No Manifesto. No Structure. No Ground Game.
Hope Is Not a Strategy: A critique of improvisational politics in Nigeria, examining leadership, political structure, INEC, movement-building, and why hope alone is not a strategy for national transformation.
The Cult of Improvisation
No manifesto.
No structure.
No policies.
No political party machinery.
No mission statement.
Yet we are told this is how to win a presidency?
Let us even assume he has a path to victory.
Then what exactly is being taught to Nigerian youths?
That hope is a strategy?
That they do not need to commit time, brain, and brawn to anything, institution or task, but should simply jump from one platform to another while “pursuing their manifest destiny”?
Are we teaching them that cohesion does not matter?
That every ship should be abandoned the moment disagreements arise?
What is the lesson here?
That men like Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama, or even Julius Caesar, who painstakingly built movements, structures, alliances, and political machines, simply chose to do it the hard way because they were not smart enough to jump ship when disagreements arose?
I cannot support such a model of politics.
Nor a candidate who plays to our dysfunction rather than rises above it, or shows us a way to succeed within this miasma of disorder.
The Same Playbook
This is the same playbook we saw leading into the 2023 elections.
The same playbook.
Nothing appears to have been learned from the loss of an election many supporters insist should have been won easily.
Of course, the answer remains: “If not for INEC eh?”
Fine.
But what has changed?
INEC is still there.
Still controversial.
Still distrusted by millions.
Still in charge of the next election.
Momentum Matters
A serious candidate, in my view, would already be working day and night to build a vision so compelling, and a movement so disciplined, that the people themselves would make it unmistakably clear they were prepared to defend that mandate with vigilance, sacrifice, and organization.
We saw something similar in 2015.
President Goodluck Jonathan postponed the elections in an attempt to slow the momentum of Muhammadu Buhari and the APC machine.
But the momentum had become too obvious to ignore.
INEC saw the handwriting on the wall and, for the first time in Nigerian history, a sitting president was defeated.
Even then, it took a former military ruler with a long-cultivated reputation for integrity to achieve it.
Ironically, many Nigerians opposed to him at the time mocked the idea of integrity itself.
“Integrity is not enough.”
Some even argued that “a little corruption,” like wine, was good “for the stomach’s sake.”
Now suddenly:
Integrity is everything?
A little corruption is no longer acceptable?
Buhari’s Real Failure
Did Buhari fail?
In many respects, yes.
But one of his greatest failures was this: once elected, he turned away from the structure and coalition that helped bring him to power.
Power became centralized around himself.
And that, I fear, is exactly what happens when movements are built around emotion rather than enduring organization.
If You Are Running, Then Run
Politics is not performance art. (As citizens of a certain major nation are currently finding out.)
The troubling part is this:
The man whose name I hardly need mention does not even appear to be actively trying to win.
And that is what drives me mad.
Have Nigerians not suffered enough?
If you are running for office, then run.
What is all this theatrical ambiguity?
What is all this unseriousness?
Politics is not performance art.
The disgraced Giuliani tried a similar strategy in the United States.
“Wait till you see my ground game in Florida.”
HE repeated endlessly to supporters and journalists alike.
The Florida primaries came, he collapsed completely....
Completely.
What Is the Ground Game?
So the question remains:
What is the ground game?
Ten months to an election, where is the visible machinery?
And please, spare us the excuse that strategy cannot be revealed because “the opposition will steal it.”
We heard similar explanations in 2022 regarding the absence of a manifesto, only for one to emerge later that many critics considered incoherent and underdeveloped.
Also, please spare us the “the people will defend their mandate” excuse that was used to mask the lack of leadership, organization, and political preparation leading into the 2022/2023 elections.
Nigeria Deserves Seriousness
We all want change.
We all want a better Nigeria.
But we must build movements future generations can learn from.
Not more chaos.
Not more improvisation.
Not more “cherey-werey” politics masquerading as strategy.
Nigeria deserves seriousness.
Tell Us. Show Us. Prove It.
What is your strategy?
What is your ground game?
What exactly are the leaders of tomorrow supposed to learn from this approach?
Because hope alone is not enough.
Movements require discipline.
Victory requires structure.
Nations require seriousness.
Case not rested.
Obi Akaraiwe | Don Kenobi
Co-Founder, BigAgendaAfrica
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