THE COMMON GOOD: THE GOOD OF A COMMUNITY, LEAVING NO ONE BEHIND

In 2019, I became a member of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), just before the 2019 general elections.

I read the constitution and manifesto of the party clearly before joining. There, I saw that the formation of the political party was necessitated by the need for Nigeria to effectively respond to the global craving to provide leadership for the African continent—a true leadership founded upon democratic principles and inclusive governance.

Two years later, I was elected Chairman of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), Federal Capital Territory (FCT). I resolved to be part of the fulfilling yearning of the people for the restoration of democracy and the establishment of good governance to salvage the Nigerian nation from an impending collapse and international alienation.

My philanthropic activities around the FCT have exposed me to the different economic statuses of the indigenes. I know the six area councils. I have visited all the sixty-two political wards. While embarking on these activities, I saw clearly the lack of credible leadership and representation of the people of the FCT in the National Assembly. There, I developed an interest in politics, with one goal: to leave nobody behind. 

After I became chairman, I introduced a concept called the “common good,” which is shared by and beneficial to all or most members of a given community. Since then, my decisions and actions have been for the benefit of all members and communities.

I would like to explain this concept in ordinary political discourse. The “common good” refers to those facilities—whether material, cultural, or institutional—that the members of a community provide to all members in order to fulfill a relational obligation they all have to care for certain interests that they have in common. Some canonical examples of the common good in a modern liberal democracy include: the road system; public parks; police protection and public safety; courts and the judicial system; public schools; museums and cultural institutions; public transportation; civil liberties, such as the freedom of speech and the freedom of association; the system of property; clean air and clean water; and national defense. The term itself may refer either to the interests that members have in common or to the facilities that serve common interests.

The concept of the common good is achieved in the FCT by the citizens, collective actions and active participation in the realm of politics. So far, we have made remarkable progress in addressing individual, group, and community challenges via the concept. The concept is accepted. We have taken the concept to the elected representatives and other political parties represented in the FCT to join in changing the conditions of social life in the FCT.

I am using this platform to call on individuals, groups, religious and traditional leaders, and political and business leaders to accept this concept. The common good

1. is an important concept in political philosophy because it plays a central role in philosophical reflection about the public and private dimensions of social life.
2. belongs to a family of concepts that relate to goodness rather than rightness (Sidgwick, 1874). What makes the common good different from other concepts in this family is that it is a notion of the good that is understood to be internal to the requirements of a social relationship. In any community, the common good consists of the facilities and interests that members have a special obligation to care about in virtue of the fact that they stand in a certain relationship with one another. In a family, for instance, the family home is part of the common good because the familial bond requires members to take care of the home as part of a shared effort to care for one another’s interests in shelter and safety. In a university, the climate of academic freedom on campus is part of the common good because the special relationship among members of the university community requires them to care for this climate as part of a shared effort to care for one another’s interests in teaching, learning, and inquiry.
3. differs from the various notions of the good that play a foundational role in welfare consequentialist accounts of political morality. Among the notions in the latter category, we can include: the sum of pleasure over pain, total satisfaction of rational desire, aggregate welfare adjusted for distributive considerations, welfare prioritarianism, equality of welfare (in certain formulations), Pareto optimality, and so on. Unlike the common good, these notions make no essential reference to the requirements of a social relationship.

In conclusion, a common good must be non-excludable, which means everyone can use it. It also has to be rivalrous, which means that it can be used up or destroyed. Some examples of common goods are road systems, clean air, clean water, the justice system, and public safety.

Makama Abednego Bulus

Chairman, YPP FCT

MEMBA12#