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ABSTRACT

Man is naturally a social animal and consequent upon this fact he lives in community and 
is thus guided by ethical principles that direct his conduct towards living a better life. 
Since he lives in a society there comes the obvious need of electing leaders that will be 
piloting the affairs of the community so as not to relapse into anarchy. Such election being 
a human exercise has equally to be guided by moral principles which will ensure that 
leaders with impeccable character and moral probity are voted in mindless of political 
loyalty and affiliation. Therefore, the welfare of the State has to be the guiding force. Only 
in this way can government by the worst (kakistocracy) be thrown overboard. This 
research aims establishing the necessity of graduating to meta-politics that places high 
premium on seeking for candidates with the political correctness that benefits everyone 
regardless of political, religious, ethnic affiliation. The researcher will employ 
descriptive methodology to expose the necessity of injecting ethical principles in the 
political process. Through the analytic approach the research will explore into the moral 
recklessness involved in political process. Based on that, metapolitics will be 
recommended as a way forward because it transcends the ordinariness of political 
engagement. In the end, the researcher will emphasize on the importance of seeing 
beyond mere political loyalty and thus repositioning it on the foundation of rationality 
rather than self-interest.
 
Keywords: Ethics, Political loyalty, Kakistocracy, Machiavellian tactics, Metapolitics 

Introduction
Politics in Nigeria has experienced and continues to experience a chequered history. Time 
and time again it has assumed different dimensions: the good, the bad and the ugly. But all 
the same, man cannot not be a political animal. It is in his nature. By the mere fact of living 
in a society, there comes the natural tendency of have a divide between the leaders and the 
led, the rulers and the ruled. This stratification into classes gradually begins to generate 
tension especially when instead of the electing the men of character and conscience into 
leadership positions, the worst and gang of power-mongers bulldoze their way into the 
assumption of power. Kukah (2014) making a classical presentation of Nigeria 
educational system ended up reflecting the woeful condition of the Nigeria political class 
thus: “The smartest students pass with first class and get admissions to medical and 
engineering schools. The second-class students get MBAs and LLBs to manage the first-
class students. The third-class students enter politics and rule both the first and second-

ETHICAL REPOSITIONING OF LOYALTY IN NIGERIAN POLITICS: 
TOWARDS ELIMINATION OF KAKISTOCRACY

EVARISTUS IFEANACHO, PH.D
DEPARTMENT OF RELIGION AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

NNAMDI AZIKIWE UNIVERSITY, AWKA

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class students. The failures enter the underworld of crime and control the politicians and 
the businesses. And best of all those who didn't attend school become prophets and 
everyone follow them.” The resultant effect could be wanton oppression, flagrant 
nepotism, shameless godfatherism and scandalous ethnic posture. When one class begins 
to lord it over others or when the law that is supposed to guide and guard them towards 
harmonious co-existence is flaunted with impunity, such impunity will go a long way to 
birth other attendant evils. 
However, in the bid to realize their evil machinations, religion and ethnic divide are roped 
in as instruments of divide and rule. Unfortunately, even in this ugly turn of events, there 
is still a blindfolded political loyalty that pretends not to read the handwriting on the wall 
on account of the fact that their palms are regularly greased and their freedom trampled 
upon. It needs brazen courage in such a situation to champion a metapolitics that looks for 
goodness founded on salus populi suprema lex esto (The welfare of the people is the 
highest law) and political uprightness devoid of any political affiliation, religious bias, 
and tribal sentiment. It is pertinent therefore to explore into how best political correctness 
could be given an upper place in political loyalty? Then, we investigate into the necessity 
of passing every political process through the crucible of ethical principles.

Political loyalty
Loyalty is an existential given in every human community; either it is experienced 
directly or indirectly. Whichever way it is, the bottom-line is that it has to be strongly 
founded on proper evaluation via critical reasoning. Therefore, loyalty be it political or 
otherwise has to be arrived at not through mere sheepish following of the crowd or 
through susceptibility to financial bait but through a strictly reasoned decision; otherwise 
the tendency will be to relapse into slavery. According to Ejenebo (2023), 
loyalty has been defined as a strong feeling of support or allegiance. In other words, to be 
loyal to a person is to give support to that person. The key word here is support. If you 
support a person just because you don't want to disagree with him, then you are his slave 
not a loyal person. Support of a person within the context of loyalty must be situated in the 
overall good of the person being supported. When loyalty becomes blind support, then 
one has crossed over to the realm of slavery. 
Loyalty has primarily to be directed to one's own country, state and individual. Since the 
nation has priority because of its macrocosmic dimension, the rest are subsumed into it. 
When the nation progresses based on the loyalty accorded it, surely the State and the 
individual will benefit from it. Whereas when loyalty to the individual be he politician or 
any other public figure, supplants that of the nation, the resultant effect is that the nation is 
abandoned to its fate. In the words of the American writer Mark Twain, “loyalty to the 
country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.” 
Besides loyalty to the country, most often loyalty to the godfather, the political aspirant, 
the governor, or whomsoever, is always based on some conditions that will profit the 
godfather and make the loyalist subservient to him. However, loyalty worthy of the name 
in the political context has to be founded on the political leader's shared vision of the State 
and how the State is to be moved forward in the progressive track. Surely, leaders who 
express such vision most often secure the greatest loyalty from their followers. This is 
based on the fact that Oke (2022) enthused that, “their personal interests became 

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enmeshed with a shared vision so much that they could still be remembered and still 
lionized long after their demise. Any mention of their names in any gathering still invokes 
raw emotion and empathy. For those leaders, the political office was not sacrosanct. Their 
power was derived from their political conviction and the sheer number and enthusiasm 
of their followers.” 
Therefore, there is need for loyalty to be tested and trusted and not to be exhibited without 
a solid foundation. Unfortunately, in the words of Olaoye (2022): 

No politician ever wants his loyalty tested. Although they all profess loyalty to the people, 
we know that their loyalty is mostly to themselves and their interests. Thus, if we ever 
want to get the best out of our leaders, the best invocation is the one that calls for their 
loyalty to be tested…. Loyalty is a two-way thing. The followers are loyal to a leader who 
is loyal to them. But the overriding principle is that both the leader and the led are loyal to 
a set of binding principles.
According to Oke (2022a), loyalty becomes strained when a group, political association 
or party revolves around a particular (charismatic) personality with no shared vision or 
ideology other than the intention to either remain in or wrest power from an incumbent. 
Such loyalty is ephemeral because it is most often founded on material support.  In the 
actual fact, a party needs to have a set of distinctive beliefs and principles to serve as a 
propaganda tool for its members. Without core beliefs, betrayal becomes ingrained in the 
party hierarchy. This will always be the rule rather than the exception. Going forward, 
therefore, Nigerian political leaders must learn one crucial lesson: loyalty is earned, not 
bought. When it is earned it perdures. But when it is bought it easily wanes.  It is easier to 
betray a man than it is to betray his cause. For it to last it must be founded on formidable 
ethical principles.

Morality: inner meaning
Morality etymologically is derived from both Greek and Latin. For the former, it is 
“ethos” and the latter “mores;” both meaning 'custom.' Custom literally connotes peoples 
way of life – mannerism and dressing, beliefs and so on. If morality then is restricted to 
custom, it means confining morality to the domain of relativism, because as many as there 
are societies, almost so many are there customs. That being the case, we have to release 
morality from the shackles of custom by giving it an all-inclusive stance. That will make 
moral principles the same everywhere.
Morality per se is abstract and in potency; therefore it needs a rational being to actualize it. 
We can talk of rational being without morality, but we cannot talk of morality without a 
rational being. It will then be an ethical impossibility to subtract rational beings from the 
realm of morality. Both have to unite for a fruitful production.
Morality deals with how human acts relate to their norm. Without mincing words Glenn 
(2022) states that, “it is that quality of a human act whereby it measures up to what it 
should be as a step towards the objective last end of human act, or fails so to measure up.” 
Measuring up to what should be” and “failing to measure up” signify rightness and 
wrongness of an action respectively. It is the ability to decipher the goodness and badness 
of an act. Glenn (2022:10) put it clearly when he said that, “morality is that quality of 
human act which leads us to call some actions good and some evil”.
As a matter of fact, morality is intrinsically embedded in the act itself. It is not determined 

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by external denomination. Moral justifiability of a human act is an unavoidable quality of 
an act that satisfies the three determinants of moral act.
For a human act to be moral, three fundamentals have to be considered. They are: “The act 
itself or what a man does, the motive, or why he does it; the circumstances, or how, where, 
when etc. he does it.” (Fagothey 2000:145)
A human act that fails any of these conditions can be called any other thing apart from a 
moral act. That it is why it is clearly stipulated that only those who are mentally-balanced 
are guided by morality. The mentally deranged fellows are exceptions to this rule since 
they act unconsciously.
Though moral action involves individual choice, it should not be precipitated to the 
suitability of individual liking. Individual convenience should not blind us or force us to 
relegate morality to the background. Morality should not be tainted with subjectivism, for 
if subjectivism is universalized, it boils down to beckoning Hobbesian state of nature to 
take the stage. There will no more be any moral justifiability or unjustifiability of human 
act. Therefore, it will entail individuating morality which will never augur well with 
human race. Advisedly, Scruton (1982) quoting Kant writes “every ration being must so 
act as if he were by his maxims in every case a legislating member of the universal 
kingdom of ends” (p.71).

Morality then is unconditional, all-binding, obligatory and inspired by reason. It is not 
two-pronged, but straightforward. Either you choose it or you lose it. It is the autonomy of 
the will which is imperative; as opposed to heteronomy of the will which is conditional.
Moreover, Aristotle consolidated morality by making happiness the summum bonum 
(highest good) of human conduct. In fact, Aristotle (2012) made it abundantly clear that, 
“the only ultimate moral rule is one enjoining us to maximize the sum of happiness.” 
Happiness is different from pleasure. It is not the immediate aim of every action but only 
an ultimate aim. This foreshadows the teleological nature of his moral theory.
In sum, although there are many notions of morality, it is conspicuously out-of-place to 
cling to ethical subjectivism. This is because it makes morality less a general principle. If 
do-as-you-feel becomes the order of the day, great will be the disorder in the world. In 
fact, morality is not tribalistic, neither is it guided by favoritism; indeed it is no 'respecter' 
of person. Rather, it judges essentially the rightness and wrongness of all actions that are 
truly human like political actions.

Political power vis-à-vis morality
Power taken generally touches many aspects of life. For Parson (1970) it is understood as 
the general capacity of a social system “to get things done in the interest of collective 
goals” (p.181).  It has more to do with “ability, capacity, virtue, potency, faculty, process 
of change of becoming operative.” (Encyclopedia Britannica, p.697) In biology for 
instance we talk of power of hearing, in Physics, the power of accommodation, in 
economics we hear of purchasing power, in International politics; we talk of super-power, 
and so on. 
However, when we talk of power in the political context it “would in the words of Arendt 
(1970) “mean the consent of the governed that is mobilized for collective goals, that is, 
their readiness to support the political leadership” (p.4-5). “Man's influence over man as 

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manifested in government or the state” (Encyclopedia Britannica, p.85). Arendt (1970) 
opines that “power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. 
Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in 
existence only so long as the group keeps together. When we say of somebody that he is 
“in power” we actually refer to his being empowered by a certain number of people to act 
in their behalf” (p.44).
 It was Albert Camus who unreservedly said that “we cannot do without dominating 
others or being served.” Even the man of the bottom rung still has his wife or child. If he is 
a bachelor, controls his dog.  So everyone is a ruler in his own small kingdom and 
accountable for it to whomever it may be. The king is a ruler over his subjects, a husband 
in his family, the woman also has her own power in the family, even the servant is not left 
out, he rules over the meager properties entrusted to his care. Each is questionable for the 
things or people within his area of jurisdiction; such is the diversity of power.
Power portrays itself as the proverbial hydra, spreading its tentacle to every nook and 
corner within the reach of its piercing tentacles. Even the houseboy politicizes over the 
properties he is placed in-charge of; which one is to come more closely to his umbrella of 
protection. The one that appeals to him enjoys his favor more.
We at times cast blames on the rulers of the state for manipulating the gullible masses to 
achieve their own designs. But when we are placed at the helm of affairs, we observe that 
we are not innocent of the same mischief we condemned. Ours may be even more drastic.
Be that as it may, a good government has to be guided by the common salve- “salus populi 
suprema lex esto” (the welfare of the people is the highest law). So, political leadership 
ipso facto has to be for the good of the entire citizenry and not for the benefit of the 
privileged few at the expense of the majority. Aristotle (2021) succinctly said that, “in the 
state, the good aimed at is just; and that means what is for the benefit of the whole 
community” (p.207). 
We seem to have given a wait-a-bit wave to morality. This is because all we have so far 
said concerning politics have to be narrowed down to morality so as to sift the good 
qualities from the bad ones. Syllogistically put: all human acts are governed by morality; 
politics is a human act, therefore politics is governed by morality. The validity of this 
syllogism is highly incontestable and incontrovertible. Politics has to undergo the 
scourging scrutiny of morality before it is published as good or bad. Morality is the 
parameter by which the goodness or badness of an action is measured. Politics manifests 
itself through the human agents. Remove human agents, politics vanishes. Since human 
agents are the instruments of politics, the presence of morality becomes an inevitable 
condition. To divorce morality from politics is to jettison politics from the realm of being 
a human act which is totally impossible because the major players in politics are human 
beings and not animals. Therefore, to divest morality from politics will be tantamount to 
denying politics the aroma with which it is spiced which is the use of reason. When that is 
done, the government by the worst is willy-nilly instituted.

Kakistocracy: inner meaning
Kakistocracy is derived from kakistos (worst) which is the superlative of the adjective 
kakos meaning bad and the comparative is kakiov; and kratia refers to power. 

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Kakistocracy is “government by the worst element of a society,” was coined in 1829 by 
Thomas Love Peacock. Kakistocracy (literally, government by the worst) proliferates in 
weak and disorganized political systems that repel the talented and attract the 
incompetent and most soiled. It is really the case of the incompetent in power. Obviously, 
sometimes they come together producing a government that is both criminal and useless. 
When the two coincide, the kleptocracy and the kakistocracy feedback on each other.
In fact, kakistocracy though fell into disuse formerly has of recent begun to assume the 
centre stage in some countries like Nigeria where in the words of Ornestein (2017) the 
most inept and cringeworthy kind of government is in existence. Its trademark is raw 
ineptitude, corruption, disruptive governance garnished with a harvest of impunity and 
total disregard for legitimacy.

Politics devoid of morality
Niccolò Machiavelli reflecting the political realism of his time in his small book The 
Prince captured how acquisition and retention of power was totally divested of morality. 
He presented politics as a battle, a do-or-die game. What is important is victory regardless 
of any type of evil that could punctuate the means. What is needed is the grabbing of 
power. Consequently, politics turned into a game of permanent interest and not permanent 
friends. In that craze for political power, morality is totally thrown overboard. Legitimacy 
and ethical principles are sacrificed at the altar of political expediency. They do not bother 
on what will be the long term effect.     
                                                              
We do not need proficiency in contemporary politics to know that many countries 
remarkably Nigeria have turned corruption into a routine of symbiotic “chop-i-chop” 
philosophy. It is carried out with impunity. In fact, Nigerian politicians seem sunk deep in 
Machiavellian tactics consequently stripped politics of any moral content. It is a tactics 
that exalts lie at the expense of the truth. As Machiavellli (1981) has it, “one must know 
how to colour one's actions and to be a great liar and deceiver. Men are so simple, and so 
much creatures of circumstance, that the deceiver will always find someone ready to be 
deceived. For him, a prudent ruler cannot and must not honour his word when it places 
him at a disadvantage…and no ruler ever lacked good excuses to colour his bad faith” 
(Machiavelli 1980:100). In fact, the ruler in the words of Machiavelli (1981a) “should not 
deviate from what is good, if that is possible, but he should know how to do evil, if that is 
necessary” (p.101). Such advice is indicative of uprooting morality from political 
process. 

From the happenings in the 2023 presidential and gubernatorial elections in Nigeria, one 
could evidently notice a barefaced application of Machiavellian tactics. Among them 
were: exploitation of religious and ethnic divide, disenfranchisement, calumny, political 
thuggery and arson, vote selling and vote buying, manipulation of election result 
(rigging)  to mention but a few. All these were geared towards the final glorification of 
power. Believe it or not, all these were adopted to surmount all the stumbling blocks in the 
wheel of progress. These according to Okoye (1987) are indicative of the fact that, 
“politics has become a lawless game, in which anything that beats the enemy is 
sanctioned, in which rules and promises change with ghastly realities of the power 

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struggle, and the successful is often a combination of confidence-man and show man, a 
mastermind of putsch and roguish pleasantry…” (preface)

Exploitation of religious and ethnic divide/peaceful protest
Nigeria is not only characterized by ethnic diversity but also religious diversity. The two 
major religions are Christianity and Islam. Normally adherents of each religion are driven 
by the credo of their religion. Religion normally upholds moral values and preaches their 
observance in order to ensure good living. According to Mbiti, “it is religion which tells 
what is right and what is wrong… religion enriches people's morale for the welfare of the 
individual and society at large” (p. 177). Man is a religious animal and Nigerians 
particularly are religious people. Based on that, religion plays a pivotal role in the training 
and formation of minds. Adeleye (1988) put it rightly thus:
Religion breeds an ideal heart in man to be conscious of the need to have a clean heart. By 
this, he will grow to have a philanthropic or patriotic thought before venturing to lead or 
represent his people in government of the state. In another words, religion will prepare the 
mind of man to be a good politician who will constantly fall back upon his religion to 
guide him. The teaching or threats of religion are expected to guide him to be able to lead 
his people aright as a politician with fear of God in him. He will never consider himself 
first, rather he knows that he is the servant of the electorates. (p. 165)
Political aspirants have now and again exploited religion to their own advantage. In fact, 
Magbadelo (2003) maintains that, “religion, as volatile as it is, remains a veritable 
instrument for political manipulation in Nigeria. Politicians across the ethnic divide have 
found religion more useful in mobilizing support for their candidacies or parties than 
ethnicity. This is so because it is the belief of the religious bigots that the two religions cut 
across ethnic identities.” (p.64-65)

Disenfranchisement
Exercise of franchise is a constitutional demand that ought not be denied to any person 
that has attained the required age. In that regard Ochei (2022) opines that every citizen of 
Nigeria who has attained eighteen years old of age has the right to vote and be voted for 
during elections. This is a political right guaranteed by the Constitution. When people are 
debarred whether advertently or inadvertently from exercising this right, it is called 
disenfranchisement. Besides, this takes various forms. At times the registration of voters 
becomes an uphill task for the electorate that many get disenchanted and frustrated 
because of unwarranted bottlenecks in the process. Sequel to that, zeal regarding voting 
gradually begins to wane in the face of an enormous volume of uncollected voter's cards, 
the large number of deregistered voters and several unsuccessful efforts by most newly 
registered voters to collect their Permanent Voter's Cards (PVCs). These obvious cases 
not only instill the fear of disenfranchisement but also make it very obvious and 
worrisome.

In another context, the arrival of voting materials is consciously delayed to an 
asphyxiating point so that those that are without elastic patience would back out. This 
strategy is used by one party to dispossess another of votes. When that is done, their 
chances of emerging victorious become slim in that particular polling unit. More so, there 

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could also be broad daylight snatching of ballot boxes from polling units by political 
hoodlums to the utter consternation of the helpless voters. In these ways people are denied 
of exercising their civic responsibility. 
Moreover, the commencement of the election may be delayed so as to accommodate only 
few voters, leaving many. 

Campaign of calumny
This is the public assassination of one's personality. It is the dragging of one's name or 
reputation to the mud of public shame. It is slandering and damaging of one's character. 
Take it or leave it, calumny has continued to play a significant role in elections in Nigeria. 
The politicians openly hurl abuses on each other. It is always a clear campaign of calumny 
geared towards de-marketing opposition candidates in order to reduce their electoral 
value to one's advantage. Bemoaning the situation of Nigerian election, Aji (2023) 
lamented that the political campaigns are usually but unfortunately “saturated with all 
kinds of manipulations, fake and unsubstantiated media narratives, and character 
assassinations to project one candidate as a better choice over the other. Unfortunately, 
this trend in our political history has shifted our campaigns from an issue-based process to 
some jamboree gatherings intended to excite supporters and further impoverish the 
masses through sharing of peanuts to buy over voters.” In this way, they fought vigorously 
to win by hook or by crook. Consequently, it involves a damaging confrontational posture 
of blackmailing. In fact, the attempt is to reduce one's to nothingness. This method is used 
mostly by those who cannot capture discipline through their speeches. As a last resort they 
take to political name-calling and pouring out uncomplimentary and poisonous 
innuendos on their opponents. This is politically inappropriate and depicts a lack of 
political hygiene in speech.

Vote selling and vote buying
It is pertinent to consider vote selling and vote buying. Chaudhry (2023) raised the 
concern that “a culture of vote-buying, poll-rigging and manipulation has seeped into our 
electoral process and threatens to destroy the very foundations of our democratic 
traditions and undermine the integrity of our elections” (p.247). Vote buying and selling is 
a phenomenon that has permeated the process of democratic election. According to Agbi 
and Saka-Olokungboye (2019), it is the process
 whereby political parties, their candidates or agents seek to buy the vote of an electorate 
in an upcoming election. Vote buying and selling can take various forms such as a 
monetary exchange, as well as an exchange for necessary goods and services. This 
practice is often used to incentivize or persuade voters to turn out on elections and vote in 
a particular way” (p.146). 

It is the commercialization of the voting process implicitly guided by the principle of do ut 
des (I give that you may give). Evidently, money politics has become the order of the day. 
The display of affluence at election most often determines to which side victory tilts. It is 
no more the will of the people that objectively determines victory rather the will is swayed 
by money. There is however no gainsaying the fact that money is important with regard to 
putting the logistics in place, but when the election is totally beclouded by the spray of 

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money, the danger looms. As Obasanjo (2005) enthused, with so much resources being 
deployed to capture elective officers, it is not difficult to see the correlation between 
politics and the potential for high level corruption. The greatest losers are the ordinary 
people, those voters whose faith and investment in the system are hijacked and subverted 
because money, not their will, is made the determining factor in elections. Can we not 
move from politics of money and materialism to politics of ideas, issues and 
development. 

In the current quagmire, it is evident that after so much money has been spent to secure 
victory, corruption will definitely reign supreme. More so, since there is lack of 
legitimacy, it will be very hard for such politician to secure the trust of the people. Agbi 
and Saka-Olokungboye (2019a) maintain and rightly so, that,
effective and efficient governance are based on the tenets and practice of democracy. A 
legitimate government must be the one that enjoys the trust and support of the majority of 
the people. Legitimacy engenders trust and support of the people to government policies 
and reform agenda. Sadly, money politics, vote buying and selling erode this very 
important attribute of democratic government. This is because, the people believe that 
those who rule them must do so on the basis of popular consent, freely expressed as the 
tonic required to make the people make material sacrifice that reform agenda, social, 
political or economic inevitably demand. The fact is that, without legitimacy, there is no 
trust, and without trust there can be no genuine political support (p.149).
In sum, vote buying and selling obstructs the democratic process by meddling with the 
rights of citizens concerning the making of free decision in their choice of who is to 
represent them and their interest. Such situation goes to install political charlatans as 
leaders. Be that as it may, we must also continue not only to interrogate but also churn out 
a veritable means of extirpating the undue use of money and the weaponization of poverty 
by moneybag politicians. 

Political thuggery 
Political thuggery in the words of Rasak, B. & Garuba, R.O. (2017), is an “act of political 
violence or behaviour by ruffians hired or instigated by politicians to intimidate their 
opponents. It is the intentional use of physical force threatened against another person or a 
group or community that either results in injury, death, psychological harm or deprivation 
within a political circle” (p.4). According to Mandyen (2017), it is usually geared towards 
influencing an electoral process with objective of gaining an unfair political advantage 
over another and geared towards winning political power by subverting the ends of the 
electoral and democratic process through intimidation and disempowerment of political 
opponents. This illegal interference with the electoral process no doubt is electoral fraud, 
criminal and has severe consequences on democratic stability in general and national 
security in particular. These political desperadoes armed to kill, kidnap, intimidate, 
victimize, indulge in arson and other forms of evil eventually become threats in the 
society. In the post-election situation, most of them turn into armed robbers, assassins etc. 
Corroborating, Umar (2018) avers that political thuggery generates worsening insecurity 
during and after elections;  most  violent  incident  in  Nigerian  politics  was  perpetrated 
by thugs especially  during  elections.  Post-election  violence,  ethnoreligious crises,  
and  most  communal  conflicts  have  their  genesis  from  political thuggery which  

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degenerated into a large form of violence in many cities of Nigerian states. This situation 
led to the poor political culture and more often than not affects democratic sustainability 
in Nigerian politics. (p.85)

Conclusion 
When the foundation of Nigerian politics is solidly laid on proper use of reason, money 
politics will gradually fizzle out and moral principles will serve as the attitudinal compass 
in our political engagements. However, it cannot be effectively done unless there is 
freedom of choice which is a necessary ingredient of every human act. It has to proceed 
from the deliberate freewill of man. In the same vein, a human act is constitutive of three 
essential elements namely, knowledge, freedom and voluntariness. To blot out any of 
these components makes the act less a human act. Politics is a human act, and such has to 
pass through the crucible of moral determinants. 

Political leaders kill, rig, maim, mudsling, calumniate and upset each other's apple-cart, 
with the intention of gaining and maintaining themselves in power. By so doing, politics is 
radically emptied of its moral ingredients and kakistocracy sneaks into the realm of 
governance with a total lack of legitimacy. Leadership in the real sense of the word should 
be the embodiment of the nation's dream, serve as a shining, a surrogate God, for the 
citizenry to follow the part of progress. Arrogance, confrontation, power intoxication and 
aversion to constructive criticisms are not the marks of good leadership. The leaders 
themselves should be transparent with honesty, justice and other virtues. Only in this way 
can government by the worst be nipped from the bud.

Recommendation
Loyalty remains vital in the life of man as a political animal. The researcher however 
recommends that political loyalty has to be guided by proper vision and use of reason. 
According to Attah (2023), our people are now more enlightened to know that one needs 
to go beyond party affiliation, religious affiliation, ethnic inclination to seek the good; and 
vote for that goodness or good person in whichever tribe, party, or religion that he/she is 
found. Goodness is an abstract moral principle that is made concretely manifest in human 
action. Such ethical principles must be sought for in any candidate that presents 
himself/herself for any elective post.

People need to know whom they want in any particular office under contest and bear in 
mind that hiding under a party for the pursuit of selfish interest does not do any good. 
Clueless attachment to party to the detriment of good governance is not but too myopic a 
political inclination.

We must graduate to the level of metapolitics because political process should no longer 
be based on mere political affiliation or personality but rather on who knows his onions 
and ready to prove his mettle. It entails mental transformation and re-orientation. 
Finally, borrowing the advice of Aji (2023a) political actors must recognize that great 
democracies thrive on transparency and accountability of institutions; hence, politicians 
must know that they have moral and legal obligations to seek the welfare of the people and 
maintain a durable template of governance.

94

                                            Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol 3 Issue 1, 2023
ISSN: 2786-9792

June 



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