While the presidential and national assembly elections have been concluded, today we are returning to the polls to elect who rules or represents us at the state level.
For every contestant, it not without an aim or purpose that he or she aspires to be in the state house or the parliament. After all, our choices, motivation, quests, desires, needs even for something as mundane as drinking water is premised on achieving a goal.
Immediately we achieve that our goal, we ought to àpply the necessary lever and focus more on its righteous, altruistic, utilitarian and purpose value and application, now using it for the desirable end of public good and service.
If we seek more power after its attainment and become engrossed in its enjoyment, we are likely to suffer some consequences of its obsession.
So, for many of us pursuing power and office whether by élection or appointment, it is however the moment we reach our goal that we easily lapse into the forgetfulness of the utilitarian essence of our pursuit, get inebriated with the entrails of office rather than become more visionary, purposeful, focused and clear sighted on delivering on the utilitarian value of our pursuit.
Rather than use such power or position to serve or work for and with others, we tend to privatise it, becoming unduly arrogant and vicious in affirming and presence in the name of exercising authority. In this mentality, we may become insecure, unnecessarily protective or defensive, sometimes relying on strange forces and powers to preserve or protect ourselves or survive.
But we are already captured by intoxicating pòwer as we ring ourselves with a coterie of insincere advisers who take advantage of our naivety, fear of defeat and loss or desperation for self-preservation to impose on us their own selfish agenda. We are isolated from those we are to serve or those that can genuinely guide us from derailment in power.
* Solanke is a Fellow, chartered institute of public diplomacy and management ,Nigeria