KNOW YOUR POLITICAL CULTURE

By Bege Mathias
There are so many things sustaining the ugly image of the present day Nigerian political system. The arrowhead among them is the absence of effective political culture. As the political beliefs, values and objectives of a country — political culture remains a vital tool of understanding the rationales behind any country political behaviour. The tragedy however is that most Nigerians are without the knowledge and significance of the type of political culture they practice neither to seek for political re-socialization, hence the momentum vicious behaviour.

Any political system has three distinguished individuals that make-up its political culture. Viz;  apathy, negative and positive culture adherents. However, it is worthy to borne in mind that a country such as United State of America, couldn't have stand a critical analysis of being a developed and democratic model without a lion share of positive political culture adherents. In contrast, the underdeveloping countries (Nigeria inclusive) are where they are due to the  leading rate of apathy and negative political culture custodians. The knowledge of these  beliefs are sources of understanding the nature of contemporary Nigeria.

Apathy political culture adherents: This constitutes the class of those individuals who lives in the society without any input to the government, and yet they survive through the virtue of governmental allocation of values. They absolutely know nothing about the political affairs, and have no interest about it. This is most often due to the insufficient of political education. The following statement by Plato is specifically for apathy culture believers: "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." A person under this class is rank with similar status with that of a slave. Therefore negative political culture adherents contributed immensely in defining a country (such as Nigeria) as a propaganda symbol–with multitudinous population but only few are source of development.

Negative political culture adherents. These are citizens who are academically equipoised, politically educated, and are embedded with the full sense of good and evil— but instead of applying them positively, rather, to used them against their country. The iota rate of a negative political culture is an obstacle against the thrive of any country.  Adherents of this culture are easily identified through their stymieing, conscientizement and attenuation  criticisms. They have no positive interest for their country, neither wish it a glorious longevity. Thus, no matter how a leader attempt  to operationalised his primary assignment and other responsibilities, well, a negative political adherent would never prove satisfied — One will not be considered as a propagandist if they implies that; 'we have so many negative political culture adherents in Nigeria.'

Positive culture adherents (participant class). The final categories of individuals that make-up the political culture are those with positive beliefs. People under positive political culture are the bedrock of any government. Without them, no country can survive. They are recognised as members of political parties, pressure groups, and Think-tank. They elect and stand to be elected for. Their criticisms towards the government are source of development. Above all, their comon interest which is otherwise known as 'national interest' –remained their apex priority.

Where do you belong?