Brands that break into the market have a unique selling point. Brand promoters/marketers spend a lot of time in conducting market research in order to determine customer preferences. Such survey guides in the production of products that satisfy customers and at the same time attract revenue to the brand owners. Most products that have today become market kings are all products of sustained market research and innovation. That is why there are fundamental questions upon which the production of goods and services are premised, which include: what, how, who and to whom to produce. It is in having an effective answer to those questions of production that proper value chain analysis is organized.
Inasmuch as value chain analysis is a good economic tool, it nonetheless applies in all areas of life. In this essay, we want to explore the benefits of value chain proposition in politics, and apply same in taking stock of the involvement of the people in the governance process. The assumption of this piece of writing is that a wrongly analyzed value chain will on the long run bring about unwholesome products and services that bring loss upon the producer as their will be no patronage to such valueless products and services. Further to the assumption of this essay is that no producer or service provider in his/her right senses would embark on production of goods and services that will fail in the market.
In the market place of politics, power is the stock which value all politicians would want to buy as raw material. To process it, the party politics production line is used to produce the final product known as “good governance”. The electorates go to shop for the final product (good governance) during the election. Political parties organize their value chain analysis using the electoral processes to bring into the market a valuable product. The value chain track in party politics follows these lines: formation and registration of a political party with constitution, ideology, manifesto and structures. The political party is always a mass party that thrives through strong membership base. The party also determines the candidates drawn from its faithful members that would fly their flags during the polls. To market these candidates that form the unfinished products processed through the production line, the parties use all the resources of campaigneering to persuade the electorates to cast their votes for the party’s preferred candidates. Voters on their own use the inherent purchasing power of their voter card to patronize the valuable commodity, that is, the candidate(s) with good governance oriented political value.
Nigeria as a country has 36 States and Federal Capital Territory located in Abuja. There are about 30 verified political parties in Nigeria. Both the dominant and non-dominant registered political parties in Nigeria have their production plants in the various states of the Federation. These parties struggle to clinch power at elections organized by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and its state variants (State Electoral Commissions – SECs). From the Local Government Councils, the States through to the Federal, political parties through their candidates vie positions within the executive and the legislature. These political spaces are fully occupied by elected candidates. The question that bothers anyone is whether all these elected candidates and representatives are good finished products? If they are not, how were they produced? And how were they elected by the electorates if at all they were? To answer these questions would require that we look at the good governance value chain proposition as it concerns politics in Nigeria in order to determine if the production processes are thorough. And if not, then, there is the need to proffer solutions that will counter the prevailing narrative.
In Nigeria, it is a common knowledge that candidates that stand for elections are forced on the electorate by party stakeholders or what I may call the powerpreneurs(power brokers). Internal democracy is always thrown away, in preference for guided democracy. Guided democracy creates a Hobson’s choice scenario – a choice of taking what is available or nothing at all – in which the electorates will be faced with bad and unmarketable products ab initio, which they are forced to buy. It is also a common knowledge that majority of the candidates that vie elective positions do not bear the mindset of service to the people, but only jostle positions for personal aggrandizement as the prevailing poverty in Nigeria has created more politicians than needed, who only use politics as a tool for fighting poverty in favour of themselves, family, friends and minions, and nothing more.
What has remained the prevailing experience is finding political office holders in Nigeria involved only in self-serving politicking and never in the interest of those that should have voted them in if the political process had been thorough. They hide away in their thickly tinted SUVs, often bulletproof, with an array of highly equipped security personnel drafted to ensure their safety alone, instead of the generality of the populace who are left to be butchered and hacked down with and by the machetes and guns of the villains, and other merchants of violence. For the legislators, most of their constituency offices remain under lock and key from the day they were inaugurated till the time when they feel they are ready to seek reelection for another term in office. For those who occupy executive positions, what they do is to recycle the obsolete Nigerian pattern of governance that involves payment of overhead and paving few roads, while those they lead stay hungry and jobless. Till date, there is no sustainable development agenda pursued by the Nigerian elite politicians that target the transformation of the entire economy of the country.
What then should be the root cause of this problem? The major cause of the problem is the crisis that bedevils the leadership recruitment process in Nigeria. The so-called godfathers and stakeholders of Nigerian politics foster the politics of patronage and renterism. Many commentators on the ‘Nigerian democracy’ often assigned the problem in the system to leadership failure. But I differ from that view. The problem cannot be with leadership, but with the process of leadership recruitment. It is said that no one can offer or give what one does not have. When wrong persons are selected and imposed upon the people as their leaders through guided democracy, the outcome of such leadership will be ever abysmal. But when the right choices are made, the case turns to a better deal.
How would we lead Nigeria out of leadership recruitment impasse? It is simple. Getting the right thing done remains the only way out. Let me cite an instance from where I will draw a conclusion. Time Magazine on its 23 October, 2006 cover page ran a headline: “WHY BARACK OBAMA COULD BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE US”. The prediction was based on Obama’s leadership track record. As at that time, he was considered ripe to take up the leadership of the US, and indeed he achieved it when he ran for the presidency. Obama was not actually a product of political godfatherism. Rather, he was a product of effective good governance value chain. The right candidate was chosen for the right job. That should be the hallmark of good governance value chain in politics. He had taken several leadership positions and proved his mettle. But down here with us, anyone popularized by the stakeholders would ride roughshod into leadership position, whether he/she is ever qualified or not. What we must do now as a people is to wrestle out power from the stakeholders and return it to the people on whom legitimacy resides. This would require positive, non-violent revolution, and no better weapon than the Ballot Paper through the effective use of the Permanent Voter Card (PVC) would be needed for the task. Political apathy is the only thing that would keep bad governance in circulation. But citizen participation is the only way through which good governance value chain will become a permanent path within the marketplace of Nigerian politics.
Written by Herbert Chimezie Nnadi (IgedenwaAfrika)
Lecturer at Imo State Polytechnic and Social/Political Affairs Analyst