OPINION: NIGERIAN POLITICS: ROLLING STONES AND CARPET BAGGERS


A rolling stone gathers no moss is a proverb, first credited to Publilius Syrus, who in his Sententiae states, "People who are always moving, with no roots in one place or another, avoid responsibilities and cares." The phrase spawned a shorter mossless offshoot image, that of the rolling stone, and modern moral meanings have diverged, from similar themes such as used in the popular song "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone", to a more complementary commentary on "freedom" from excessive rootedness, such as in the band The Rolling Stones

This proverb now has two meanings: people pay a price for being always on the move, in that they have no roots in a specific place or people who keep moving avoid picking up responsibilities and cares.

So a political rolling stone is one who keeps moving from one party to another without any sense of responsibility or ideology.


After the American civil war if someone called you a carpetbagger or scalawag, it wasn’t meant as a compliment. The term carpetbagger was used by opponents of Reconstruction to describe Northerners who moved to the South after the war in an effort to get rich or acquire political power. A carpetbagger was seen as a lower-class schemer with little education who could carry everything he owned in a cheap carpet bag. New arrivals supported the Republicans (the party of Abraham Lincoln) and were said to be corrupt profiteers who took advantage of the financial and political instability in the devastated postwar South. Many however will rather have people believe the Northerners who migrated to former Confederate states during Reconstruction were middle-class professionals seeking political and economic opportunities.

That was who the American Carpet Baggers were.


Over the years, the name has evolved to mean a person who abandons his natural environment where he is known or a group or ideology he is known for and pitches his tent somewhere the exact opposite.

Like the old Carpet Baggers, their modern day counterparts want the world to believe their reasons are altruistic. But in reality the carpet baggers moved south for political and economic gains.

The season of the Carpet Baggers is here again.

The elections are done and dusted. Political appointments are in the air.

Nigerian politicians are moving, not from North to South, but across political parties. The prompt or stimulus is not ideology. Neither is it any known principle.

The consideration is not the will for a better society.

The Carpetbagger is only interested in personal political leverage and financial gains. Like the old Carpetbaggers the migrant politician does not have loyalty and goodwill in his heart.

In these times, migration to the ruling political parties is rife.

And so are movements within political parties from one group to another for want of just green fields.

Political Scalawags will leave parties or groups where their bread seems not to be buttered enough or where they can't have their way to others to seek better chances.

It makes nonsense of ideologies and principles.

The same people who milked the society dry under a party only move on to another party for a better chance to continue.

A careful observation shows it has been the same people moving from one party to another over the years.

There are also the ones with new carpet bags who keep moving from one party to another looking for a an appointment, any appointment.

The worst are the ones who follow the masters who carry carpet bags.

They have neither a carpet bag nor any premonition where they are headed. Their fates and destination are determined by their carpet baggers.


Today they are busy cursing a course they praised yesterday. They have no reason than that their carpet bagger has changed location.

A politician who keeps seeking relevance in an area where he has no local integrity has neither a sense of responsibility nor care . How best do I describe a man who a little while back was in a party doling out insults and invective to persons opposed to his side, whose style was no-holds-bad, and suddenly turns around to throw stones at the glass house he just left. He’s a carpet bagger.

The Carpetbagger does not have any heavy load of ideology holding him down. He is a rolling stone and his load is light.

The season of the Rolling Stones and the Carpet Baggers is here again.

FEMI LADAPO WRITES FROM IBADAN NIGERIA
oladnigeria@gmail.com



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