Waziri Ibrahim’s “Politics Without Bitterness” and the remaking of the Nigerian elite (1), by Usman Sarki

“The price of greatness is responsibility”— Winston Churchill

The late Alhaji (Uncle) Waziri Ibrahim, leader and presidential candidate of the Great Nigeria People’s Party, GNPP, once campaigned around the memorable theme “Politics Without Bitterness.” The slogan captured the imagination of Nigerians across generational and regional divides. It evoked the promise of a politics anchored in decency, civility, restraint, and service rather than hostility, recrimination, and vendetta. It was more than a campaign refrain; it was a moral appeal and a political philosophy as well as an invitation to reimagine governance as stewardship rather than combat.

The late Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim was not merely a politician of his time; he represented a distinctive strain in Nigeria’s political evolution during the Second Republic. As leader of the GNPP, he stood apart in a political environment already marked by intense competition, regional alignments and ideological fragmentation. His call for “politics without bitterness” was neither naïve nor incidental. It was rooted in a deliberate effort to moderate the excesses of political rivalry and to promote a culture of engagement that preserved both dignity and national cohesion.

Waziri Ibrahim belonged to that generation of leaders who, though operating within the constraints of Nigeria’s complex federal structure, still sought to build bridges across divides. His politics was not devoid of ambition as no politics ever is, but it was tempered by decorum and restraint and an appreciation of the delicate balance required to hold a diverse country together. This disposition was not merely rhetorical; it found expression in his conduct. During a campaign visit to Nguru in present-day Yobe State in April 1983, Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim was scheduled to address a mammoth gathering of supporters.

On the very day of the rally, a message reached him announcing the death of the leader of the People’s Redemption Party, PRP, Mallam Aminu Kano. Without hesitation, a brief consultation was held, and the decision was taken there and then to cancel the rally. Waziri Ibrahim insisted that such a moment of national loss transcended political competition and demanded a demonstration of respect and solidarity. From Nguru, he proceeded immediately to Hadejia and onward to Kano to attend the funeral of Mallam Aminu Kano. In that single act, he affirmed a principle that is now sorely lacking in our political culture, that even in contest, there must be limits; that rivalry must not extinguish humanity; and that the bonds of national community must prevail over the impulses of partisan advantage.

In a period when political competition was already acquiring sharper edges, Waziri Ibrahim attempted to demonstrate that disagreement need not degenerate into hostility, and that contestation could coexist with mutual respect. Besides being a politician, Waziri Ibrahim also a scion of a distinguished Kanuri family, deeply rooted in the Borno tradition of tolerance, respect, and collective responsibility for the well-being of society. That heritage, shaped by centuries of organised political authority and social discipline, appeared to inform his outlook on leadership as a duty owed to the community rather than a privilege to be exercised for personal or sectional gain.

His background as a successful international businessman further influenced his appreciation of organisation, negotiation, and the minimisation of friction in collective enterprise. He seemed to approach politics not merely as a contest for power, but as a form of corporate endeavour in which competing interests must be managed with prudence and aligned together in order to attain higher goals of national unity and development. What distinguished him most was his understanding that the survival of Nigeria depended not only on constitutional arrangements or institutional design, but on the conduct of its elite.

Waziri Ibrahim recognised, perhaps more clearly than many of his contemporaries, that when political actors abandon restraint and embrace extreme positions, they endanger not just their opponents, but the very system within which they operate. His message, therefore, was as much a warning as it was an aspiration, that politics, if left unchecked by norms of civility and responsibility, could easily become a force of division rather than unity. It is against this background that the contemporary condition of Nigerian politics appears not merely disappointing, but profoundly at variance with the standards once envisioned by leaders such as Waziri Ibrahim and Mallam Aminu Kano.

More than four decades later, the phrase “politics without bitterness” still resonates, but mainly as an unfulfilled aspiration. Nigerian politics today remains deeply bitter, intensely competitive, and frequently divisive. Elections are routinely framed as existential struggles, and political disagreements often descend into personal hostility. The promise of politics without bitterness has remained elusive largely because the Nigerian elite, the class that dominates governance, commands economic resources, and shapes national direction, has struggled to transcend the narrow confines of tribe, region, and religion.

Nigeria’s political journey since independence has oscillated between hope and disappointment. The rhetoric of unity, national integration, and collective progress has never been absent. Yet governance has too often devolved into a theatre of ambition and rivalry. The Nigerian elite, forged in the crucible of colonial amalgamation and educated at the intersection of indigenous tradition and Western modernity, emerged with enormous promise. They were expected to evolve into a national class capable of forging a shared vision for a diverse country. Instead, the elite gradually retreated into the very parochial enclaves they were meant to transcend.

In the immediate aftermath of independence, Nigeria’s political leadership was cast in the mould of nationalist pioneers determined to dismantle colonial domination and build a modern nation-state. Those early leaders commanded legitimacy derived from the struggle for freedom. But as decades passed, successive waves of military rulers, civilian politicians, technocrats, and business magnates reshaped both the character and purpose of elite power. Governance gradually ceased to function primarily as a vehicle for national development. Instead, it became an instrument for distributing patronage, consolidating privilege, and preserving entrenched interests.

Nowhere is this transformation more evident than in the conduct of elections. In contemporary Nigeria, politics increasingly resembles a marketplace in which access to state power determines wealth, prestige, and influence. 

Electoral contests are fought less as opportunities for service than as gateways to personal enrichment and control of public resources. The language of politics without bitterness is drowned out by defections, litigation, opportunistic alliances, and the enduring legacy of do-or-die politics.

The consequences of this shift have been severe. Corruption, weak institutions, insecurity, and economic mismanagement have become persistent features of the Nigerian state. Citizens, repeatedly disappointed by governance failures, appeal to ethnic, religious, and regional solidarities and sentiments for protection and identity. In doing so, they further weaken the national project. What emerges is a crisis of legitimacy in which the state is seen not as a collective trust but as the property of whichever faction holds power at a given moment. At the heart of this crisis lies a fundamental failure: the inability of the Nigerian elite to transcend the ethnic, regional, and tribal bases from which they emerged.

Rather than evolving into a cohesive national class, the elite has remained fragmented and defensive. Political office is often interpreted as a mandate to represent sectional interests rather than to govern for the entire nation. This failure has deep historical roots. Even during the nationalist struggle, unity was fragile and contingent. Independence was achieved through coalitions of convenience rather than the emergence of a shared national ideology. Once political power was secured, centrifugal forces reasserted themselves. Politics became sectional, and leadership was increasingly defined by origin rather than vision.

The result has been a persistent inability to forge a genuinely national elite capable of thinking beyond primordial loyalties. Political competition has been framed as a zero-sum contest among groups, where the gain of one region is perceived as the loss of another. The state itself has come to be viewed as a prize to be captured and defended on behalf of ethnic constituencies, rather than as a shared national patrimony. This mindset has entrenched mistrust and distorted democratic practice. Elite bargains are struck not to advance national development but to maintain fragile balances of sectional claims.

When these bargains collapse as they often do, political stability collapses with them. The cycle of instability, reform, relapse, and disappointment has repeated itself across decades. The deeper tragedy, however, is moral rather than institutional. Those who should have been the architects of national integration have instead become custodians of division. The task of nation-building remains unfinished, postponed repeatedly by an elite that is unable or unwilling to imagine itself as fully Nigerian before being anything else. Nigeria’s story need not end this way. The country’s diversity, often portrayed as a burden, could yet become a source of strength. But that transformation will require a new kind of leadership capable of rising above inherited divisions and embracing the responsibilities of national stewardship. This transformation will require man of the disposition of the late Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim.

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