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LAW AND POLITICS THE VERITABLE INSTRUMENTS OF SOCIAL CHANGE:A DISCOURSE.

By way of definition, the term politics has been defined variously by many scholars. its usage varies as well and the context is determined by the opinion of its holder. as a noun, politics is
1. the activities associated with the governance of a country or area. 

2. activities aimed at improving someone’s status or increasing power within an organization.

idiomatically it may mean.. 

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a. to engage in political intrigue, take advantage of a political situation or issue, resort to partisan politics, etc.; exploit a political system or political relationships.

b. to deal with people in an opportunistic, manipulative, or devious way, for selfish and personal advancement.
which ever usage is intended, it’s crystal clear that politics involves interest, for the purpose of achieving a personal or collective gain of a person or group of persons or more broadly a state or nation.
whether law suffers harm by the operation of politics is a fact beyond doubt. as it has been constant practice that politician and not just them but a greater percentage of the populace would rather jettison the law for the purpose of securing the interest of a majority who sees law as a clog in their wheel of irresponsible profiteering. but whether this is a pardonable offence remains an issue of concern.
History has shown that Law should be applied as it is and that bending it to favour the interest of a group of people amounts to injustice to the rest of the society. I found that the greatest ills of democracy is the superiority of the will of the majority over that of the minority. this is usually acclaimed to be one of its most cherished virtues but on the contrary, it destroys the fabrics of the society more than it builds it.
more disparaging is the fact that the will of the majority sometimes run contrawise to the law and if they have their way then the law is nothing but a useless mass of rules which are made for purpose of convenience.
The infancy of politics in Africa and other developing nations has to a great percentage led to the truncating of legal rules, constituted authorities, legitimate government and judicial institutions. Africa and Nigeria in particular has seen very many military Coup because of failed leadership by politicians and a state of disillusionment created by their avaricious dipping of hands into public coffers with reckless abandon and gross impunity.
The failure to comply with the dictates of the law for the purpose of achieving a goal which violates the legal principles governing a state is not only diminishing but completely destabilizing since it amounts to fraud on the society from whom the law was made and for whom the law was made.
Had The Economic and finance laws of Nigeria been complied with, the issue of corruption and massive loot of the treasury would not have arisen but these crimes are effected because the perpetrators possess both political power and influence to commit them and go scot free without accounting for their heinous crimes.
As a two edged sword, it is the purpose of the law to serve as a watch dog to the civil rights and liberties of the people and also a restraint on the exercise of power by government authorities. unfortunately, the diatribe between the law as it is and as it is enforced leaves nothing much to be desired. as regimes upon regimes crop up obnoxious rules which does not reflect the will of the people but merely to serve the purpose of a very few cabals who stand to benefit from manipulating the law for personal gains.. since politics is a game of interest, those with political power holds equally the economic power and policies which favour such group of people are introduced to the detriment of other section of the society who are not privileged to be involved in the administration of the state. however, this should not be the case where rule of law and supremacy of the Constitution is paramount and above interest.

for a decent society where the rights of all is protected, the law should be respected and politics should be subject to the dictates of the law as anything in the opposite will bring about nepotism, arbitrariness and chaos.

The root of all political advancement around the world only became possible when the masses took charge of the political system and rejected the supremacy of a little few. popular amongst them was the French Revolution of 1789.<www.newworldencyclopedia.org> and it only became a possibility due to a Symphony of harmony that brought about change of mindset and social change.

And no matter how long politics frustrates the Law, time will come when the PEOPLE will no longer Condone such ludicrous and
preposterous recklessness.
NJOKU DAVID CHIBUEZE is a law graduate of COOU and president of the Legal Ideas Forum Int’l. 
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Politics has a strong cartilage with man and his existence in community with other persons., when considering the numericality of economy, religion, social and intellectual life. It should be understood that the driving definition of this ecclectic concept is the fact that man desires to be a protagonist on the stage of life, it should be noted that if the state was extinct with no populace or persons living in it, then politics and the state will be a mirage.
This attitude of politics and politicking is an artful dexterity to appraise and actualize the aggregate interest of the state against competing elements of opposition in a still and healthy environment devoid of disamity and ballistic hostility.
This is a perceived concrete explication of politics as it casts its compass from around  the world. This is because politics is more of an intrinsically imbued attribute than an extrinsic one. It is an enterprise of interest , with deeply inculcated ideological perspectives by which ideologues of like minds are driven, towards a common goal for the society, and for the purpose of steering political power in the corridor  of the government for the betterment of the citizenry.
For this, politics is played in every strata of human society, in as much as there is an amalgam of individuals. This cascades from the enthusiasm that man aspires and dreams to be in charge of his own affairs, and thus  can employ everything humanly possible to achieve his subconscious needs,  which in themselves are multifarious and in some other situations complex with frustrating or despondent viscissitudes of life. Then the only way to redeem the situation is through politics coupled ordinately with articulated aims and objectives.

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Etymologically, the term politics comes from the word, “polis “which means city state :A small group of people organized under the law. In its most basic meaning therefore,politics had to do with  the state and its organization.

From the above exposition of politics and its seemingly haphazard phenomenology, it is crystal clear that politics must co-exist law to ensure that politicking is purged of the banes and wanes of ills, intransigent and intractable practices,such as arson, kidnapping,brigandage, armrobbery, corruption and all other mephistophel untowardness found in legal regimes, just as the current situation of quagmire that Nigeria is languishing and anguishing under with no perspicacity for resuscitation.
It is now a common orthodox that law and its similar appendage have from distant millennia of pre-historic and post-historic advents reassured humanity of the expectations of an orderly global community, so that people without lawful permission Will not disrupt the entirety of the world’s legal system, as it is done frequently by disgruntled elements in different spots of the world., atimes through terrorism and civil unrest. So law brings about social cohesion and socially acceptable behaviours against divisive and disintegrating ones.
To achieve this maximally, the state enact sanction and laws in a concerted effort to deter socially horrendous behaviours that will in the long run dismember the state and plummet it in anarchy and chaos. Law cannot be severed from politics. if it be so then state and its political affairs will “gravitate into a durkheiman anomic and near hobbesian state of nature”.A real typology is the Nigerian loophole that had sickened all its social, political and economic institutions.

Politics should then be intimate with the law, as this will ensure decency in the political affairs of the Nigerian state. It’s because law is divorced from politics in Nigeria that lawlessness,orderlessness and political planlessness have for long been enthroned in the Nigerian state. 

It is then logically infallible to conclusively summit on the climax of equity that both have simultaneously interplayed fruition of the 21st century state. It is a considered opinion that politics and law are two child of the same world. However, in Nigeria, politics have become a hub under  which politicians with such repulsive impunity shy from the letters of law and justice. in an ideal legal clime such illegality is unquestionably  unacceptable.

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Okoye ifeanyi Macpherson is a law student of COOU, a legal author and writer. 



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