Political parties and politics of criticism

By ISAAC OLUSESI

The ultimate for the critic is the relative acquisition and exercise of power, and at the take off point, from no where, the critic got a term as an elected lawmaker during which political rabble-rouses as self idiosyncrasies fired the critic at the speed of light, to the stardom of amoral populist, penchant like indifference to the rightness or wrongness of his actions or deeds, and with a cult of criticism created for the critic as part of the arsenal of criticism.

But in social equation, the lawmaker or just any leader, for that matter, owes a moral duty to the constituents or the led upon which depends his right or wisdom to draw actuated populism. Reasoning, the critic has always, unfortunately, argued, is of no impact to gain eclat respect but shameless criticism, lacking in logic and facts, as obsessive magic wand to control people, in the critic’s own imagination. Control who?

Control nobody. The ex-lawmaker’s proclivity for criticism, with criticism as strong instinct, is not a communal thing, joined and shared by nobody, to have afforded the critic the command control of people, or clutched any intricate relatedness of the one and the whole in any acute or vicarious sense. Neither has the criticism any mass grip, the kind of fellowship that binds people together, in any camaraderie of conspiracy, in this case, on a goodwill message. Rather, the criticism of the goodwill is the hurt of all. And nobody, outside the critic, brandished any ovations. But what goodwill message? It’s a goodwill message, nothing but, the goodwill to the recent meeting of a chapter of the All Progressives Congrats (APC ) in Osun State.

Initially, it was silence at the criticism of the goodwill message, but before the binding dust of the furry died down, the shock of the criticism, shot itself, first, into limbo that got me between abysmal ambivalence and certitude. And I managed to tell myself that out of in-certitude, one can scratch out some relics of the smirch with the mud of mischief, the criticism gave the goodwill message; and out of certitude, one can inject pragmatism.

And the piece on your hands is begotten between the two, with the first, almost knocked dead, but not as much of a bother as the seconder that came up and birthed the piece with every bit of frankness, desiring me to do, among others, more of education on the misunderstood place of the criticized goodwill message, in advancing party politics and administration; and to get the critic restricted under political therapy, away from further sycophancy, hypocrisy, noisy politics, and such nuances, in the garb of politics of criticism.

Or is the criticism of goodwill message, in its ordinariness as it were, a trivial matter? No, it is not. And that compels some huge lessons for impartation in party politics and administration for the benefit of all political parties, in the collective good of the nation in democracy. The critic’s argument against sending a goodwill message to the regular meetings of APC drew the flak of the perceptive and truculent political observers. Evidently, analysts of party politics and administration, now put on alert, have branded the criticism of the goodwill as a deliberate one to whip up sentiments, emotions and upset the apple cat to decelerate the party, and generally, political parties in the country from pushing full steam; and the gargantuan tragedies as consequence, cannot he ignored in the face of reasoned arguments for goodwill message to party meetings.

Such goodwill messages by the party leaders, the force for good that wished the meetings of the political party, constructive and productive deliberations, are the guidance angels for the soul of the party’s regular or extraordinary meetings. The first strand of the soul is the encouragement given to punctuality to such party meetings; and the second strand propels the party members’ active contribution to discussions at meetings. To be otherwise, is to drive the meeting into docility, the delight of the critics of goodwill message but, the criticism is a luxury, any mindful political party can ill afford.

And new ideas or frontiers of knowledge, hints of alternative operative or workable possibilities and correlative suggestions, other multiple physical, financial, moral or psychological healing solutions that could secure any political party from disturbing swings and swerves, as part of the goodwill to boost the party and morale of party members but cannot be advanced due to such silly criticisms. In the context, the criticism is a malcontent, the beast one sees with a smack on its face and cannot be a favourite preference. And that was why everybody in the politics of Osun APC was shocked by the criticism of the goodwill message that made party members cast doubts on the integrity of the criticism.

There’s more sanity in sending goodwill messages to the meetings of political party at all levels, than the insanity of the criticism and its attributes of incomprehensibility. A goodwill message has networks of care for the party and its soul. To the critic of goodwill, the health of the soul of the party counts for nothing, that sends shock and disbelief to those who are not naive and were infact, worried but have chosen to remain quiet, by the abiding virtues of silence to pass for a sage, leaving the critic to his own gross ignorance and gross insensitivity to the soul of the party

Ignorance? Yes, so it’s generally, with small minds, the Lilliputian. And frankly, the critic acted as if he hasn’t any stake in the continued survival of the party and thinks so grand of his right to remain ignorant, but the sight and sound of the ignorant cannot be an edifying one. It’s not awkward to the ignorant to turn off self censorship and turn on the right to be self chained, perpetually in servitude to the criticism that is painful to the marrow, prospecting to gravitate the party politics and administration towards despairs. The criticism of the goodwill remains a blot on our collective conscience, first as a nation; and then, as political parties, the precursor of what may yet come to show off more ignorance, and less essence of goodwill message to party meetings.

Instructively, the criticism, its politics, has made no impression, influential and pervasive, as though, the critic had spent the one term legislative tenure, and through now, still doing criticism, unwholesome, that remains one count for which the critic in the art, will closely be assailed, in a kaleidoscope, by history. And that can not be anything, an anxiety for anybody but critic’s by the nightmarish process of self arrest. And for another, the critic has tethered himself to the solid rock of party leaders, the force for good personified, and the critic can only spare some tears of commiseration for self. A look at the critic’s face tells harmless, a lamb’s outside, but a tiger’s inside.

The critic for sometimes now has been under thematic therapy and found to be as fit as a fiddle. The extirpation only shows, the critic has to walk away with routine aloofness, from the virtuosi of criticism that daily make his ego superfluously, needlessly and deceitfully larger than life. Otherwise, watch out, the critic of the goodwill message would continue, engendering in the breach what he seeks to engender, amounting to a matchstick struk to light the near tinderbox.

That way, the value of some issues, in the instance, a goodwill message, clearly innocuous, from the party leaders whom God has bestowed so much intellect, to the meeting of the party, ought not to have accentuated to the danger realm of criticism by the critic, to articulate discordant voices and cause horrific uproar. The critic, for that matter, was supposed to be careful, circumspect in his utterances, and not to be seen with anything in dissonance with goodwill to the party. But the critic wishes always to instil, not hope for the best.

OLUSESI writes via isaacolusesi@gmail.com