The Mysteries Behind The Politics Of Godfathers In Nigeria -By Thaddeus Emmanuel

The kind of scenarios that have continued to transpired in the politics of Nigeria shows on the card to a large extent how derogated the capacity of the political landlords has turned the politics of Nigeria.

Godfatherism has become the central point of political vandalism as it is no longer a hearsay that the political powerhouse of Nigeria, instead of being controlled by forces of sound democracy, is largely controlled by some persons—otherwise known as godfathers occupying the mafia empire.

These are not just ordinary statemen, but few idolized persons in this country commanding our National attention. These godfathers command respect, and mega believe to their personalities. When they talk; people listen. They have continued to reasonably acted upon influencing ideas, and key players on major decisions that have affected there respective states and the nation at large.

These are persons who are in fact without doubts when compared on a national scale amongst the Jagabans of Nigeria, and politically, the Jagaban of ancient and modern Nigeria.

But one might be caused to wonder, aside imposition of incompetent candidate on Nigerians, what has political godfathers reasonably achieved in the political and economic perlarce of this country? How had they utilized the dividends of national recognition in amassing growth and development to Nigeria?

Statistics shows that in every 10 Nigerians, 9 out of all are dissatisfied with the politics of godfatherism. The problem is such that the god-son oftentimes is a stooge of the godfather and like it is usually mentioned, “he that pays the piper dictates the tune”. The failure of the god-son to meet the demands of the god-father is often punished with impeachments or denial of re-election which in turn render the democracy of Nigeria into oblivion 

Howbeit all these dissatisfaction towards godfathers and their usual incompetence to provide solutions to issues that concern this nation, why then do these men seem to always have the final say? Why do they always have to decisively and conclusively end the choice for Nigerians?

These ultimate rhetorical questions brings us to the basic idea behind making this post. That is, it seeks to explain the uncovered mysteries why godfathers are, in spite all the condemnation and their bad omen, still exerting influence, and controlling the decision of the Nation.

This post also seeks to unravel the puzzle behind why the worst get to govern us in Nigeria. (it should not be ill-conceived as politically motivated, or tendered to discredit or disrepute the great personality of these people.)

In the analysis of the political economic game between politicians and bureaucrats, the emphasis has been on the instance where one party—either the politician or the bureaucrat—holds greater amount of reasonable information about the game, hold it personal, and continue to use it for personal gains. That’s what INFORMATION ASYMMETRY assumes.

Simply, Asymmetric information, known also as “information failure,” occurs when one party to an economic or political or social transaction possesses greater material knowledge than the other party. It is also seen as a case of imperfect or imbalance knowledge. The side with more information enjoys a competitive advantage over the other party.

Building inferences from what Information Asymmetry suggest, it could be concluded that godfathers seem to enjoy some sort of Information asymmetrical gain over any other politically inclined Nigerians.

The rational study of informational asymmetry has a prominent position in modern economic theory in general and in theories of public choice in particular. Just as informational asymmetry can exist on the goods market between buyer and seller; on the labor market between employers and hired workers; and on the financial market between top managers of public companies and their shareholders, it can also be found on the political market between voters and politicians.

Even in mature democracies, the political process can suffer failures because of inadequate information flows. Moreover, an excessive level of informational asymmetry in the political arena can lead to the paralysis and even collapse of basic democratic institutions and principles.

Like Joseph Stiglitz, In his Nobel Lecture noted that, “without unbiased information, the effectiveness of the check that can be provided by the citizenry is limited; without good information, the contestability of the political processes can be undermined”.

Having said that, let’s draw a fine analogy to depict the possible effects of information asymmetry enjoyed by godfathers in Nigeria. 

G.A. Akerlof in his prominent work examined the problem of asymmetric information on the example of the used car market(Widely known among Nigerians as “Tokumbo” or “Fairly Used”).

This market can offer both relatively good quality cars in fine condition and bad used cars (which he referred to as “lemons”). This causes an effect of ADVERSE SELECTION where the lemons get to the top or get to govern because the price of relatively good cars is the same with the price of relatively bad cars.

Gradually, this will make owners of good cars to leave the market because they are unable to get a fair price for the value of their cars. As sellers of better-quality cars leave the market, the average quality of used cars goes down and, along with it, the average price. This further drives out owners of relatively good cars.

As this process of poorer and cheaper cars(poorer and cheaper imposed politicians) pushing out relatively better and more expensive cars(that is, better and competent politicians) because of the information asymmetric enjoyed by godfathers continue to repeats itself, all that will be left on the political market of Nigeria will be lemons.

They[political godfathers] have probably recognized our weakness in regards to political culture and ideology, and upon realization, they have continued to use that to achieve their own ends.

Redemption will only come to Nigeria only when we change our attitude towards building good political culture and ideology.