GOOD GOVERNANCE AS THE ROUTE TO NATIONAL HEALING: The Benjamin Kalu Mindset.

Perspective ;

The 2023 general elections, accompanied by its razzmatazz, tension, horse trading, mental, physical and financial draining, mudslinging, alignments and realignments, betrayals and the likes, which have all become part of ‘politics’ though not limited only to Nigeria’s socio-political atmosphere, has come and gone.

Winners and non winners alike have emerged and as it is said in the entertainment world, ” the show must go on”.

Lessons have been learnt as a result of the obvious negative schemings deployed by overtly and covertly desperate persons who see politics as a fight to the death, glaring disenfranchisement of persons from perceived ‘enemy blocs’, a tool which cannot be denied to have also been deployed, was made manifest as an instrument of grabbing power at all cost, what it takes, of minimum or no effect at all.

The above is at variance with the real essence of politics, which on its own is predicated on service, growth and development of society. Anything short of this, in all ramifications is not politics.

Furthermore, the “who gets what, when and how” mantra, that is seen by extremists as the essence of the endeavour, and proponents of the abysmal, dysfunctional and negativistic aphorism that morality should not be expected in the realm of politics is in all honesty, a faux pas.

In theory and practice, among the few who hold dearly that politics is a service oriented endeavour is Benjamin Kalu , the Represntative of Bende Federal Constituency in the soon to be wrapped 9th National Assembly and massively re-elected again to do justice to what he has begun in the 10th Federal Legislature.

Vociferously, Benjamin Kalu holds that “politics and governance, though intricately interwoven must also be dexterously extricated because governance is a process of making and enforcing decisions within an organization or society, a process of interactions through the laws, social norms, power, be it social or political or language as structured in communication of an organized society over a social system like family, social group, formal or informal organization, a territory under jurisdictions or across territories. These are parts of my scholarly findings”.

This carefully shows that governance affects every strata of human endeavour and thus, must rank above political shenanigans.

Represntative Kalu further opines that the subject under discourse is done by the government of a State by a network and targeted at charting a right course among the actors involved in a collective problem that leads to the creation, reinforcement or reproduction of acceptable conduct and social order.

Simplicita, it can be deducted that governance is a process, though somehow politically activated, that exists in and between formal Institutions.

From all of the above, Benjamin Kalu is of the strongest of views that Nigeria at the moment needs every strata of machinery be deployed to re-engineer the socio economic and political process rather than dwelling in unproductive rhetoric because the country is not in lack of the human and material resources to get the nation back on a more efficient and productive track.

Within the African continent, Nigeria can, through good governance reclaim her position as the largest economy, when persons of character loan themselves to the nation as tools for the achievement of goals of the general welfarist society and these Benjamin Kalu is eminently poised to champion.

This is the only route to national healing.

HENRY ONYEMA MADUBUIKE
Convener
Centre for Excellence and Performance in Governance CEPG