The story of Nigerian politics is not only that of failure to raise the level of the governance and the moral architecture of the people. But they also do it with brazen indifference. And we saw that in the just-concluded primaries of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and how the partisans of the party cried over what has been added into the language of our society: monetisation. Not that it is new. But that the political society has managed to raise the bar of infamy.

Its effect has spread to the larger society. Manufacturers have complained that the new cycle of politicking is damaging the value of the Naira because the politicians are mopping up foreign currencies. The Nigerian currency has never had a good time in the past five decades. We have witnessed its descent, sometimes slowly, sometimes precipitously. But since its decline began, which was first announced in the 1980’s as a fall from parity with the dollar to Naira to the American currency, it has never known a real pirouette. What politicians are doing in this season is to preside over an unprecedented collapse. In the parallel market, otherwise known as black market, it now converts for at least N610 to a dollar.

They have gone to the banks and collected all that they could muster. They had always left there when there is none left, and collected from the bureau de change or BDCs. When neither works, they go to the black market. In any direction, the currency is taking a beating. But it is the Nigerian fortune that is taking a beating.

“Most BDC operators have been under intense pressure from some of the political aspirants who have been using their fronts to buy up forex from every channel possible, including the black market,” commented an operator who spoke to this newspaper.

There were problems with the disparity between the official exchange rate and the parallel market, and some unscrupulous persons have been buying from the official quarters and selling to the parallel and, by that, they have created a parallel economy.

The run-up to the PDP primaries in the centre and the other primaries of the major parties, including the All Progressives Congress (APC), at the governorship and legislative levels, were not innocent of this sordid trend. To snap up national offices, the governorship aspirants flew from state to state met party chieftains and brokered with delegates. Brokering was not about selling any agenda, or about the charm of ideas. It was more of the seduction of the pocket. The delegates fell like whores, and they celebrated their new status as the tainted brides of democracy.

It is a paradox that politicians are amassing in political parties as platforms to sell their visions to Nigerians. One of the visions is to soften the blow of the harsh times. Yet what the fall of the Naira portends is not flattering to dinner tables. It is sad because we have gone through this story before. In the last political cycle, we witnessed the fall of the Naira, and when the campaigns heated up, the opposition and the ruling parties promised to save the currency. The only thing they saved was their private prosperity. The average Nigerian continued to suffer the fall of their standards of living. The costs of major food items have jumped steeply, including rice, tomatoes, yams, pepper, cooking oil, et al. Indeed, the price of bread is not only the consumers’ nightmare, it has become the baker’s worry. The ingredients are now too scarce for the baker to keep down the price.

The politician buys up forex to win elections in an act of corruption that ultimately damages the common citizen.

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