A political affairs analyst, Azubuike Ihemeje, has lamented that politicians no longer engage in politics with the interest of the public at heart.

Ihemeje, a lawyer, said politics, ordinarily, should be a means of rendering public service. But in Nigeria, it has been reduced to the interest of individuals or groups of politicians, who gang up to hijack power solely for their personal economic survival.

He also accused politicians of distorting and destroying core principles of politics.

Ihemeje made this known while appearing as a guest during a roundtable discussion for the 2023 election in Port Harcourt, yesterday.
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He stressed that public service is any service intended to address specific needs of a given society or country, and is clearly opposed to personal pursuits or individual ambitions.

He noted: “Over the years, these politicians have impoverished the masses with unemployment and joblessness; systematically destroying the economic powers of the private sector. They, thereby, make government jobs, connections, contracts, and everything around government agencies become heavily attractive and indispensable in people’s lives.”

“Politics and government have become the major source of revenue for people in Nigeria. People’s wealth is now calibrated by the type of political office they occupy or are connected with.”

He called on the private sector to rise up to its role of employing the greatest number of people, with the aim of making political jobs unattractive, even as he expressed optimism that the nation would be restored of its core values.

He said: “To compound the problem, they keep recruiting more and more people into politics with the prospects of sharing the loots with them later. Elsewhere, the private sectors are the highest employers of labor, while government jobs are less and less attractive. But in Nigeria, government jobs have become goldmines.”

Ihemeje added: “Since politics has became the only dependable means of financial liberation, every person now scrambles to slave for a political party, leader or system. Real freedom of choice has been diametrically circumscribed by the dictates of political leanings. Most people dare not make any informed decisions again, except that which has been determined by their political overlords.

“Nigerian politics is so peculiarly skewed towards government dependency, largely because the government itself does not need to think to raise money due to abundance of natural resources.”

“Politicians sell oil on the international market and share the money within the several political offices they’ve created for themselves and their supporters. That’s why politicians in this part are grossly lousy, unimaginative, and void of any innovation to solve problems.”
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