Imagine walking into a hospital, prepped for major open-heart surgery. The doctor walks in, snaps their latex gloves, looks you dead in the eye, and proudly declares:
“Just so you know, I am not a doctor. I’ve never even stepped foot in a medical school, and frankly, I find the whole concept of anatomy elitist. Vote for me to do your bypass!”
You would rip out your IV lines, jump off the table, and run out of the building still wearing that drafty hospital gown.
And yet, when it comes to the complex, high-stakes machinery of running a society, this has become the ultimate campaign calling card. Across the globe, prospective elected officials are handing out political resumes where the biggest, boldest, most capitalized bullet point is:
“I AM NOT A POLITICIAN.”
The Great Overcorrection
We get it. Career politicians have spent decades doing a spectacular job of making themselves look bad. They waffle, they flip-flop, they get caught in scandals involving public funds and private yachts. They’ve managed the collective group project of society so poorly that “politician” has become a dirty word somewhere on par with “tax collector” or “person who replies-all to say thank you.”
But the current solution to this problem is delightfully unhinged. To fix the system, we have decided that the best qualification for the job is having absolutely zero qualification for the job.
In what other universe does this logic hold up?
Aviation: “I’ve never flown a plane, which makes me uniquely qualified to land this Boeing 747 in a thunderstorm.”
Plumbing: “I know nothing about pipes, which is why you should trust me to fix your explosive sewage leak.”
Culinary Arts: “I don’t believe in ‘cooking.’ Here is a raw, unpeeled potato. Enjoy your dinner.”
Stuck with Humans (For Now)
The truth is, we haven’t found a better way to organize our civilization yet. We are trapped in the matrix of human governance.
We keep waiting for the tech overlords to announce that a flawless, benevolent Artificial Intelligence has designed the ultimate preset for running human society. We want an algorithm that perfectly balances the budget, fixes the potholes, and ensures everyone gets their recycling picked up on time without a single human ego getting in the way.
But until the AI takes over and optimizes our existence, we are stuck with the tools we have: human beings sitting in rooms making laws. And as it turns out, lawmaking is a skill set. It requires an understanding of constitutional law, economics, diplomacy, and the agonizing art of compromise.
The Proof is in the Chaos
The grand experiment of electing the proudly unqualified has been running for a while now, and the reviews are in. Society is not, in fact, better off.
By treating governance like a job that requires no prior training, we’ve ended up with leadership teams that don’t know how a bill becomes a law, how a budget is balanced, or how to negotiate a treaty without accidentally insulting a nuclear-armed neighbor. We’ve perfected our cynicism so much that we’ve entirely wiped out “competence” from the equation for qualification.
It turns out that hating politicians isn’t a substitute for a policy platform.
Next time election season rolls around, let’s dare to be radical. Let’s look for the candidate who admits they know how the machine works, who understands the tedious bureaucracy, and who doesn’t treat ignorance like a badge of honor. Let’s hire the surgeon who actually went to medical school.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 