POVERTY OF IDEOLOGY: DECONSTRUCTING NIGERIA’S POLITICAL ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM
By Sanusi Muhammad
There is a tragic irony that defines the contemporary Nigerian political experience. In a nation of over two hundred million people, blessed with arguably the most educated youth population in Africa, electioneering campaigns have been reduced to a grotesque carnival of insults, invectives, and infantile character assassination. The electorate appears more titillated by the spectacle of political leaders abusing themselves on podiums and social media than by any rigorous interrogation of ideological positions. This inversion of priorities is not a cultural quirk; it is a profound manifestation of systemic political ignorance – an ignorance that is both historical and deliberately manufactured.
The foundation of any mature democracy is ideology. Ideology provides the compass that guides governance; it distinguishes one political tendency from another. In Britain, one knows what Labour and Conservatives stand for. In Nigeria, such clarity is absent. Our parties are ideological vacuums – emergency coalitions of elites whose sole convergence is the acquisition of state power. From the First Republic to the present Fourth Republic, politicians decamp from Party A to Party B overnight without contradiction because there is no ideological contradiction in the first place.
Up till now, only a few political parties have deemed it necessary to present a coherent, costed manifesto to Nigerians. Most approach elections with slogans and messianic promises. They promise paradise on earth – 24-hour electricity in six months, free education to university level, a naira equal to the dollar. What is troubling is not that they promise, but that Nigerians consume these fairy tales without subjecting them to the most elementary test: HOW? Through what economic framework? With what fiscal discipline? This failure to ask HOW is the very definition of political ignorance.
This ignorance has three dimensions:
1. Historical Conditioning:* For decades, Nigeria has operated as a rentier state sustained by oil. This birthed a patron-client culture where the state is seen as a national cake to be shared, not a social contract. Nigerians therefore do not evaluate politicians on welfarism or liberalism, but on their capacity to channel resources to their ethnic enclave. In such a transactional environment, abuse is more entertaining than policy. An insult in Pidgin generates instant laughter, while fiscal federalism sounds abstract.
*2. Crisis of Civic Education:* A politically ignorant population is the best asset for a manipulative elite. Our curriculum pays scant attention to civic competence and critical reasoning. A youth can recite music lyrics but cannot differentiate parliamentary from presidential systems. When people lack conceptual vocabulary for policy, they gravitate to what they understand: personality, drama, and abuse. Politicians know a town-hall on agricultural reform will be empty, but a rally of curses will trend for weeks.
*3. The Tyranny of Social Media:* The architecture of Facebook, TikTok, X and WhatsApp rewards sensationalism. A serious analysis of a manifesto gets 500 views, but a 30-second clip of one politician calling another “expired product” gets five million. We have reduced politics to Big Brother Naija – where what matters is who delivers the most devastating insult for recognition and accolades.
*The implications are catastrophic.* First, accountability becomes impossible. If you are elected by abusing your opponent and promising vague paradise, there is no benchmark to measure you. Second, it fuels disintegration. When ideology is absent, politicians mobilize with ethnicity and religion. Abuse is never issue-based; it is identity-based, pitting Yoruba against Igbo, North against South. Third, it repels the best minds. Serious intellectuals avoid a political arena where the loudest abuser wins.
The way forward is ideological rebirth. INEC must mandate that parties publish fully costed manifestos one year before elections. We need compulsory, televised debates anchored by the Nigerian Economic Society and ASUU, not entertainers. Civil society, labour, and students must embark on mass political literacy in local languages, teaching people to ask HOW.
Ultimately, the Nigerian voter must reform himself. We must learn to be bored by insults and excited by ideas. A politician who promises paradise without a roadmap is not a saviour; he is a con artist.
Until we replace the culture of abuse with a culture of ideas, our democracy will remain shallow and our future mortgaged to political comedians who excel at insulting one another but have no clue how to build a nation.
We have continued to believe in the daily released falsehood than attempting to rescue ourselves from the bondage of political idiots and their surrogates who survive on decorating false with roses. Nigerians must wake up from day dreaming of a better future from kleptomaniac in power.
*Muhammad is a commentator on national issues*
