Recently, Ethiopia sworn in for the first time, a female President. Sahle-Work Zewde replaces Mulatu Teshome Wirtu, who tendered his resignation to parliament earlier on Wednesday. Wirtu had been president since 2013. This again brings to the fore the argument that political power must change hands, especially in Africa. Politics is a game of power. It involves every activities that is associated with the governance of a country or area. It can also be viewed as the process of making decisions that apply to members of a group. It refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance, organized control over a human community, particularly a state.

There is an enormous responsibility that this power confers on those who hold it per time. They can either use it to better the lots of their people or use it to better their own personal lot. Using political power to better ones lot is the case in most African countries. Here in Africa, you have political office holders living large and their people being impoverished. The case is even more pathetic in Nigeria. An averageNigerian politicians can spend billions seeking political power and relevance at the detriment of having a concrete program on how to develop/move the nation and the people forward.

Take for example, the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria. The administration came on board in 2015 with loads of hopes and assurances;almost fouryearsinto the administration, things have gone bad in the country with an end to some of these challenges not in sight yet. What you have is a clear case of politicians who lacks vision, and political parties that have no concrete ideology. Nations develop on the shoulders of leaders who can see farther into the future. Many African leaders, especially Nigeria travels to Europe and America, they love what they see in those countries, but they fail to replicate those changes in their own nation.

Political practice in Africa is not about development, it is not about infrastructure, it is about politicians laying hold on political power, become a sit-tight leader even after so many decades of being in power, refusing to relinquish power to an opposition after an electioneering defeat, and then using politics to amass enough wealth that can last their entire generation, even to those yet unborn. President Paul Biya of Cameroon just got re-elected, making it his seventh consecutive term in office. He has been in power since 1982, some 35 years ago now.

Most Nigerian politicians, like their counterparts in other African countries, believe so much in wieldingpoliticalpower at the detriment of any other thing. They can spend billions of naira acquiring it; and even go to the point of exterminating their opponents at other times to possess suchpolitical power.Their intent is to use it for selfish reasons, and nothing more! For progress to be made in Nigeria, and in the rest of Africa; there is need to change the power structure, there is need to rescue power from the hands of those who currently hold them and place it in the hands of progressive minds.

The present generation of leaders wielding political power in Nigeria had been there since the inception of this nation. No wonder Nigeria has not made considerable progress as it ought to. When you take a look at nations that were birthed almost at the same time Nigeria was birthed, or shortly after it; Singapore, for instance, is a great example that readily comes to mind. Today, Nigeria and Singapore cannot stand side by side when it comes to level of progress that both has made since their creation. The difference in these two nations is just their leaders, and the judicious use of political power by those who held them in Singapore.

Achange in power, would therefore mean, an overall system of influence and relationships between any individual and every other individual within any selected group of people. A description of a power structure would capture the way in whichpowerorauthorityis distributed between people within groups such as a government, nation, institution, organization, or a society. In the 21st century, it would mean allowing more women to be involved and participate in the affairs of their nation building, and more youths taking over power from the older generations of politicians still recycling themselves within the corridors of power.

Thank you.

Source: [Fridayposts]