“This politics of destruction must end. We need leaders who will clap for a good policy even if it comes from their sworn enemy because the real allegiance should be to Nigeria, not to the party logo or the godfather’s whisper.”
Only in Nigeria do we hear seasoned politicians boast years after the damage has been done that they opposed a president or a policy, not because it was bad for the nation, but because it was “politics.”
Some are now openly admitting that their relentless hostility to President Goodluck Jonathan‘s administration had nothing to do with national interest. It was simply about making sure the other side lost.
That is not politics. That is treachery wrapped in a party flag.
Every time leaders kill a good idea to deny their rivals a win, they are not playing chess; they are playing Russian roulette with the lives of 200 million people. And, unlike the game, the bullet always finds its target: in our crumbling hospitals, in our darkened streets, in the wasted years of our unemployed youth.
When the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is abandoned because the “wrong” government started it, when the power sector reform is slowed down because the credit would go to an opponent, when vital security reforms are shelved because an election is coming that is not strategy, it is sabotage.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) did it to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). PDP it to APC.
The losers were never the politicians – it was always Nigerians. We paid with potholes, blackouts, and lost opportunities, while the political class cashed their allowances and laughed at the gullibility of the masses.
A road does not know if it was commissioned by APC or PDP before it carries traders to market. A working refinery doesn’t care which party cut the ribbon before it fuels the nation. Good policies should be above petty rivalries.
This politics of destruction must end. We need leaders who will clap for a good policy even if it comes from their sworn enemy because the real allegiance should be to Nigeria, not to the party logo or the godfather’s whisper.
History has a long memory. And when the roll call is made, those who played games with our future will not be remembered as clever, but only as reckless men and women who traded a nation’s progress for the thrill of a political point.
Thank you.
•Ambassador Farounbi, 9th August, 2025.
