WHAT WOULD ARISTOTLE SAY ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT OF NIGERIA TODAY?

Inda-John Elizabeth

The government according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary is defined as the organization, machinery, or agency through which a political unit exercises authority and performs functions and which is usually classified according to the distribution of power within it.

Government, in simple terms today, is simply any system that has power and functions.

Aristotle, a very common name in almost every field of human influence, was an ancient Greek philosopher whose works were vast, and influenced change in his day and even influenced our contemporary society.

His work titled “Politics”, which was written centuries ago, has a lot of templates for how the governing and government of a state must look like. Here are two:

1.      A citizen was not just a title, but a work description. Citizens of Nigeria are not like that, sadly. The ancient Greeks believed that the city was theirs, there was this air of ownership over the state that they had. So it was rare to see any Greek man who did not own a public office or had the position of a public officer. The women and children were in charge of other menial jobs. Even the slaves were not left out. The Greeks had immense love for their city and it’s not difficult to see why Aristotle believed this to be a major part of a successful government. To Aristotle, every citizen should have a specific task that they owe to the state. If Aristotle were privileged to meet Nigeria today, he would advise this as well. Instead of the citizens always looking for the next politician to blame, they would rather be blamed for doing nothing and leaving everything to the government. Patriotism comes from a deep love for the state and its citizens. A country without the love and devotion of its citizens is a nation without citizens.

2.  Education is, and should be for everybody. Aristotle holds this claim because to him, virtuous citizens were the most important part of society, and education trains citizens to be virtuous. Aristotle would be very disappointed in the Government of Nigeria, who has not paid any mind to the education of its citizens. ASUU strike is at this moment still looming. NASU strike has no hope that it will be called off anytime soon. Students are failing JAMB in numbers every year. Universities cannot admit every student that leaves secondary school (even those that pass well have to wait an extra year at home). Parents cannot afford to send their wards to good schools because they barely have enough to eat. All these affect the education of the citizens. Bad education leads to terrorism, poverty, social inequality, bad health, exploitation, and so on.

3. Government, Aristotle says, should be by those people with enough time on their hands to pursue virtue. We have established much earlier, how much Aristotle held virtue as the greatest attainment a man can have. What does virtue even mean? Aristotle defines virtue as the average or ‘mean’ between excess and deficiency. This means to do all things in moderation. This ideology will greatly contrast with what the leaders of Nigerian politics are doing today. Reports of politicians stealing so much of what they might never need are everywhere. Then we now see that Aristotle says that government should be led by those who have the time to continuously follow virtue. Leaders should follow moral excellence in all that they do.

So contrasting the works and opinions of Aristotle with the modern government of Nigeria, you would see how far apart we are from being a model society and having a model system of government. Aristotle’s works on politics have relevant ideas that the government of today must look to emulate. If we would go any long distance in our government, we should imbibe at least two of the three that have been mentioned.

Elections are just around the corner, and in less than 6 months, we would be having new leaders as a country. If you would elect anyone into office, let it be people that have workable plans around two or even all of these policies that Aristotle held on to.