THE REALITY OF THE USE OF POLITICAL POWER IN THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES; THE NIGERIAN REALITY.

Looking keenly at Africa and the pattern of its development, you would agree with me that we have not made the best use of the gift of natural resources we have from nature over these years as a continent.
Does it not bother you that most of the underdeveloped nations of the world are found in Africa? The irony of this narrative is that this particular continent where majority of these underdeveloped nations are found, are known to be blessed with the best of mineral resources which many advanced climes come to exploit illegally by inciting all forms of conflicts in Africa and thus depriving us of the due revenue we are supposed to get from exploring those resources.
This remains one of the reasons I am convinced that majority of the political leaders in Africa do not understand the sole aim for which political power should be acquired. We have political gladiators who are able to acquire power because of how fierce they are which often times is at variance with the will of the people and their ability to coerce government owned institutions to execute the wish of a powerful few elites who never care about the growth of these nations in all ramifications.
African nations which fall largely under the developing nations category are known to have been governed by leaders who were interested more in holding onto power for as long as possible without being deliberate about the development of these nations. This explains why you have most of these countries battling with the harsh reality of dearth of infrastructure, non-existent health care establishments which usually makes the life expectancy of citizen from such nations very poor and many other poor indices of national development to be found in Africa. There are just a few exceptions where we have African leaders who held onto power for such a long time and still had their nations developed – Libya and Rwanda could be cited as veritable examples.
Nigeria which is a country that I am emotionally and psychologically attached to is one of those countries that I am yet to see majority of the political leaders use their access to political power to transform the nation. Nigeria is a country which is made up of thirty-six states and the Federal Capital territory. The nation is blessed with so many mineral resources which are not yet to be officially accounted for and their proceeds used for the development of the society. This is because the political power which was supposed to be used to put in place functional institutions have been subverted for the use of the elites hence our inability to build functional and strong institutions.
The power play in Nigeria over the years would not be said to have been in the best interest of the masses because it is not a worthy conversation to have, that a nation with so much mineral resources like Nigeria is still being tagged a developing nation. This goes to illustrate how terrible the people who have accessed political power over the years have used same for their own selfish interests and absolutely not in the interest of the masses.
There is no other way we can describe the reality that in this time and season, Nigeria does not have a definite dossier of what we produce as oil and gas as a nation and worse off, the trade of these commodities is done in a very obscure and seemingly secretive manner which hinders transparency and accountability unlike nations like Saudi Arabia who have so digitalized their oil and gas production platforms such that it has created an unlimited amount of wealth for their nation. Do we even talk about what is going on in the North East with the so many mineral deposits we have there which are being criminally exploited without accounting for same to the Nigerian government.
Moreso, the quality of road, air, rail transport infrastructure says a lot about how we are yet to explore the options of development at our disposal in our nation for the good of the infrastructural transformation of our society. Africa has a history of not building great institutions and it is one of the reasons why we must be deliberate about the establishment of functional institutions. We must jointly at all level contribute to building institutions that serve the Nigerian State most effectively as this is the only path to the growth of our continent.
Finally African must learn how to use their access to power in the interest of the masses and not for very selfish reasons. We must learn how to use this power to serve the interest of the public as this remains the only way through which we can develop Africa and transform our various communities in the interest of all.