Former President Bill Clinton left the White House at fifty-four with a financial challenge. It is inconceivable for us in Africa and especially in Nigeria, for a former President who had been a two-term Governor to boot, to ever face the daunting prospect of insolvency on leaving office. It is not as if he had a harem – like many of our politicians - on which he spent money. He had only one wife who later became a Senator and a powerful Secretary of State. He also didn’t sire a football field. He had only one child who was almost graduating from Stanford at the time. He wasn’t known to be a gambler or someone with an expensive lifestyle. So his financial predicament didn’t make sense until he let on that he had substantial legal bills, run up during the infamous Whitewater investigations and the impeachment process to pay. He also lives in, and presided over a country that does not permit the State to pay for the indulgencies, let alone the personal legal bills of their office holders, including Presidents. It is on record that American Presidents pay their bills, even in the White House.

I am currently reading another of his memoirs. It is perhaps his latest book. Speaking engagements and books are ways for top public figures in America and Europe to get engaged and share their experiences with the world while earning a decent living – and President Bill Clinton, a man I admire, needed to earn some decent wages after leaving office. Titled ‘Citizen’, the book is an account of his years since the presidency. According to him in the book, he needed to start making money quickly – he was open about it - because, should he not live long, which from his family history was not unlikely, he wanted his wife and daughter to stay in public life if they wanted without a debt overhang or any financial insecurity. The implicit message here is that while public office may have its own allure and perhaps glamour, it does not and should not enrich. This is a paradigm shift for Nigerians who have been primed to think public office is the surest way to easy money and a luxurious lifestyle. Public office is where you can have all your bills including medical and legal bills, paid for by the State – we have even heard of Governors who have had their children’s school fees paid for by their States. This is one reason the desire to perpetuate themselves in political office by our politicians has become an addiction. More than that, it has become oxygen; without which they are dead, literally. Which is why they move from being Governor to Senator, to Minister, to Party chairman. Which is why they jump from one political party to another and engage in coalitions after coalitions. Which is why they hustle to put their wards and children as Local Government Chairmen or in the State Assembly. Bill Clinton has been out of office for over twenty-five tears, yet the amount of work, of public good, he has done by himself and in collaboration with others, is astounding. Our leaders need to know that every stage in life has its entry and exit. They need to know that there is life outside public office, and that a lot of public good can still be done by those who so desire.

Last week, a group of top politicians, many of whom are barely two years out of political power, came out under the guise of a 60th birthday lecture to do what they do best; to heat up the polity. No one but the untutored is surprised. It is the time in the electoral cycle when it happens. People who cannot work within a system, people who claim to strengthen democracy but are in fact weakening it, are at their game again. Bill Clinton has his views about Donald Trump. He has his views about Joe Biden. He raises those views occasionally like he did in the book, but he is not out there trying to form a coalition of Republicans and Democrats to ‘rescue’ America. Neither is he rousing some strange bedfellows to come together. That is not the way of democracy. Even power games must be cloaked in some decency. This same set of people, bar one or two, who came out against the Jonathan Government a decade ago, are back at it. The same pitch, the same rhetoric, the same incendiary remarks, similar apocalyptic comments fill the air. A decade ago, Jonathan was accused of running a clueless government. Today, Tinubu is being accused of weaponising poverty. One of them was very visible at the Tinubu campaign. What does this volte face say of his judgement? His acumen? Many of them came together then to form the now ‘dysfunctional APC’. How can we rely on their judgement again? One said he didn’t know about poverty until he became an Emir. I can believe him. He was born with a silver spoon. But that was over a decade ago. What has he done since then to address poverty in his catchment area and the wider north?

It is funny when some northerners talk about weaponising poverty as if poverty started two years ago. Poverty is a potent weapon in the hands of the northern elite. The statistics are there in the out of school children, infant mortality, unemployment and insecurity. And as I was working on this article, a friend sent me a BBC link that says Nigeria is the worst place in the world to give birth. The finger again points to the north. Beyond statistic is also the hard evidence of hapless youths, uneducated and unskilled, trooping from the north to the south in search of livelihood. They sleep in the open: highways, inner streets, forests. They live on the brink and hunger often tempts them into crime. But the average northern elite, including those who showed up at the 60th birthday, choose to turn a blind eye. Instead, they see malleable electoral votes which they can use religion to manipulate. So, who is really weaponising poverty in the country? Who is weaponising religion? Charity begins at home. Let the north take care of the poverty and insecurity in its backyard before preaching to the rest of the country. Nigeria is supposed to be a federation after all.

The one who said this government is the worst since 1914 ran one of the most divisive governments as Governor, pitching tribe against tribe and religion against religion. He is ruthless and reckless and should never be trusted with power again. His antecedence also shows he will betray anybody for power. Going forward, we need people who can work within the system to effect changes we want. These associations of strange bedfellows just to grasp power cannot be in the interest of the people or of the country.

• Muyiwa Adetiba is a veteran journalist and publisher. He can be reached via titbits2012@yahoo.com