From: Geoffrey Anyanwu, Awka
The National Auditor of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and governorship aspirant in the forthcoming Anambra State governorship election, Chief George Moghalu, has blamed what he called total collapse of the private sector for the craze among Nigerians for political offices.
Moghalu who spoke while delivering a lecture titled: Political Ideology and Consistency in Party Politics: A Case Study of Contemporary Nigeria”, at the Correspondents Chapel meeting of the Anambra State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, also called for more stringent regulations against defections by political office holders.
He lamented that because government has been seen as the only business, people have left their vocations where they trained to fight for a position in government even when the positions were below what they should natural be.
The life style and greed of public office holders he further said were not helping matters as it has change the mentality of the people to believe that government was where you go and grab money to your test with no inhibition.
Said he, “Because there is a collapse of the private sector, government is the only business. That is why you see a medical doctor, he wants to be PA to an SA, you see an engineer who does not want to practice but because politics is seen whether rightly or wrongly, as the shortest cut to wealth, rather than practice that which he studied in the university for which a lot of investment has been made on him, that the best thing for him to do is to join politics so that if he doesn’t get elected, he becomes SA, PA or he becomes PA to SA, so there is a total collapse of the private sector, government is the only business.”
The governorship aspirant, however, called on government to ensure that the private sector was resuscitated so that it could be viable and assist government to run smoothly.
Answering question on defection, he stressed that it was killing party politics in the country as it was not backed by political ideology but by considerations largely on money, lust for power and self centeredness.
Moghalu also recommended that defector-public office holders be compelled to lose their position and contest their popularity in their new party to check the trend.
According to him, the inconsistency between politicians and party manifesto was responsible for unrealistic promises and programmes of such public office holder.
He continued, “I want to join in asking that the conditions become a little more stringent. If you want to defect, however you are, resign from the position you are occupying, because you were elected into that position on a party’s platform because your name is not on the ballot paper, it is the party. So if you must defect from that party to another party you relinquish the position you are occupying and go and test your popularity within the new place you want to go to. That is the right thing to do and that is what I subscribe to.”
In his lecture, Moghalu noted that having examined the state of affairs in the Nigerian Political system and witnessed its democratic transition, there was no doubt, that the absence of political ideology and the consequent lack of consistency on the part of the politicians operating within the system and tasked with executing the policy programmes of the party, was a critical problem that if left permanently unresolved might ultimately lead to the demise of the nation’s present democratic arrangement.
He said, “It is important to remain open minded to achieve an unbiased analysis. Ideology is central to the formation of any political party thus; every political party in modern politics is supposedly formed or established on one form of ideology or the other, reflecting the mindset of the individuals or group of individuals who decided to come together under one umbrella.
“However, in reality other forces of identity particularly ethnicity and religion would appear to have taken the place of ideology especially in developing countries. One cannot ignore the rising influence of money politics in Nigeria.
“…This conclusion is evident on the fact that politics of issue has been long forgotten and abandoned to the background while identity and money politics have become the fore runners. One cannot ignore the existence of money politics in Nigeria. It is because of this trend, and the rise of selfish and parochial interest, the high level of party indiscipline, and the absence or weakness of party unity that the presence of ideology in Nigerian politics is constantly being questioned.”