Ubuntu and the Crisis of Presence: Rethinking Power in Nigeria’s Political Culture
By Christopher Sunday
There is a proverb deeply rooted in African thought: “A person is a person through other persons.” This is the essence of Ubuntu, a philosophy that affirms our shared humanity, our mutual vulnerability, and our collective responsibility. It is a worldview in which leadership is not defined by distance from the people, but by closeness to their suffering.
It is against this moral backdrop that recent events in Nigeria demand serious reflection.
The reported movement of seven governors and seven ministers to the United Kingdom to receive Bola Ahmed Tinubu may, within the logic of political protocol, appear routine. Yet, when placed side by side with the fresh grief of a bomb blast that claimed dozens of lives, it takes on a deeper, more troubling meaning.
Ubuntu asks a simple but profound question: Where should a leader be when the people are in pain?
In an Ubuntu framework, leadership is not an exhibition of power but an expression of care. The leader is not elevated above the people but is bound to them in a moral relationship. Their sorrow becomes his burden. Their suffering becomes his call to action. To lead, therefore, is to be present, not symbolically, but concretely, especially in moments of tragedy.
The absence of key leaders from the immediate scene of national mourning, contrasted with their presence at an overseas reception, reveals a philosophical rupture. It suggests a departure from the communal ethos that has long defined African societies, where solidarity in times of grief is not optional but obligatory.
The actions of Kashim Shettima, who attended a gubernatorial inauguration in Anambra State during this same period, further complicate the narrative. While governance requires continuity and the fulfillment of constitutional roles, Ubuntu reminds us that timing is not just administrative. It is ethical. To act rightly is not only to do what is required, but to do it in a way that honors the humanity of others.
African philosophy, much like the ideas of Emmanuel Levinas, places the suffering of the Other at the center of moral obligation. But Ubuntu goes even further. It dissolves the boundary between self and other. In this sense, the pain of the people is not something external to leadership. It is something that defines leadership.
Thus, the question is no longer political alone. It is civilizational. What kind of society are we becoming when power gravitates toward ceremony while grief remains unattended? What does it say about our collective values when visibility before authority is prioritized over presence among the people?
In traditional African settings, a leader who fails to stand with his people in times of crisis risks losing not just legitimacy, but identity. For in Ubuntu, identity itself is relational. To withdraw from the people in their moment of need is, in a profound sense, to diminish oneself. This is the silent lesson embedded in the current episode.
Defenders may argue that governance operates on multiple fronts, that international relations, political symbolism, and domestic responsibilities must coexist. This is valid. But Ubuntu does not deny complexity. It orders it. It insists that, when priorities collide, humanity must come first.
The Nigerian people, consciously or not, are measuring their leaders against this moral scale. They are asking not just whether leaders are governing, but whether they are with them, whether they still embody the shared humanity that gives power its meaning.
In the end, Ubuntu leaves us with a challenge that is as urgent as it is timeless:
If leadership is not rooted in our shared humanity, what, then, is it rooted in?
Until that question is answered in action, not rhetoric, the distance between Nigeria’s leaders and its people will not just be political. It will be profoundly human.