By Lamino Lang Comma
Africa’s political landscape has long been marked by deception and the betrayal of its citizens, with hollow, unfulfilled promises. The rhetoric during the campaign period has been characterised by a competition to rule between the incumbent and the opposition.
For the incumbent, governance becomes a birth right, leaving the opposition with no space but to be vilified. Voters become a passive herd of supporters, induced and motivated by ethnic diatribes and small monetary and utility short-term, fleeting benefits.
The voters will clap and dance with the promises of a golden and dazzling future, almost a paradise on earth, introduced by a broom of sweeping changes cleaning away hardships like a piece of cake, whilst the opposition, not receiving any taxpayer money, is vilified and mocked for a lack of clout and a poor record of delivery of any service.
Consistently, these promises vanish into thin air with the ascension to the corridors of power. Voters’ aspirations become a seepage of water placed in their hands during the campaign trails and they begin to sweat and suffocate under the yoke of corruption and impunity, cloaked in a garment that lacks empathy.
Generally, criticisms and public concerns are labelled as fault-finding stunts of the opposition. Any criticism of government always seems to amazingly have a twin brother in the opposition. But then governance becomes a bicycle with a broken chain. Pedalling takes the nation nowhere, and on a sloping hill of development, it becomes a regression.
Coming home, explanations of policy failures and the execution of works have been disingenuously explained away, sometimes in the most bizarre accounts that beat logic and rationality.
The most recent is the lack of drains in road works causing flooding, being explained as rainwater washing in from the sub-region. The whopping spending as recurrent expenditure is explained as insignificant on public finances. Buzz words are generated to confuse the minds without compunction.
The case of the consistent blackouts has become a practical example of policy failure and/or a lack of vision. The earlier vibrant rhetoric, still fresh in the minds of voters, was delivered with the exuberance of confidence in the measures taken to ameliorate the situation. A promised status quo was painted as an excess electricity-generation capacity that warranted shutting down other power outlets.
Now, barely a few years later, after the excessive expenditure on a floating power plant and what appears to be a degraded supply of power from the mortgagee of the sovereignty of our national electrification needs, blackouts have become the most visible symbol of failed policies.
It is the failure of past policies, beyond the capacity of the current management, that has come home to roost.
The silence of frustration has turned to whispers and is now becoming the gale winds of anger. These are the harbingers of an instinctive reaction to unfulfilled promises and deceptive politicking.
It is the energy of bad governance sweating under its own weight of impunity, a lack of competence and corruption – a framework for a national ICC.
It is an era that has awakened a new force of dissatisfaction and impatience. It is a force that cannot be easily swept under the carpet of deception and illogical narratives trying to explain away an existential threat to a good and affordable standard of living.
Yes, the silent observer breathes the winds of daily adversity. The electorate is no longer the optimist of the campaign promises. The realities are sinking. The paradigm is shifting.
The vilification of opposition parties and the whistling of ethnic rhetoric have become hollow sounds of excuses. The raw, indiscriminate pain of livelihood knows no political affiliation and is not designed by external political influence. The economy has no friend.
Thus, the recent night demonstrations, a spontaneous innovation in the expression of dissension, are becoming a bane of the system. Lines of dissatisfaction have always been visible, but sycophants close to power have always shifted them away from good judgement.
Voting is now becoming a ledger account, not a blind approval of leadership. The final outcome of elections is becoming a verdict on the tenure of leadership. It is a shift in the assessment of the very foundation of political mandate – integrity and competence.
The future of Africa is gradually slipping from the hands of politicians and aligning with the power of its citizens. The renewal of a political mandate has vacated the platform of vilifying the opposition and ethnic rhetoric. It now sits firmly in the citizens’ lap to pass a verdict.
It is no more a contest between the incumbent and the opposition. It is a contest between the incumbent and the electorate. It is more than politics. It is a prick on the sensitivities of survival – a quicksand of a political mandate.