Asher's Blog

Politics without principle is so common in many African countries that we have almost stopped finding it strange.

A politician contests a primary election in one party, loses the ticket and moves almost immediately to another party whose supposed ideology should be different. Another person spends years describing a ruling party as corrupt and incompetent, then joins the same party once an appointment or electoral opportunity becomes available. Supporters are expected to move with the politician, adopt a new set of arguments and pretend that nothing fundamental has changed.

The movement is rarely accompanied by a serious explanation of policy, ideology or conscience. The explanation is usually power.

This is why “politics without principle,” the first of the seven social sins published by Mahatma Gandhi in Young India in 1925, remains one of the most accurate descriptions of African political life. Politics is not inherently corrupt, just as business is not inherently immoral and science is not inherently inhuman. Politics is the process through which societies organise power, resolve competing interests and make binding decisions about their future.

The danger begins when the acquisition of power becomes the only principle governing how power is pursued.

A political party should stand for something beyond winning

Every political party wants to win elections. A party that has no interest in gaining power is not functioning as a political party, because policies cannot be implemented through permanent opposition and moral commentary alone. Winning matters.

However, winning should be the means through which a party applies its principles, not the principle itself.

A serious political party should be able to explain the kind of society it wants to build, the values guiding that vision and the broad approach it will take to questions such as education, healthcare, taxation, enterprise, security, federalism, welfare, infrastructure and individual liberty. Citizens may disagree with the answers, but they should be able to identify what the party believes.

In many African democracies, parties are instead organised around personalities, regional alliances, access to state resources and the calculations required to assemble an electoral majority. Their manifestos may contain attractive promises, but those promises do not always arise from a coherent view of government. The same party can advocate market freedom in one speech, state control in another and broad subsidies elsewhere without explaining how the positions fit together or how they will be funded.

When parties do not stand for anything beyond winning, membership becomes transferable. The politician does not experience defection as an ideological contradiction because there was no ideology to contradict. The party is simply another vehicle, and if one vehicle will not carry the person to office, another one will.

Citizens eventually learn the lesson: the language of conviction is often campaign packaging, while the real contest concerns who will control the machinery of government.

Values produce principles, and principles produce policies

We should distinguish values, principles and policies because they operate at different levels.

Values describe what we consider important. A political movement may value human dignity, liberty, justice, prosperity, solidarity, national unity, personal responsibility, equality of opportunity or protection of the vulnerable. Several parties may share many of these values, although they may rank them differently or understand their implications in different ways.

Principles translate those values into durable commitments and boundaries. If a party values human dignity, it may establish a principle that no citizen should be denied equal protection because of tribe, religion, sex or political affiliation. If it values accountable government, it may refuse the misuse of security agencies against opponents, reject unexplained campaign finance and protect independent oversight even when its own members are being investigated.

Policies are the practical choices made within those principles. Two parties may both value prosperity and human dignity but disagree about the appropriate tax rate, level of public ownership, design of social welfare or role of local government. Such disagreement is healthy because complex societies rarely have only one legitimate route to a shared objective.

Principles should be stable enough to restrain a party, while policies should be adaptable enough to respond to evidence.

This distinction prevents ideology from becoming stubbornness. A principled party can change a policy when the policy fails without abandoning the value that motivated it. If an agricultural subsidy is wasteful, the party can design a more effective way to protect food security and farmer incomes. If a security strategy produces abuse without safety, the party can change the strategy while maintaining its commitment to public order.

Principle is not the refusal to learn. It is the refusal to lose your moral direction while learning.

Defection reveals what the politician believes a party is for

There may be legitimate reasons to leave a political party. A party can abandon its founding values, become captured by undemocratic leadership, engage in conduct a member cannot defend or change so fundamentally that continued membership becomes dishonest. History contains principled defections in which people surrendered position, influence or electoral advantage because conscience would not allow them to remain.

The evidence of principle is usually the cost the person is prepared to bear.

If a politician leaves only after losing a primary ticket and joins the most convenient party offering another route to the ballot, citizens are entitled to question whether the decision represents conscience or ambition. If the politician had praised the party’s values until the moment personal advancement became impossible, the timing becomes part of the evidence.

Nigeria’s Constitution attempts to address party switching by providing, in sections 68 and 109, circumstances in which federal and state legislators who leave the party that sponsored their election may lose their seats, while recognising exceptions connected to party division or merger. The legal interpretation and enforcement of these provisions have generated recurring disputes, but the underlying democratic concern is understandable: a mandate won under one party should not be treated entirely as the personal property of the officeholder. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria recognises that party affiliation forms part of the electoral bargain.

Law alone, however, cannot create ideological parties. Politicians will exploit exceptions, parties will manufacture justifications and enforcement will remain contested if the political culture considers defection normal. The deeper solution is to build parties whose membership means something, so that leaving requires a serious public explanation and joining requires genuine alignment.

Political power is among the greatest forms of power

Politics requires principle because government possesses a form of power no ordinary business, religious organisation or private citizen can match. The state can make laws, impose taxes, regulate industries, issue currency, control borders, deploy armed force, arrest people, allocate public resources and determine the institutional conditions within which everybody else operates.

A business leader may influence employees and customers, but government can change the law governing the entire sector. A religious leader may shape the beliefs of a community, but government can protect or restrict the legal freedom under which that community worships. An entrepreneur may create jobs, but public policy determines whether electricity, roads, education, finance and security make those jobs easier or harder to sustain.

Political power can therefore multiply good decisions across a nation, but it can also multiply personal weakness. If a leader is tribalistic, the civil service, appointments, budgets and law enforcement may begin to reflect that bias. If a leader is corrupt, institutions can be reorganised to protect corruption. If a leader has no principle beyond remaining in office, every public resource may eventually be evaluated according to whether it preserves power.

This is why character matters, but personal character alone is insufficient. A good person operating through a political party with no internal democracy, financial transparency or policy discipline may eventually be captured by the same system. Principled politics requires principled people and institutions designed to make principles durable.

Tribal arithmetic is not political philosophy

One of the weaknesses of politics in Nigeria and parts of Africa is the ease with which ethnicity, region and religion replace policy. Political organisers calculate which group should produce the candidate, which community must be appeased and which religious identity will balance the ticket. In a diverse society, representation matters, and a party that ignores the composition of the country may reproduce exclusion even without intending to.

Yet representation becomes destructive when identity is treated as a substitute for competence and principle. A corrupt leader does not become beneficial merely because the leader shares my language. A bad road does not become less damaging because the minister responsible comes from my region. Insecurity does not ask for a victim’s party card before destroying a family.

Identity should inform our awareness of inclusion, history and unequal access, but it should not exempt leaders from performance. Political parties should be capable of assembling diverse coalitions around a shared programme rather than temporarily joining ethnic blocs whose only common objective is access to power.

The African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance calls for constitutional rule, political pluralism, transparent elections, citizen participation and accountable institutions. These commitments, expressed in the African Union’s governance framework, provide a continental standard more serious than tribal arithmetic. The question is whether parties and governments will allow these principles to constrain them after elections have been won.

Politics with principle does not ask citizens to forget where they come from. It asks them to build a political identity large enough to include people outside it.

Faith-driven people must translate conviction into public principle

Many Africans are faith-driven and possess strong personal values. That can be a valuable source of courage, service and moral restraint, but public principle cannot mean using political power to impose one group’s theology on everybody else.

A Christian may enter politics because faith teaches the dignity of every person, responsibility towards the poor, truthfulness, justice and stewardship. A Muslim may be motivated by equally serious convictions about justice, mercy, accountability and service. A person with no religious belief may arrive at many of the same public commitments through conscience, philosophy and concern for human wellbeing.

In a plural society, these convictions should be translated into principles that protect everyone. If my faith teaches human dignity, I should defend that dignity for people who do not share my faith. If I value freedom of worship, I must support it for minorities as well as the majority. If I oppose corruption, the standard must apply when the accused person belongs to my party, tribe, church, mosque or family.

That is how faith becomes a public good rather than a tool of political exclusion.

The test is consistency. A politician has not demonstrated principle by quoting scripture during a campaign while buying votes, manipulating a primary or using public resources for personal advantage. Religious language does not convert political opportunism into moral leadership. The value must become a boundary the politician is prepared to observe when violating it would be useful.

Principles tell a party what it will not do

Most manifestos describe what a party intends to do, but principle becomes clearest in what a party refuses to do. A serious party should state boundaries that remain in force even when breaking them could produce an electoral advantage.

It might say that it will not encourage violence, buy votes, use ethnic hatred, employ public institutions against opponents, conceal material campaign funding, interfere with independent courts or reward members credibly implicated in corruption. It may commit to transparent primaries, published candidate criteria, internal appeal procedures, audited accounts and consequences for members who violate its standards.

These commitments must be specific enough to test. “We believe in good governance” is too vague because every party can claim it. A principle becomes meaningful when citizens can observe whether the party followed it under pressure.

The most revealing moment may come when misconduct helps the party. Will leaders investigate an influential member whose money funds campaigns? Will the party respect an unfavourable court decision? Will it condemn violence committed by its supporters with the same seriousness applied to violence from opponents? Will it protect an electoral institution only when the institution declares its candidate the winner?

A principle that applies only to the opposition is a weapon, not a principle.

Internal democracy is where political principle begins

A party cannot credibly promise democratic government while operating as the private estate of one person or a small group of godfathers. The conduct of primaries, selection of party officers, resolution of disputes and control of finance reveal what the organisation believes about power before it receives control of the state.

If candidates emerge through payments, intimidation or private designation, the successful candidate enters office owing a debt to the gatekeepers rather than to party members and citizens. Public corruption may begin as the repayment of private political obligations.

Principled parties therefore need transparent membership registers, credible internal elections, independent disciplinary and appeal structures, enforceable term limits for party officials, financial reporting and rules that prevent one financier from capturing the organisation. Candidate selection should examine competence, integrity, public record and alignment with the party’s programme, not merely electability or wealth.

This will not eliminate ambition, conflict or factional struggle. Politics involves competition, and any party large enough to govern will contain people with different interests. The objective is not to remove conflict but to create rules through which conflict can occur without destroying the institution.

A party that cannot govern itself by rules is unlikely to govern a country by rules.

Crossing the aisle can be an expression of principle

Politics with principle should not create permanent hostility between parties. If every proposal from an opponent must be rejected, party loyalty has replaced public service. Legislators should be able to cooperate across party lines when a bill serves a shared value, while opposing one another honestly when their principles lead to different conclusions.

This is one advantage of parties with identifiable positions: compromise becomes easier to understand. Citizens can see what each side protected, what it conceded and why the final agreement was preferable to paralysis. Without clear principles, compromise looks like private trading because nobody knows what public objective guided it.

Political maturity involves distinguishing an opponent from an enemy. An opponent may be wrong, ambitious and difficult, but still shares citizenship and may possess useful ideas. Democracy depends on people who can compete fiercely, accept legitimate outcomes, scrutinise one another and still cooperate when national interest requires it.

Western democracies provide examples of parties with recognisable ideological traditions, including different views about markets, welfare, taxation, national identity and the role of government. They also provide abundant examples of opportunism, hypocrisy and policy reversal. Africa should not copy an idealised version of Western politics. We should learn from institutional practices that make positions clearer, compromise visible and leaders more accountable, while developing principles suited to our own histories and challenges.

A principled party needs a long memory

One reason political parties become opportunistic is that they are built primarily for the next election. A durable political association should think beyond one candidate and one electoral cycle. It should develop leaders, conduct policy research, maintain institutional records, evaluate previous promises and prepare competent people to govern before power arrives.

Parties should publish manifestos whose proposals are costed and measurable. After an election, whether they win or lose, they should report what became of those commitments. A ruling party should explain progress and failure, while an opposition party should offer credible alternatives rather than wait for hardship to create electoral anger.

Young members should be trained in public finance, constitutional government, policy analysis, negotiation, ethics and the history of the country. They should learn that political work includes patient organisation, community service and the development of solutions, not merely social-media visibility or proximity to powerful people.

This is how an association of like-minded people becomes an institution. Shared values attract members, clear principles create trust, disciplined policy turns conviction into practical choices, and internal rules allow the party to survive founders who will not be there forever.

The practical foundations of politics with principle

If we want a different political culture in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and across Africa, we have to build it deliberately. A principled political movement should be able to answer at least six questions.

First, what values organise our understanding of the good society? Second, which boundaries will we not cross to acquire or retain power? Third, what is our broad philosophy of government, including the relationship between the state, citizens, communities and markets? Fourth, how will candidates and leaders be selected and held accountable? Fifth, how will the organisation be financed without becoming owned by hidden interests? Sixth, how will we measure whether our policies improved people’s lives?

The answers should be written, taught and demonstrated. New members should understand that joining means accepting obligations, not merely accessing a political network. Leaders should be removed when they violate foundational standards, especially when removal is inconvenient. Funding should be disclosed according to credible rules, and policy decisions should be supported by evidence rather than slogans.

Principled does not mean biased, tribalistic, rigid or impractical. A party must remain capable of governing a diverse population, changing failed policies and negotiating in good faith. Principle gives flexibility a direction; without it, flexibility becomes opportunism.

Power should reveal principle, not erase it

The easiest time to sound principled is when you lack the power to violate your principles. Opposition parties defend institutional independence because institutions can protect them. Politicians criticise executive power when somebody else holds it. Candidates promise transparency before they control the information citizens want to see.

The real test begins after victory.

Will the party preserve the safeguards it once demanded? Will it tolerate criticism, respect the courts, protect fair elections and investigate allies? Will public appointments reflect competence and inclusion rather than debt repayment? Will leaders remember that the state belongs to citizens who voted against them as much as to supporters who campaigned for them?

Political principle is proved when power creates the opportunity to abandon it.

Africa does not lack intelligent people, faith-driven people, experienced professionals or citizens capable of public service. What we often lack are political institutions strong enough to gather those people around a durable value system and disciplined enough to prevent personal ambition from becoming the entire programme.

We need to build those institutions. Some of us must enter politics, others must finance principled movements transparently, develop policy, monitor promises, protect independent institutions and insist that party membership means more than a route to office. It will take time, and some efforts will fail, but politics is too powerful to be surrendered permanently to people whose only principle is winning.

The question for every party should be simple: what do you believe strongly enough to practise when it costs you power?

If there is no answer, there is no political principle—only ambition wearing a party colour.