monday suddenly become best of pals in the evening of the same day building bridges and consensus among themselves. The reason is not far-fetched. Elite theorists like Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, Roberto Michels, Charles Wright Mills and others, have told us that the elites, no matter how diverse they may appear to be have homeostasis of interest.

Literarily, homeostasis, is a Greek word that means "same" and "steady". It is the tendency used by elites to guarantee a relatively stable equilibrium between and among themselves as interdependent elements. Political elites are conscious of their class and understand the rule of not rocking the boat but ensuring the boat is safe to sail unhindered.

There could be disagreements, acrimony and hanky-panky among them here and there but they never get to the point of endangering the common interest of the elite community. One elite may lose but it is usually another one that wins, never non-elite. If the one that loses today comport himself or herself well, he or she could be pardoned by the establishment and return tomorrow as we are likely to see in the coming days, weeks and months in the build up to 2023 presidential election in Nigeria if the rumour of honeymoon between the Presidency/APC and former President Jonathan making round is anything to go by.

This is not the same of the commoners, the plebeians. The poor and ordinary mass of the people, though belong to a class, yet, they are never conscious of their belonging to such common class and never see the need to work towards achieving a common goal for it and themselves. Hence, the elites, knowing the danger of developing such consciousness among the poor, used the same strategy and secret of divide-and-rule from the incident of Tower of Babel, to keep them perpetually divided with religion, ethnicity and ignorance. With this they can never reach a consensus to act in unison in the defence of their class interest. Theirs become a similar case of snakes whose undoing is the fact that they do not move together for if snakes move together, humans will never kill them.

Therefore, the singular motive of Karl Marx was to call the attention of the poor on the need to develop this consciousness as the first step towards total liberation of themselves from the bondage and exploitation of the oppressive class of the bourgeoise. This was the simple reason why Marx was hated by elites. To make him look terribly bad, they accused him (Marx) of 'killing God' and indeed, he suffered greatly from their persecution till he died beloved!

The digression is needed to appreciate why the people are often spectators of the politics of the elites. It was Prof. Wole Soyinka who said Nigerians are people who suffered collective amnesia. Nigerians forget easily and like Irish statesman, Edmund Burke, is often quoted to have said, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it". Or, as Spanish philosopher, George Santayana, is credited with the aphorism, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. For the British statesman, Winston Churchill, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”.

With horse-trading going on pertaining who becomes what, when and how, it is becoming glaringly clear that elites are masters of their game. Enemies are becoming friends and friends are becoming enemies but all the players are permanently inured with a common goal and interest, which is sustaining power to serve the interest of the elites across diverse spectrums.

For those who wanted to kill or had actually killed fellow humans and destroyed good relationships with others particularly over support for APC and PDP, Buhari and Jonathan, during the 2015 presidential election, I hope you are seeing and hearing what I am seeing and hearing of APC working assiduously to bring former President Jonathan on board to contest for presidency on the very platform of the party that threw him out of office seven years ago by his very opponents?

As we gravitate towards the 2023 general elections, it is yet another period to watch the contest of Leviathans with Lilliputians being used as pawns in the chess game as usual.