There was a time in Nigeria when politics sought accomplished men. Today, accomplished men increasingly avoid politics while politics pursues those who have accomplished little outside it. That quiet reversal, more than any constitutional defect or electoral malpractice, explains why our democracy has struggled to produce the quality of leadership its founding fathers envisioned.
We often lament vote-buying, political violence, godfatherism, judicial controversies and the endless defections that have reduced party platforms to mere transit camps. Yet these are not the disease. They are symptoms of a deeper structural collapse that has received far less attention. Somewhere along the journey, politics ceased to be an avenue of public service and became a profession. It became the first, and in many cases the only, address of those seeking public office.
That was not how Nigeria’s political culture was built. The politicians who shaped the First Republic were not manufactured by politics. They were already known before politics discovered them. Obafemi Awolowo had established himself as an outstanding lawyer and visionary thinker. Nnamdi Azikiwe had become an accomplished journalist, publisher and nationalist. Aminu Kano was a teacher, organiser and political philosopher. Anthony Enahoro had earned national prominence as a journalist and constitutional advocate. Across the country, politics attracted lawyers, teachers, doctors, farmers, businessmen, journalists and trade unionists who had built reputations through productive endeavour before seeking the people’s mandate.
Politics did not define them; it merely enlarged the platform from which they served. That distinction mattered.
When public office was a temporary trust rather than a permanent occupation, politicians approached power differently. Losing an election did not amount to personal extinction. The lawyer returned to his chambers. The journalist returned to his newsroom. The farmer returned to his fields. Their livelihoods did not depend on remaining in office, and that independence gave them a degree of moral confidence that contemporary politics increasingly lacks.
Even the Second Republic, despite the growing influence of money and patronage, retained much of that culture. The political parties of the era were not perfect, but they still reflected identifiable ideological leanings. More importantly, many of their leading actors possessed careers and reputations that neither began nor ended in government. Politics remained an extension of public engagement rather than its sole purpose.
Then came the long military interregnum.
Military rule did not merely interrupt democratic governance; it fundamentally altered the character of Nigerian politics. Years of governing by decree weakened democratic institutions, diminished civic participation and concentrated power in the state. But perhaps its most enduring legacy was the transformation of political parties from organic movements into administrative creations.
The transition programmes of the late 1980s and early 1990s represented a decisive turning point. Political parties were no longer allowed to evolve naturally from ideological convictions, civic associations, labour movements or regional aspirations. They were designed, approved and supervised by the government. Their constitutions were prescribed. Their structures were determined from above. In effect, parties increasingly resembled institutions licensed by the state rather than movements sustained by citizens.
Something fundamental was lost. When political parties cease to belong to their members, they inevitably become accountable to those who control power and resources. Ideology quietly gives way to patronage. Conviction yields to convenience. Membership becomes less an expression of belief than an investment in future political opportunities.
The political activist slowly gave way to the political jobber. At almost the same time, Nigeria’s economic realities compounded the problem. Years of inflation, structural adjustment, industrial decline and institutional decay weakened the professions that had traditionally supplied leadership to the political class. Journalism became economically precarious. Teaching lost its prestige. Agriculture declined. Manufacturing weakened. Honest enterprise became increasingly difficult.
Politics, however, flourished. Public office offered rewards that legitimate professions could scarcely match. Wealth, influence, contracts, appointments and social prestige became concentrated around political power. Inevitably, politics attracted not only those who wished to serve but also those who simply wished to survive.
That is the defining difference between yesterday’s politician and today’s career political operator. The former had another address. The latter often has none.
When politics becomes a man’s only means of livelihood, elections inevitably become battles for survival. Defeat no longer means returning to one’s profession; it means losing relevance, influence and economic security. Under such circumstances, principles become negotiable, defections become understandable, and elections become investments expected to yield generous returns.
That “other address”, the profession, vocation, enterprise or calling that once anchored the politician outside government, was the quiet moral restraint on public life. It reminded those in office that power was temporary, reputation was permanent, and character outlived political tenure. Its disappearance is one of the least discussed but most damaging developments in Nigeria’s democratic evolution.
The death of the second address produced the politics of desperation.
That is why vote-buying has become so entrenched. That is why political violence persists. That is why public office is pursued with such ferocity. These are not isolated moral failures. They are the predictable consequences of a political culture in which politics has become the most profitable occupation in the land.
The damage is perhaps most visible at the grassroots. Local government was intended to be the nursery of democratic leadership, where men and women with proven community standing would learn governance before aspiring to higher office. Instead, many councils have become convenient destinations for political loyalists and professional hangers-on. Competence is displaced by patronage. Character is subordinated to usefulness. Public service gives way to political entitlement.
The result is a democracy increasingly populated by individuals whose greatest qualification is their ability to remain politically relevant.
Society itself cannot escape responsibility. We have gradually abandoned the values that once placed character above wealth and service above self-interest. We celebrate opulence without questioning its source. We admire political influence more readily than professional excellence. Young people are increasingly persuaded that the quickest route to success lies not in innovation, enterprise or scholarship but in political proximity.
Politics merely reflects the values society rewards
If Nigeria must recover the promise of democratic governance, we must first recover the dignity of productive endeavour. Politics should once again become attractive to accomplished citizens rather than indispensable to desperate ones. Political parties must recover their ideological soul and become accountable to members rather than financiers. Public office must cease to be viewed as the highest form of economic advancement.
The nation does not merely need electoral reform; it needs a restoration of political culture. It must once again become possible for a lawyer to leave politics and remain fulfilled at the Bar; for a journalist to return proudly to the newsroom; for a teacher to find honour in the classroom; for a farmer to return to the land without regret; and for a businessman to prosper without political patronage. Only then will politics recover its proper place, not as a profession, but as a temporary trust bestowed by the people.
Nigeria once produced professionals who ventured into politics. Today, we are producing politicians searching for a profession.
That is the death of the second address.
And unless we restore it, the republic will continue to produce political jobbers where the nation desperately needs statesmen.
Ogundipe, Public Affairs Analyst, former President of Nigeria and the African Union of Journalists writes from Abuja
