What defines a “Serious” Nigerian Politician?
There is a statement that has followed Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs through his political journey.
It is often whispered in conversations, repeated in political circles, and sometimes presented as though it were an established fact.
“He is not serious.”
I have often wondered what this really means.
What does it mean for a man who has built businesses, created value, operated in the oil and gas industry, and committed significant personal resources to public service to be described as unserious simply because his political journey has not followed the familiar trajectory of career politicians?
What exactly are we measuring?
His capacity to govern?
His understanding of the economy?
His ability to create opportunities?
His commitment to Rivers State?
His willingness to invest in the people?
Or are we measuring him against an entirely different standard, one that has little to do with leadership and everything to do with the mechanics of political survival?
Perhaps this is where the conversation needs to begin.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A SERIOUS POLITICIAN?
In Rivers State, as in many parts of Nigeria, we have become so accustomed to a particular style of politics that anything outside its familiar patterns can appear strange.
We have seen politicians who command attention through aggression, who build political relevance around intimidation, who mistake confrontation for strength, and who treat public office as the ultimate prize in a contest where the rules are sometimes considered optional.
Over time, we have developed expectations around what a politician must do to demonstrate seriousness.
He must be combative.
He must be willing to play dirty.
He must command a certain kind of political force.
He must demonstrate that he is prepared to do whatever it takes to win.
The repeat of “backward development” mentality- while Maintaining unethical status quo era.
But what if the problem is not that some politicians are insufficiently serious?
What if the problem is that we have become too comfortable with the wrong definition of seriousness?
What if, somewhere along the line, we began to confuse the determination to serve with the desperation to win?
Because there is a profound difference between a man who is determined to become governor and a man who is determined to become the kind of governor his people deserve.
The first is concerned with the destination.
The second must also be concerned with the journey, the principles he preserves along the way, and the kind of society he leaves behind.
Is it necessary for a man to abandon his principles to achieve his ambitions?
Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs has pursued the governorship of Rivers State across multiple political cycles. His journey has unfolded amid changing political platforms, shifting institutional circumstances, and the peculiar uncertainties that accompany Nigeria’s electoral environment.
It would be intellectually dishonest to pretend that every electoral outcome is determined by a candidate’s personal commitment alone.
Political parties have their internal dynamics. Institutions have their processes.
Elections have their peculiar circumstances. And the political environment can change in ways that no individual candidate entirely controls.
These realities deserve honest examination, not convenient conclusions.
Yet, whenever the conversation returns to Dumo Lulu-Briggs, the question of seriousness seems to surface again.
And I ask: serious about what?
If he refuses to endorse violence, is that unseriousness?
If he insists that political ambition must not become permission to intimidate opponents, is that a weakness?
If he believes that winning an election should not require abandoning one’s principles, is that evidence that he does not want the office badly enough?
If he refuses to make recklessness the language of his ambition, must we conclude that his ambition is not real?
Perhaps we should ask a more uncomfortable question.
Have we reached a point where a man must demonstrate a willingness to violate the very principles of democratic leadership before we believe he is capable of winning a democratic election?
That is not a small contradiction. It is a troubling indictment of our political culture.
There is a cost in confusing decency with weakness.
There is a particular injustice in judging a man’s political seriousness solely by the volume of his aggression or the spectacle of his political manoeuvres.
Decency isn’t the absence of ambition. Restraint isn’t the absence of courage. Refusing to participate in wrongdoing doesn’t prove a lack of competitiveness.
A man can be firm without being violent.
He can be strategic without resorting to dishonesty.
He can be ambitious without being desperate.
He can be determined to win without believing that any means necessary are acceptable.
These are not contradictions.
They are the very qualities we ought to demand from those seeking the privilege of governing other people.
If a candidate must become less principled to appear more electable, then perhaps the problem is not the candidate’s temperament.
Perhaps it is the political environment that has taught the electorate to distrust virtue and admire excess.
And if we repeatedly reward the loudest, most aggressive, and most ruthless actors in our politics, we should not be surprised when public service becomes less about the people and more about the preservation of political power.
A society eventually gets the kind of leadership it learns to applaud.
But hey, beyond that;
There is another dimension to this conversation that deserves attention.
Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs must be assessed on the substance of his policies, the feasibility of his proposals, the quality of his judgment, his understanding of Rivers State’s challenges, and his capacity to translate his vision into measurable public outcomes.
That is a fair standard. In fact, it is the standard every serious candidate should welcome.
But it is equally fair to ask what it means when a businessman commits his personal resources, time, experience, and reputation to pursuing public office.
What motivates a man who has already built a career outside government to enter a demanding political contest?
What does he believe is broken that he wants to fix?
What does he believe Rivers State can become that it has not yet become?
And what are we to make of that commitment if we dismiss it simply because it does not always conform to the familiar choreography of career politics?
We should not demand evidence of seriousness and then refuse to recognise it when it appears in a form different from what we have come to expect.
Perhaps we have been asking the wrong question.
Maybe the question is not whether Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs is serious.
Maybe the question is whether we have created a political culture in which seriousness can only be recognised when it wears the familiar costume of aggression, transactional loyalty, political intimidation, and the relentless pursuit of power at any cost.
Leadership is a distraction that some politicians cannot afford.
Maybe we have become so accustomed to politicians who will say anything, do anything, and become anything to secure office that we struggle to recognise a different disposition when we encounter one.
Little or no show of leadership.
Maybe we have mistaken the noise of political activity for the substance of political commitment.
And perhaps the most dangerous consequence of this confusion is that we begin to discourage precisely the kind of conduct we claim to want from our leaders.
We ask for integrity, but reward expediency.
We ask for peace, but admire aggression.
We ask for accountability, but excuse misconduct when it benefits our preferred candidate.
We ask for a better Rivers State, but sometimes judge those who seek to build one by standards that have contributed to the very problems we want to escape.
At some point, we must decide what kind of politics we actually want.
Because it is not enough to complain about the failures of our political system while insisting that every candidate who hopes to succeed must first master its worst habits.
The governorship of Rivers State is not a prize to be won for personal validation.
It is a public trust, carrying responsibilities that reach every local government, every community, every family, and every young person wondering whether a future can be built here.
The real test of a governorship candidate is not how much political theatre he can produce before an election.
It is whether he understands the state’s economic possibilities.
Whether he can build institutions that work.
Whether he can manage public resources responsibly.
Whether he can create opportunities beyond political patronage.
Whether he can protect the dignity of the people and build a government that answers to them.
These are the questions that should define the conversation around Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs.
Not an unexamined label.
Not the assumption that a man who has not followed the familiar patterns of political conduct must therefore lack ambition.
Not the suggestion that a refusal to abandon principle is evidence of an unwillingness to lead.
Judge him.
Challenge him.
Examine his record.
Check out his Manifesto and Minifestos.
Demand clarity on how he intends to govern. Hold him to the highest possible standard.
But let the standard be one that advances Rivers State, not one that rewards the habits holding it back.
Because a man should not have to prove that he can become part of the problem before we believe he has the capacity to solve it.
And if being considered “serious” requires a man to endorse violence, compromise his convictions, or treat the pursuit of power as more important than the purpose of leadership, then perhaps the most serious thing we can do is question the definition itself.
The question is not whether Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs is serious enough to play politics as usual.
The question is whether Rivers State can afford to keep defining political seriousness by the very habits that have failed its people.
Perhaps what we need is not another politician who knows how to play the game.
Perhaps we need to finally change what the game is about.
And that is what it means to reset Rivers State.
Niabari Fakae
SA Media to Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs, 2027 NDC Governorship Candidate, Rivers State