The "rat race” for political power in Nigeria is borne out of selfishness, greed for power, opportunism, sycophancy, kleptocracy, corruption and despotism

2027 Election: A Rat Race, Chess Game In Nigeria’s Distraught Polity Opinion & Interviews By David ADENEKAN On Jul 9, 2025 The two phrases; ‘a rat race’ and ‘a chess game’ are intertwined and entangled in the same end game, the prowess to capture political power or position. In a very simple narrative; “a rat race” is a way of life in which people are caught up in a fiercely competitive struggle for wealth or power. Similarly, the goal of a chess game is to capture the opponent’s King by placing it in “checkmate.” When one player’s King is in check (under attack) and there is no legal way for it to escape on the next move, that’s checkmate. Emphatically, it is called checkmate and signifies the end of the game; a new power bloc has emerged. Prejudice apart and without mincing words, the phenomenon of politics of “a rat race” in the Nigeria polity, is borne out of selfishness, greed for power, opportunism, sycophancy, kleptocracy, corruption and despotism (naked power). Truth be told, this is a compendium of what we are witnessing in today’s Nigeria ahead of the 2027 general election. Historically, our experience of a politics of “a rat race” since our independence on October 1, 1960 is limitless in deadlocks that have forestalled a trajectory for a true nation building. The military incursion into our democracy led by General Mohammadu Buhari (rtd) in 1983 to almost the end of twentieth century in 1999 continues to plunge the country into a myriad of socio-political economic problems of “a rat race politics” that seems not to have a dead-end. The reality of this rat race’s anomaly is that, a country whose foundation is not built on fairness, equity and justice, cannot stand the test of time. The issue of north/south dichotomy, vis-a-vis; the northern hegemony will continue to underscore the bane of our so-called unity in diversity. Understandably, today in Nigeria, power has changed hands and to the political elites in the north. It is no longer Northern hegemony. To them, it is unsavory southern hegemony and the new political slogan of some elites in the north may be that, power must change hands by fire by force, back to the north. It is noteworthy to say that, it is only two years of the miserable economic policies of a southern President; Bola Ahmed Tinubu and some elites in the north seem ready to burn down the roof of the house to return a northerner back to the centre of power in Aso Rock Villa.