Toward Local Government Elections: what zing people should know

We are by nature political animals; there is in everyone by nature, an impulse towards politics, Politics involves the art of organising people in a society to live and interrelate with each other to the full realisation of their social nature. It is rational to man as compared to the other animals that he alone has the perception of good and bad, just and unjust, thus he seek partnership with others in politics for the sake of noble actions not for the sake of living together. In essence this partnership is responsible for the greatest goods. We humans are situated beings. We do not speak from nowhere. We speak from within our environment; thus this article is about the political situations of Zing local government, The aim of this article is to increase our understanding of the root causes of our backwardness and underdevelopment so that from an informed position right action could be taken when it comes to democratic processes, it is not aimed at castigating anybody or religious group but to lay bare the objective predicament of zing local government.

Zing is one of the oldest local government areas of Taraba state, the predominant tribes found in Zing are Mumuyes, and this local government produced the first civilian governor of Taraba state (Jolly Nyameh). Apart from this, quite a number of the sons and daughters of this local government held/are holding prominent positions at state and federal level. Inspite of this remarkable achievement of producing the first elected governor of Taraba state, the local government is still one of the poorest in terms of road, health service, water and electricity supply, access to education and social amenities. In fact the situation is such that one cannot but refer to zing local government as one of the most backward local government in Taraba state.

A lot of factors are responsible, but the most paramount is the unnecessary inclusion of religion into the political scene of zing local government. This religion is not in term of Christians Vs Muslim or Traditional religion worshippers but Christians Vs Christians, that is denominational politics where Catholics will always prefers catholic member to be the local government chairman while Methodist will also prefers his member to be the chairman or other churches in the local government also prefers their members. And this is based on the assumption that our members are good and better educated to govern the local government, or that our members are the ruling class of Zing, To assume that all your members are good people is to be wilfully blind to the reality of the human condition, and it severely limits our scope for becoming more effective at leadership.

As it is, only Catholics, Methodist and Muslims persons have governed the local government, and analysing their leadership, some of Our past local government leaders were characterised by the following; none payment of workers’ salaries, looting the treasury, sacking those who disagreed with their dubious ways, intimidating the

workers, lack of project initiatives, some were corrupt, some were just position occupant not leaders because leadership goes with responsibility.
Leadership is usually judged by the good or harm it does to individuals, society or community as a whole, appraising the dividend of democracy in zing local government, it shows that democracy has done more harm than good because of the religious politics. Base on religious sentiment unqualified individuals were/are given the mantle of leadership, which in turn restricted the local government opportunities into failure. the local government have faced with these realities of failure in virtually all areas, such as bad road, inadequate basic social infrastructure, corruption and abject poverty, this system has encouraged bad leadership and lack of accountability
Local government elections are at the corner, zing people should shone this religious sentimental politics, which always recycle people who are mere show of shame to zing local government, people with selfish reasons for aspiring to lead when in fact who has no ideas of the common good. This time around, our vote should be on credibility, we should elect progressive leaders not an oligarchy where few people controls everything, Since Democracy is the form of government, in which the people decide how they want to be governed and who should govern them we must elect individuals that have focus not based on religious denominational sentiments, if really we must build zing of our dreams