Hardship as a Political Party

By Bagudu Mohammed

Both Phyna and actress Blessing Nkechi faced each other in a celebrity boxing bout, each bringing forward a distinct physique and a thirst for victory.

In one of the encounters between the two, I heard Blessing boasting, na me this small girl go beat?

True, looking at her size I did not see any chance of victory for Phyna. My instinct went with appearance and with the belief it evokes that the bigger one should be stronger, even when Lady MJ exposed her soft spot for Phyna and wished that she would win, it looked like a tall dream and a fantasy.

In the ring, many observers believe that Nkechi beat Phyna with punches, but Phyna won by deploying strategy, not strength.

I keep remembering this whenever there is an obvious case of presenting hardship as a political party in Nigeria. The anti-government sentiment and the confidence that hardship in the land is enough evidence that the ruling party should fail. If you raise any legitimate concern rooted in other realities, they quickly point to insecurity, fuel prices and hardship as the reason and proof that the ruling party will not win.

It is built on consolation, the hope to gain from someone else’s failure or shortcomings. Hardship could be a thirst. And I believe that Nkechi perhaps was more hungry for the 50 million than Phyna, having quickly gone back to beg Nigerians to download her new upcoming film which she hopes to release very soon on YouTube and hopes to cross a million viewers she has never met. That plea was done passionately.

However, despite the fact that poor people or a hungry man may have greater potential or motivation to be successful either in a boxing match, in academics or otherwise, hardship is not always a platform of its own for realizing dreams. We have seen how some poor people continue to be poorer and the rich richer because of difference in strategy.

This brings to mind what political scientists call protest voting and what Ted Gurr described in his relative deprivation theory, that people revolt not simply because they are poor but because there is a perceived gap between expectation and reality.

Yet expectation alone does not win. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman in his prospect theory and political strategist James Carville in the famous Clinton war room remind us that emotion does not win election, football match or boxing and not even hard work alone does, but tactics does. The new slogan is working smartly, not working hard.

Despite the outrage, the opposition has continued to fail in the bye-elections, a situation I describe as prioritizing the World Cup and despising local competitions.

The focus is on the World Cup, not the Africa Cup of Nations.

Otherwise, how can teams that have been completely absent from local competitions, and are only just beginning to gain experience without even having established players, be so ambitious about winning the World Cup in January with Brazil like APC and Messi?

Now, if we are to vote for hardship as the political party, which one among ADC, NDC, APM, SDP and the rest is the antidote?

Bagudu Mohammed is the founder of Alternative Perspectives, a widely read commentary platform on social media. It offers evidence-based analysis and real-life insights as a credible alternative to groupthink, convenient narratives, and echo chambers. The platform explores a wide range of issues, including politics, society, relationships, governance, and contemporary trends.
Web: https://alternativeperspective.onrender.com