By Ayobami Akinyode Olunloyo

Politics is the vehicle. Governance is the destination. Service is the purpose.

Sir: There is a distinction we do not make often enough in Nigerian public life: the distinction between politics and governance.

They are connected, certainly, but they are not the same thing.

Politics is the vehicle. Governance is the destination.

Politics is how we contest ideas, organise movements, build coalitions, persuade citizens and ultimately seek the mandate to serve. Governance is what happens when that mandate has been given. It is where the real purpose of the entire exercise should become apparent. And that purpose is simple: people.

Governments exist to organise society in ways that enable citizens to live better lives. It creates the conditions within which economic activity can flourish. It provides and regulates education, healthcare, infrastructure, security and the many institutions upon which an orderly society depends.

At its best, government creates an environment in which people can pursue their aspirations with dignity. Politics should therefore be a means to that end. The danger begins when we confuse the vehicle with the destination.

When politics becomes both the means and the end, winning becomes more important than governing. Holding power becomes more important than using it well. The party becomes more important than people. And eventually, everything becomes political.

A good idea proposed by the “other side” must be opposed because of where it came from. A successful policy cannot be acknowledged because doing so might appear to give an opponent credit. Appointments become rewards. Public resources become instruments of political advantage. The government begins distinguishing between those who supported it and those who did not. At that point, we have lost sight of why politics exists in the first place. I believe there must be a point at which partisanship ends, and governance begins.

Government must serve everyone
Elections necessarily require choices. Candidates compete. Parties disagree. Campaigns draw distinctions. Voters make decisions. That is democracy. But once an election is concluded and a mandate is given, the responsibility of government is no longer merely to those who voted for it. It is to everyone.

The child who needs a functioning school does not cease to deserve an education because her parents voted for another political party.

The farmer who needs a road to take produce to market should not have to demonstrate political loyalty before government notices him.

The elderly woman who needs healthcare is not first a member of a ward, faction or party. She is a citizen. And citizenship must mean something. This is why I believe the quality of our governance is ultimately connected to the motivation of those who seek political power.

If the objective of entering politics is principally to gain, then naturally the greatest concentration of effort will be on the machinery that enables that gain: acquiring power, retaining power, distributing power and protecting power. Politics becomes the obsession because politics provides access to the prize.

But if the objective is to serve, the emphasis necessarily changes.

Politics remains important because one must obtain a mandate to govern. But the mandate is not itself the achievement. It merely creates the opportunity to do the work. That is the difference between seeing political office as a destination and seeing it as a responsibility.

It is also why servant leadership cannot simply be a phrase we use during campaigns. It must describe our understanding of power itself.
Citizens also have a responsibility. But the responsibility does not belong to politicians alone.

There is another side to this conversation, and it concerns us as citizens. We cannot complain about the quality of our politics while progressively withdrawing ourselves from it.

When good people conclude that politics is too dirty to engage with, when professionals decide that public affairs are somebody else’s business, and when young people become convinced that their participation makes no difference, we create precisely the space in which the people we least want governing us can prosper.

There is an idea commonly associated with Plato that those who refuse to participate in government risk ultimately being governed by those less worthy of doing so.

The popular modern formulations are loose translations, but the underlying argument does appear in The Republic: declining the responsibility to govern carries the danger of being governed by someone worse.

More than two thousand years later, the principle remains remarkably relevant.

Democracy requires vigilance
A state watched over by vigilant citizens is harder to capture than one its citizens have abandoned.

When people stop asking questions, stop demanding accounts, stop voting, stop participating, stop examining candidates and eventually decide that “there is no point,” they do not cause politics to disappear.

It is good governance that they inadvertently allow to be eroded.

Politics continues. Decisions continue to be made. Public money continues to be spent. Leaders continue to be selected. The only difference is that fewer responsible citizens are influencing those decisions. That is dangerous.

I understand why people become weary. Disappointment repeated often enough eventually becomes cynicism.

Citizens who have participated before and seen little improvement can understandably ask why they should bother again. The answer cannot be to lecture them. It must be to demonstrate that participation matters—and to build political institutions worthy of their participation.

Citizens are custodians of democracy
But we must also recognise an uncomfortable truth: the health of a republic cannot be outsourced entirely to politicians. Citizens are not simply customers of democracy. We are its custodians. That means examining those who ask for our votes.

It means demanding competence as well as popularity. Character as well as charisma. Preparation as well as promises. It means remaining engaged after election day. And it means refusing to accept the idea that politics belongs to some special political class while everyone else watches from the sidelines.

If we want better governance, we must concern ourselves with the pipeline through which our governors emerge. We must encourage good people to enter it. We must create political cultures in which they can survive it. We must interrogate those who progress through it. And ultimately, we must choose wisely from among them.

Because better governance does not magically begin on inauguration day. It begins much earlier, with the quality of people we permit to emerge through our politics.

Politics, governance and service
So perhaps we need to recover a very simple understanding of public life: Politics is the vehicle.

Governance is the destination. Service is the purpose. Our politics matters enormously—but precisely because of where it is supposed to take us. And the responsibility for ensuring that it gets us there belongs to all of us.

If we remain vigilant, participate actively and refuse to surrender our democracy to those who seek power merely for themselves, we improve the quality of those who eventually emerge to lead.

The road to better governance therefore begins before government.

It begins with us—each and every one of us. So, as my father would often say to me, I now encourage you to: “Act well your part; there [all] the honour lies.”

Ayobami Akinyode Olunloyo is the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Oyo Central Senatorial candidate.