2027: The Big Tent Positions To Change The Course Of Politics, Political Parties And History
Why did Sir Keir Starmer resign as British Prime Minister barely two years after a sweeping General Election victory?
By Prof. Pat Utomi
Why did Sir Keir Starmer resign as British Prime Minister barely two years after a sweeping General Election victory? The list of reasons includes citizen demand for accountability, failure to respond fast enough to declining quality-of-life issues, and issues of consequence management.
In Nigeria, the same challenges for a party would be met with jokes like, ‘If the man dey fail, una go let am repeat the class.’ They forget that top-class schools send failing students away rather than getting them to repeat.
Could this ‘allow him to repeat’ syndrome be why Nigeria is near the bottom of its class in almost every human development indicator?
The Big Tent was created to explore the reasons Nigerian politics and Nigerian political parties have not engendered progress and, with time, to become a true model of a political party as a breathing organism of ideas and values that identifies talents, recruits them and socializes them into leaders with a pulse that feels the pain and problems of the people and organizes for creative and innovative solutions to those problems in advancing the common good.
In 2022/23, The Big Tent stimulated political waves that had no precedent in Nigerian political history, broadcast 24-hour telethons of rational public conversations on public policy, and gave impetus to overturn an order that set Nigeria on the road to servitude.
Clearly, the 2023 efforts were inadequate to extract Nigeria from this present darkness that has left the country the poverty capital of the world, the most insecure place to live, and a country of fleeing citizens, though it is a highly endowed geography with concentrations of natural resources and talents who almost have to leave to thrive.
Having lit a candle in 2023, The Big Tent has been working on its structure and strategy to finish the rescue mission and lay foundations for institutions that will make the coming Nigerian emancipation a sustainable force of history.
The Community Organizer As Root Of Delivery Model Of Big Tent Structures
Foundational to the new structure we are putting in place is the concept of the Community Organizer, CO. Its aim is to sculpt into the base of all politics the solving of problems of the people in communities at the base of the pyramid.
The CO, appointed in ways relevant to each community, will earn a monthly stipend higher than the minimum wage. That payment will come directly from volunteer elites. They will be trained by The Big Tent and deployed into the community to establish the most pressing problems of that community and to find the most creative and innovative ways of solving that problem. The stakeholders available for collaboration will include that community’s Diaspora, social enterprises, the private sector and government agencies.
We plan to request of all candidates to be endorsed by The Big Tent a pledge for a percentage of budgets to be assigned to communities for tackling directly their most pressing problems*.
The Policing Booth Council, PBC
The PBC is the next level of responsibility aggregation in the hierarchy of the structure of The Big Tent. It will include polling agents of collaborating parties and Big Tent ward canvassers.
The PBC will meet regularly before polling day to discuss how to bring out and protect the vote.
At the next level will be the LGA Coordinator-in-Council, chaired by The Big Tent LGA Coordinator. The concept of a leadership council at every level is to encourage collegial decision-making. The absence of collegiality in choice-making in political parties in Nigeria has been key to the failure of political parties in the country. This is mainly because post-1999 political parties were majorly SPVs of political entrepreneurs, godfathers and buccaneers whose main purpose is machine politics for cornering elections and state capture as the prime objective of engagement.
It is no surprise that the use of violence, voter intimidation and vote buying are big in their repertoire.
They really do not want people outside of their cheerleaders to show up at polling stations.
As Big Tent, we are determined to ensure massive voter turnout and protect the votes cast so they are announced as the people will it.
The State And Zonal Coordinators- In- Council
The geographic verticals of The Big Tent structures run up through the State and Zonal Coordinators to the National and Elders Council.
The work of the National Council is supported by a Think Tank and horizontal function Directorates in this matrix organization structure dealing with such functions as vote protection, voter security, manifesto, CO direction, mass entrepreneurship, performance monitoring, etc.
At every coordinator level will be a full-time administrator to ensure effective administration.
Most of the positions are fully manned now. Formal activities are being flagged off from the bottom of the pyramid.
Current Leadership Appointments
Among the current leadership appointments are Chief (Mrs), Supervisor Adelaja as National Women Leader; Amb. Joe Keshi as Director, Shadows Options; Prof. Franklin Ngwu as Director, Manifesto Team; Prof. Sam Amadi as Legal Adviser; Ogbuefi Tony Nnacheta as Director, Political Parties & Candidates Liaison Team; Prof. Aliyu as Director, Policy and Performance Assessment; and Musa Babade as Coordinator, Skilled Workers Mobilization under the Grassroots Team.
The South-West State Coordinators include Anthony Ogungbeje for Ondo State; Mr. Ayo Oyeyemi for Ekiti State; Deji Adebowale for Lagos State; Olugbemiga Adegboyega Ogunsuji for Osun State; and Mr. Ibukunoluwa Victor Onuka for Oyo State.
Barr. Dele Farotimi is in the South-West Leadership Council, while Barr. Chike Maduekwe and Ogbuefi Tony Nnacheta are the the South-East Big-Tent Council. Emeka Ugwu has also joined the Think Tank.
In a few weeks, we shall unveil a list of candidates we shall be supporting.
This will be followed by weekly digests of issues and town hall meetings at the Coordinator levels.
We will be encouraging debates of candidates at every level, beginning with State Assembly candidates.
We shall also have a Presidential Campaign Council which will collaborate with the NDC Presidential Campaign Council and the Obi/Kwankwaso Campaign Council.
Hon. Sergius Ogun, who is the DG of The Big Tent Presidential Campaign Council, will be working with his predecessor, Abdulkarim Hussain Ibrahim, who would now be in the frontline at the Obi/Kwankwaso Campaign Council.
...Utomi is the Convener, Big-Tent.
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