ABSTRACT

The present day society is occupied with men and women who are aspiring for one political position or the other. This is because man is acknowledged to be a political being by nature and must always exhibit the politics in him. It is a fact well known that political positions are not given and for one to occupy any of the vacant positions, he must belong to a political party, campaign for such an office, make campaign promises to gain the support of the electorates and stand election that will usher him or her into the available political position. This quest to occupy vacant political offices has led so many Nigerian politicians into directly or indirectly committing violent crimes like kidnapping, killing and other atrocities if they perceive opponents as hindrance to ascending to such position. In Nigeria today, people are willing and ready to do anything that will aid them in occupying one political office or the other. This widely observed notion in today's political landscape is in contradistinction with the view of Goodluck Jonathan who maintained thus, “my political ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian”. This research therefore is set to examine this assertion and will be adopting phenomenological approach in its study and theoretically framed with Leech Politeness Principle. The research observes that the quest for political position is becoming alarming and there is need for politicians to allow the will of the masses to always prevail. It also observes that there are too many killing during election period which is not supposed to be, because it is not a do or die affair. The study therefore concludes that politicians should always make the above statement their watchword and limit going beyond bound in their quest to occupy available political positions even when they are not elected by the masses. The research recommends that people should learn to play politics with good mind which will help in bringing sanity into politics. It also recommends that the interest of the nation and that of the masses should always supersede any personal interest.