Success has many parents, while failure is the child of one parent, as the saying goes. While some say failure is an orphan. Therefore those that have emerged winners in the 2023 general elections held on February 25 and March 18 respectively have been beseeched by people who congratulate them. People want to be associated with them.
Even those that know somebody who knows somebody related to them may lay a claim to have known them. That is success.
And rather than let it go to their heads, the elected politicians should know that it is the success that draws people to them and tread with caution. After all, there are lessons where supporters suddenly desert a politician who has lost election as well as a minister who was deserted when ministers were sacked in those days. But when he was re-appointed in the new cabinet reshuffle the people that hung around his house went back!
“But they must know the people that have been with them since, not these new friends,” a friend said whose brother won senatorial election.
She also complained that many relations they have not seen for a long time or didn’t even know about are always now there virtually becoming members of the household.
That is because he had won; if he had lost they wouldn’t see all those people, not even to sympathise and offer words of comfort.
There was one politician who lost an election, so he went to court. Many people discouraged him, saying he wouldn’t win and he was only wasting his money. They left him to fight it basically alone. But he won at the court and those nay -sayers materialised, some even sent him names of people to appoint as his aides.
In any event , some may of course know those that have been with them since, however some politicians actually desert those that worked and supported them for years and embrace new friends with open arms, especially if they are ‘big people’ who have held big positions or formers rivals or foes. Now they come suddenly in the spirit of ‘sharing’ and reaping where they have not sown.
Somebody once told me that a politician told him that they did that because their supporters were already with them, so they quickly accept those rivals that abused and denigrated them.
That is why you see a former rival either through decamping or whatever means suddenly getting a ‘juicy’ appointment because he came as a ‘big man’, therefore he is rated above those loyal supporters. Is it inferiority complex or what, one may ask, but that is how some politicians operate and we have to live with it.
At times the antics of those that hop from ‘success to success’ is that while still with one government and they see that it would lose election, they jump ship and accuse the government they served and defended.
They move to the winner and latch there, declaring support and exposing the ‘bad governance’ of the government they served.
While still in the euphoria of success, some relations are praying fervently for the successful tenure of the elected politicians, knowing that expectations are high and some people have unrealistic goals.
They have seen how those that were much loved when they came into office were hated and abused at the end, because they have not done well with lackluster performance or outright abuse of office with its privilege.
“If they do their best and people see that, it is alright,” one woman said optimistically, laughing out the fear of her friend.
While some are basking in success, some are no doubt nursing the wounds of failure as their supporters desert them to find new masters.
“It is not easy to be a politician, one needs a strong heart to withstand all that ups and down,” somebody observed.
