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TERM PAPER (PSY 408)

NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI TYPE OF POLITICAL CHARACTER AND IT IMPLICATION FOR NIGERIA POLITICS

SUBMITTED

BY AROWOSEGBE KAYODE SAMUEL PSY/2007/011

TO DR. AYINDE

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY

OCTOMBER 2011

SUMMARY Machiavelli wrote The Prince in 1513 in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the Medici princes who had recently taken over the government of his native city, Florence, in the early sixteenth century (see the rather overstated flattery in the prefatory letter to Lorenzo deMedici). He intended this book to be a kind of how-to: a short, pithy handbook for princes who have gained power and wish to keep it. Accordingly, it begins by dividing all governments into two kinds: republics and principalities (those ruled by a prince, or single ruler). Machiavelli swiftly dismisses the first kind of government as being outside the scope of his argument. He then goes on to subdivide the latter kind. Principalities, he writes, are of two kinds: there are those which have been ruled by a family for a long time, and those which are newly conquered. It is this last kind, obviously, that concerns Machiavelli most, and he spends the rest of The Prince sketching ways in which the new prince can acquire and maintain the greatest amount of power. Machiavelli first considers mixed principalities, or new territories annexed to older ones. The new prince of such a state, he writes, should wipe out the family of his predecessors in the, and should take care not to change the old laws if need be, he should live there himself, and learn the customs of his new subjects, so they wont consider him a stranger. He should also set up colonies of his own men in the new lands, and should weaken any strong neighboring enemies so that he will have no rival conquerors. In all things, Machiavelli writes (as he does many times in the book), the new prince should not only keep an eye on present dangers, but on possible future dangers a good example of this is the Roman rule of new provinces. When a new prince takes over a state governed by an absolute ruler, the process of acquiring power is that much more difficult. However, once such a kingdom is conquered, it is much easier to rule, since its subjects are used to oppression. Darius, for instance, took over lands from Alexander the Great, and was able to rule them without fear of revolt, since his new subjects were accustomed to having no voice in government. Republics, by contrast, are very easy for a new prince to conquer, but almost impossible for him to rule. Once a new prince has gained control over a former republic, Machiavelli implies that he really has no choice but to destroy it entirely and rebuild it. Machiavelli then proceeds to consider relationship between luck and skill in the gaining and keeping of power. He introduces two key terms: fortuna, which means luck, chance, accident, or fortune, and virtu, which means, literally, manliness, and which can also be defined as skill, cunning, power, ability, or strength. Which is more important for a prince to have on his side? Machiavelli suggests, over and over, that a prince is better off relying on virtu than on fortuna. However, one of the

key advantages of virtu is that it enables a prince better to exploit and master fortuna.. He will say later that fortuna e una donna (fortune is a woman) and must be dominated. Here, though, he stresses the connections between fortuna and virtu as necessary for successful rule. A prince must be able to seize opportunities through skill in what Machiavelli calls a lucky shrewdness. What kind of actions should a virtuoso (skillful) prince take? Well, he avoids using other princes troops or hiring mercenaries to do his dirty work such a reliance on outside help makes a prince the helpless victim of fortune . He does not come into power through overt crime, nor does he allow himself to gain a reputation for cruelty but he is able to use crime and cruelty when he needs to, carefully concealing his guilt. A virtuoso prince will not alienate the people he governs, but he will not let the need to be loved by them take precedence over the necessity of being feared by them. In order to maintain his power, a prince must earn the loyalty of his subjects, and he can best do this by protecting them. And any prince who shows himself to be strong enough to protect his subjects must also show himself to be strong enough to be feared by them though, of course, never gratuitously cruel to them. Above all (and heres where Machiavelli got a little shocking for his Renaissance readers), a virtuoso prince must acknowledge the fact that he does not live in an ideal world. He should therefore learn not to be good when a particular occasion (fortuna again!) renders it more advantageous to be bad. In subsequent chapters, Machiavelli describes how a prince can break promises, commit crimes, and generally behave nastily for political advantage. But he also insists that a prince should learn to avoid the hatred that would result from exposure of his bad behavior. He should instead cultivate a reputation for goodness, even if that reputation is false. In other words, for Machiavellis prince, its better to look good than to be good.

MACHIAVELLI TYPE OF POLITICAL CHARACTER AND IT IMPLICATION FOR NIGERIA POLITICS Machiavelli type of political character is such that is described based on how the ruler assumed position of power. For example he talked about how to rule over new dominions acquired by the power of others or by fortune, how to rule over new dominion which have been acquired by ones own arms and ability, how to govern cities or dominion that lived under their own laws before being taken over and of the civic principality. For the purpose of this paper we shall considered that of civic principality.

The civic principality By the civic principality Machiavelli described a situation whereby a citizen became a ruler not through crime or intolerable violence, but by favour of his fellow-citizens, which is called a civic principality. This can be likened to political situation in Nigeria whereby a person emerged the governor through popular vote. To attain this position depends not entirely on wealth or entirely on fortune, but rather on cunning assisted by fortune. Just as we can see during election in Nigeria as money and all kinds of gift exchanges hands and politician mapping out all sort of strategies just to make themselves look good and acceptable before the populace.

The two opposing force in the civil principality The individual attains position of authority by help of popular favour or by favour of aristocracy. Machiavelli posit that in every city these two (i.e the masses or the wealthy few) opposite parties are to be found, arising from the desire of the populace (masses) to avoid the oppression of the great (wealthy), and the desire of the great to command and oppress the masses . From these two opposing interests arises in the state one of the three effects either absolute government, liberty government, or licensed government. The type of government created depend on the relative opportunities of the two parties ; when the nobility see that they are unable to resist the people they tend to exalting one of their number (one of the populace) and make him a ruler, so as to be able to carry out their own designs under the shade of his authority. While the populace, on the other hand when able to resist the nobility, endeavour to exalt and create a ruler in order to be protected by his authority. These are all appearances of Nigeria politics where there exist a serious gap between the many poor masses and the few rich politician who are bent on continually oppressing they poor. To these ends they will do anything to ensure that one of them is in government and where impossible they wouldnt mind putting one of the masses in government with the intention of manipulating such to suit their hidden agenda,

which is not but to amass more wealth for themselves. In other words two opposing people determines who rule and influences how the country will be run.

The dilemma of the ruler According to niccolo machiavelli whoever emerge as a ruler through civic responsibility will always have to decide whose interest to serve and protect, whether the interest of the populace or the interest of few wealthy. These two groups will always exist in any government contesting for the attention of the governor at all levels federal, state and local level as it is the case in Nigeria. Machiavelli therefore postulated that he who became prince by the help of the noble will have greater difficulty in maintaining his power than he who is raised by the populace because they think themselves to be equal to him; hence he is unable to direct and command as he pleases. The noble in the context of Nigeria as a country, represents god fathers who are the so called big politicians and the wealthy people in the society refers to by Machiavelli as aristocrats. Just as Machiavelli has postulated the god fathers and the wealthy will sponsor somebody to become the president, governor and even local chairman with the aim of manipulating the person to suit their selfish interest which is to further increase selves at the mercies of the poor. This is the reason it seems they always support government policies which are detrimental to the masses. In fact those policies are not the decisions of the governor but simply carrying out the bidding of the aristocrat with believe that it was on their shoulder he rode to power and living the majority to suffer. But one who is raised to leadership by popular favour finds himself alone, and has no one, or very few, who are not ready to obey him. Besides which, it is impossible to satisfy the nobility by fair dealing and without inflicting injury on others, whereas it is very easy to satisfy the mass of the people this way. Because the aim of the people is more honest than theat of the noble, for the latter desires to oppress while the formal is merely to avoid oppression. This suggest that it is better for Nigeria government to make itself dear to the masses rather than to the wealthy because according to Machiavelli the prince ( president, governor etc) can never insure himself against a hostile populace because of the account of their number be he can go against the hostility of the great, because they are few. The worst that a prince can expect from a hostile people is to be abandoned, while from hostile nobles he has to fear not only desertion but their active opposition, and as they are more far-seeing and more cunning, they are always in time to save themselves and take sides with the one who they expect will conquer. Despite these, it is still better to for the prince to take side with the masses because he can do without them he is oblige to always live among them but he can easily do without the noble. This is imperative of Nigeria leaders as it is better to always seek to protect

the interest of the masses because their interest is pure and they can be easily appease in time of trouble. All the masses want is to be protected; have basic amenities like food, good road, electricity and the likes. Mores so, favouring the wealthy at the detriment of the masses might be unproductive and cut short the government and even life of such governor sooner or later, as it as being seen recently in certain countries of the world. For instance in Egypt, Tunisia Lybia etc, where despite the support of wealth and the wealthy their heads of state were remove those head of state that refuse to resigned were killed because the masses refused to be governed by them any longer. This posits that Nigeria leaders cannot do without the masses, although they are poor they still determines which leader will last in authority. The nobles according to Machiavelli are not to be entirely ignored by the prince for he needed them for his prosperity only that caution must be taken in choosing those that he can trust among them. To this end three categories of the noble are considered below; Those bound to the prince and are rapacious. They entirely focus on what they will get from the prince. These nobles the prince must do as much to avoid them because they will eat up the prince resources. These can be likened to the money bag politicians in Nigeria. They do not belong to any ideological school nor any political party and even when they are, they are there for personal gains, such politician you see jumping from one political party or the other. Those that are bound to the prince and are not rapacious; These one should be honoured and loved; those who stand aloof must be considered in two ways they either do this through pusillanimity and natural want of courage, in this case the prince ought to make use of them, especially such as are of good counsel, so that they may honour him in prosperity and in adversity he need not to fear them. Those that are not bound to the prince; they are not in support of his ambition, instead they have their own ambition, and they think more about themselves than the prince. From such the prince must guard himself and look upon them as secret enemies, who will help to ruin him when in adversity. These three categories of nobility are imminent in Nigeria as a country. This point to the fact of the need for the president, governors to be very careful in choosing members of their cabinet that is ministers and commissioners respectively. This is apparent in the practice of government in Nigeria, whenever a new government is form after election, the first thing the new president or governor would do is to dissolve an existing cabinet and form a new one and intermittently he reshuffles the cabinet. Whether the governor emerge through the favour of the noble or the populace, he should always maintain its friendship with the populace which he will find easy and cheap since all they are asking for is protection of their right and provision of basic amenities ,and he will always enjoy their support. In

fact he will enjoy a better support from the masses if he has gained power through the noble and yet protect the masses right and meet their basic needs. This is contrary to what is happening in Nigeria politics where a politician gains position of authority against the will of the masses and because the people did not support his ascension to the throne he rather make life more difficult for them rather than doing them good. For instance some governor will not pay attention to the needs of some community or local government area in the state because he did not win in those. The people did not vote for him. But in Machiavelli view such a governor should rather pay attention to the need of such community by being good to them. In being good to them the people may change their attitude towards the governor and thereby win their support next time there is election

CONCLUSION In conclusion Machiavelli is of the view that it is necessary for the prince to possess the friendship of the people otherwise he has no resources in times of adversity. By implication it means the masses are more important than the few wealthy. This is so for the following two reasons; They are the majority; hence whenever there is trouble the prince have the majority supporting and fortunately in most cases the majority carries the day. Therefore it is better and safe to fall in the hand of the masses than to fall in the hand of the few rich The masses are very easy to please. All that they want is to be protected. Once their basic needs are met they will give maximum support to the prince. While the few wealthy might be very difficult to please because apart from wanting to oppress the masses through their wealth, they tries to place themselves on equal parlance with the prince and make a lot of demands which the prince might not be able to afford. This idea of a prince tending to the masses rather than the few wealthy by Machiavelli is best applied in a democratic system of government like Nigerias. Under a democratic system who rules is determined by the masses. Therefore it is for the politicians to make themselves friendly to the masses. Whoever emerges should please the masses because they dont only determine who win election they also determines how peaceful the government will be and long the governor will rule. For example President Goodlock Jonathan government is having problem today because he is in dilemma concerning who to please whether the wealthy who are demanding the removal of fuel subsidy for their selfish end or the masses who are saying no to removal of fuel subsidy, that it will make life difficult for the masses. But base on Machiavelli philosophy and reasonably it is better for the president to please the masses and get the support of the majority in the country. While pleasing the people, Machiavelli call attention of a smart prince to two important things. When choosing magistrate (ministers, adviser, personal assistant etc) care must be taking to choose those that will be loyal to him and should not give them much authority, if not such delegated authority might soon work against him by wooing the people and turning them against his government. In pleasing the people he must be careful so that the people are not given much comfort that they rebel. Hence he must always make sure that the people have need of him. This is the only way the people will remain connected to him.

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